Re-storing agency to the woman in the city: an analysis of Monica Genya's Links of a chain, The wrong kind of girl and The other side of love

Abstract

This research examines Monica Genya’s representation of the good-time girl in her novels Links of a Chain, The Wrong Kind of Girl and The Other Side of Love. By analyzing the everyday living of young women, this research elucidates on how Genya re-appropriates the good-time girl figure, assigning her agency. Genya employs the romance template to deliver her-story; therefore, this study investigates the performance of romance and sexuality by the good-time girl, with the aim of differentiating her from the prostitute, establishing profundity in the figure and complicating the representation of women in literature. The research explicates how romance and sexuality has been employed by the author to comment on gender relations and to locate and centralize the figure of the good-time girl often maligned or studied in the shadow of prostitution. Finally, while recognizing the author’s contribution to studies of feminism and gender in African literature, this study further highlights some of the finer nuances that enable androcentrism and continue to impede the good-time girl as she struggles to express and defend her implied empowerment in cities and towns.