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FEMINIST AESTHETICS AND THE PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN: A STUDY OF
HELON HABILA’S WAITING FOR AN ANGEL AND MEASURING TIME
MAIKANO A. LAMELA
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH,
GOMBE STATE UNIVERSITY, PMB 127, GOMBE
NIGERIA
lmaikano84@gmail.com
+2347031546514

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Abstract
The portrayal of women in fiction writing is a process of expanding the women’s
consciousness. This is because the story the writer tells is often to elevate women to greater height.
This paper is important and useful because of the array of barriers which women face in their
various aspects of life. The extreme tradition and cultural attitude which put women at a
disadvantage both in education and other aspect of life are what I seek to portray through a study
of Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel and Measuring Time.

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INTRODUCTION
The literary activities that took place within the Nigerian area are products of endeavor in
reproducing the exotic indigenous creativity. With the coming of printing press in the 1960s in
Lagos the use of English Language was enhanced. Subsequently, there was the establishment of
various printing houses which produced some works that were translated from English to other
indigenous languages. These printing houses include the Mbari Publications, Heinemann and
others. With the establishment of the University College, Ibadan in 1984, many writers emerged
such as Elechi Amadi, Chinua Achebe, Flora Nwafa, T.M Aluko and Wole Soyinka.
The three novels in Elechi Amadi’s trilogy, starting with The Concubine, give a concrete
picture of life before the arrival of colonizing white man. Several Nigerian novels of the time also
re-create life in the past. Sometimes the personal penalties that characters suffered from religion
and other traditions are portrayed. We find this in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Arrow of
God, A man of the People (1996). Flora Nwapa is a skilled story-teller who, Efuru (1996) and Idu
(1997) became the first writer to put women at the center, although her early heroines tend to
emerge as worshipful servant-wives to erring husbands (The Champion Newspaper), TM. Aluko’s
humorous One Man, One Wife (1967 AWS 30) had been published by Nigerian printing and
publishing company in 1959. In Kinsman and Foreman (1967) he wittily satirizes the corruption
which has already well-established in the colonial public works department. Wole Soyinka’s The
Interpreter (1970) reflects the disenchantment of young Nigerians with the new political class. The
major concern of the first generation writers was to correct the misconceptions of the colonialists.
They achieved this by using themes and styles that focus on the social, historical, political and
cultural aspects of African life. These writers tried to express the African experiences by dwelling
on general, personal or domestic themes like oppression, exploitation, suffering, death, starvation,
effects of colonialism and imperialism (Obiechina 1975, 13).

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In their various works where women were delineated as one-dimensional, romanticized
images and primarily as mothers. Women are typeset, simplified and not respected in their different
roles. As such they are regarded as appendages of men and not depicted as lively individuals. This
is obvious in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Soyinka’s The Interpreters.
In the 1970s new generation of writers began to bring out new works. These include writers
like Ben Okri, Niyi Osundare, Okpewho, Festus Iyayi, T. Obinkaran and Kole Omotosho. This
group felt that writers should be more concerned with contemporary political and social problems.
The Nigerian civil war also featured in the works of these new writers. They were concerned with
Post-Colonial issues and as such they did not establish a suitable, African alternative to issues
concerning feminism but rather Post-Colonial issues which largely constitute politics, civil war,
governance and the political occurrences of the society after independence. For instance in The Last
Duty Okpewho is concerned with recounting the violence of the Civil War. Aku a major character
in the novel is depicted as a victim of male domination and exploitation. She symbolically represent
betrayed and tortured nation.
A foundation and inspiration for the new generation’s interrogations of the Nigerian social
economy and politics had been well laid for the third generation writers such as Abubakar Gimba,
Zaynab Alkali, Tess Onwueme, Olu Obafemi, Catherine Acholonu and Ahmed Yerima. These
writers felt that African literature should be about contemporary social and political reality and
must explain Africa to Africans. They were faced with new canon of African literature. They were
keen to reach the emerging general and popular book trade and they wrote for experimental theater.
Female writers such as Ifeoma, Zaynab Alkali, Tess Onwueme, Catherine Acholonu and others
have been able to write their way out of the confines of patriarchal space. Their themes are on
social and cultural interest and it is the third generation that women’s voice has been welcomed bay
many. They seek to redress the one sided picture of African women that has been delineated by

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male writers. Acholonu asserts that the idealized presentation of women as “one dimensional,
romanticized images” are properly addressed and presented. Similarly, the average woman has also
received a facile treatment from men in her opinion:
The African woman was symbolically portrayed as part of the warm and secure
past, thus offers faithful portrayals, pattern of self-analysis and general insight in to
the women’s psyche. For instance, Emecheta in most of her writings, ask for and
gives, a diverse approach that writers should not typeset women [and] not too
simply. ‘We should not be regarded as appendages of the men but as individuals.
Helon Habila in the same way is committed to social advocacy thus, his two works Waiting for an
Angel (2002) and Measuring Time (2006), bristle with humanistic concern not just to the cause of
women, but to the total human condition in Nigeria. His work is almost factual with touchable and
concentrate literary specify on the state of Nigerian nation.
ISSUES IN FEMINISM
The term feminism evokes in one’s mind challenge of believe of male supremacy over
women. A movement which advocates for equal rights between men and women, the feminists
movement gained grounds around 1800 in Europe and tried to debunk the claim that women are
inferior to men. As a result of this women began to achieve some rights. For example, women
gained the right to vote by 1920.
Feminism in Literacy Criticism seeks to study discrimination against women because of
their sex. Adebayo, (1996:4) sums of the role of Feminism by saying that “in literature and
criticism, feminism is asserting; describing and documenting women’s experiences”. These
experiences could be at the social, political or economic level. However, because of the methods

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used by Western feminists, Feminism has elicited suspicion and outright hostility from non-
adherents in Africa, where the concept is sometimes viewed as:
A product of decadent western capitalism; that is, it is based on foreign culture of
no relevance to women in the third world; that is, it is the ideology of the local
bourgeoisie, and that it alienates women from their culture and family
responsibilities… (Kumari, 1986:18)
Whatever the reaction, it must be noted that Feminism has affected various aspects of women’s
lives. One of the points in contention is the fact that western Feminism at its inception claimed to
be a weapon for fighting “the oppressive institution of motherhood” (Acholonu, (1999:83), since
the woman’s strength lies in giving birth. As Angela Davies (1998:46) points out:
Giving birth, when a woman’s community is threatened with extinction by a racist
government, is an act fraught with political significance… giving birth can be one of
the most meaningful actions in the life of a woman who is denied most other
meaningful opportunities.
Thus, black African women rebel against the western concept of confusing individualism, a
rebellion Acholonu captures aptly when she talks about western Feminism versus Motherhood. For
Acholonu African Feminism smacks basically interpretations of African life.
THE PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN WAITING FOR AN ANGEL AND MEASURING TIME
Waiting for an Angel deals with issues of urbanization as it affects the individuals, especially the
female characters. The novel also questions the issues of survival among the youth in the society.
Urban growth could be conceived as a result of a series of invasions by different class-based and
ethnically based groups who are clustered in the most desirable part of the city. In the urban setting,

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there is the tendency of spatial segregation which occurs according to class, the income of the
individual, race and language. Urban residential patterns are also identified or classified according
to three main components of residential segregation that is class, race and household structure
(Microsoft Encarta, 2001). The characteristics of the urban setting mentioned above are what we
see in Waiting for an Angel. For instance, male characters like Lomba, Bola, Kela, James, Joshua,
and others have difficulties in trying to adapt to the structure of the society and environment in
which they find themselves. It is within the unfolding of this story that women, who are my major
concern in this paper, play a dominant role in the society.
In projecting the women Habila shows how urbanization has affected the roles of
women in the society because of its societal influence: urban settlement where everyone comes to
stay together irrespective of one’s background has made women to their norms of being subservient
to men. The women now prefer to go out and source for their means of livelihood.
Whereas Measuring Time is a novel that focuses on the lives of individuals etching
out a living chaotic in a country that are governed by senseless war and is full of deceit. The novel
tells the story of twin brothers Mamo and Lamamo who have been submerged into serious pain and
hardship by their biological father. Their sad moment began at the point of their birth. Auntie
Marina, their aunt, has narrates how their father Lamang treated their mother badly. This
germinates a seed of hatred in them hence they seek for ways to pay their father back. Life has not
been fair to them therefore they plan ways to escape to the city and become soldiers. Mamo falls
sick and is forced to stay behind while Lamamo joins a rebel group near the Chad border, trains in
Libya, then fights alongside Charles Taylor’s rebels in Liberia.
Waiting for an Angel and Measuring Time are both novels that touches on aspects
that relates to women because it explores how women are being dehumanized, brutalized and
subjected into pain and hardship form their husbands. Habila pays full attention to the women’s

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predicament as it is reflected in characters like: Auntie Marina, Malai, Kai, Bintou and Zara. The
theme dehumanization is seen in almost all parts of the novel. The novel begins on a note of
dehumanization with regards to Tabitha. We can see how her husband Lamang deprives her of so
many things. For instance, even when she was to deliver, Lamang was not there. He equally refuses
to attend her burial ceremony. Similarly, Auntie Racheal also was sent packing form her
matrimonial home as a result of hardship she received from her husband and his newly married
wife. Zara and Bintou were also dehumanized. For Bintou she was raped several times while Zara
was rejected and thrown away by her husband. Even her own child was taken away from her.
Auntie Marina is one of the memorable women in the novel. She is a devote Christian widow but
however life has been so difficult for her especially her marriage. She was humiliated and
maltreated by her ex-husband who:
Had infected with gonorrhea, and who, when she couldn’t give birth had married a
young woman to whom she had to defer turning her into a maid in her own house.
Cleaning, cooking-farming, and there were also the nightly beatings. And she
couldn’t take it anymore… (P.18).
In Waiting for an Angel, Hagar, a brilliant student and the best in her class, is forced to adapt a self-
reliant stance in the society. Things start falling apart for her when her mother thought she was
having an affair with her step-father. The step-father sexually craved for Hagar. He was always
“pinching Hagar’s bottom whenever her mother wasn’t looking. One day the mother found them
struggling in the kitchen… the mother, blinded by love, have misunderstood, she threw Hagar out”
(P 147)
This circumstance throws Hagar out of school, and forces her to become woman of her own,
deciding issues concerning her life. At an early stage, she takes to the habit of drinking and
smoking. She decides to stay in Mayfair Hotel in order to get a means of livelihood. She however

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sees herself as useless when she states that: ‘Tell him [Joshua] to forget me. I belong to the past. I
am like an appendix: useless, vestigial, and even potentially painful”. She condemns herself to a
helpless, rotten life of agony.
Against the background of her refusing to be subservient to any man. Hagar lives to
perform a prominent role in the society as we see her raising the spirit of her fellow girls in a
peaceful demonstration which causes her death. Here, Habila seems to agree with A. Alabi (1998)
who states that: “a very proud and insistful woman [who] never gave up easily and what she wanted
she always got”. (P. 172) she remains independent up till when she dies; she is however focused,
refuses to think about her past and hence forges ahead. No doubt she lives like her male counterpart
that is why she has, alongside Joshua, participated in the peaceful demonstration. Hagar does not
depend on any man to feed and clothe her. She uses what she has to get what she wants. This as a
result of urbanization having an influence on the individual where the kind of work you do to earn a
living does not concern anybody since it is what the individual has chosen to do. Joshua attests to
this fact when he tells Kela:
…with no means of support, Hagar dropped out of school. A prostitute… As you
grow older, you will find life demanding you to make certain choices. Some people
choose the easy roads, some the hard ones but they all have their reasons… (P 148)
Despite the hard situations women face in our society, Habila gives hope and status to the women.
This is done by moving them from their inner room to the stage, making them more adventurous
than being mere house objects. They are depicted as human beings with clear focus, minds and
voices. Auntie Marina remains economically independent which is fundamental phenomena of
every meaningful woman irrespective of status. Shaw (2007) puts it that:

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An individual daughters or [woman’s] struggle to define her own identity as a
women, independent of her father and the confines of constricted cultural codes
reflects the broader effort of women in society to assert feminist conceptions of
adulthood.
The author builds feminist consciousness through the women’s growing self-assertion, increased
acuity in recognizing hypocrisy and sexism. Shaw (2007:7) in her opinion also asserts that: “a
woman who acknowledges that her problems are based in gender inequality must find strength and
courage within herself to confront and overcome sexism”.
Habila’s portrayal of women is really outstanding as his depiction is totally different
form the other published novel such as, Things Fall Apart. Most of the women are depicted with an
enduring and rebellious human spirit thus surviving the dehumanization they receive from their
male-counterparts. For instance, Zara whom Mamo is passionate about. Zara like Auntie Marina is
also a victim of wrecked marriage. She was married out of her wish. However she remained calmed
and undisturbed. She had been severally beaten by her husband: “I remember the first time he
slapped me. I had caught him red-handed with a girl in his car as I passed them on the street”. This
is a clear indication of brutality against women; it also show the injustice and humiliation which
women suffer in the hands of men. Zara throughout her life faces different challenges and had
virtually been sailing through in one way or the other.
She is a woman of strong will who dares to say ‘no’ to oppression.
CONCLUSION
Habila’s portrayal of women as modern character in Waiting for an Angel and Measuring Time
shows Feminism at work in contemporary Nigerian literature. We see each of these women striving
to survive and being independent. Janice, for example, proves to Muftau that she can live without

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him by giving him options to either release Lamba or forget about her. ‘No, let me finish, I want
you to give them his name if you cannot do that then forget you ever knew me (P.31). This shows
how educated women have acquired confidence to speak out their minds. Education equips them
for the struggles of life. It is also an instrument of fighting social injustice.
The two novels express Habila’s desire to fight and advocate for the rights of women so
that they can enjoy what is due to them. This further establishes his theme of concern for the
women crusade against general oppression and dehumanization.
It may not be out of place therefore, to state that the Habila is a novelist of the women whose main
preoccupation is the emancipation of the women from the travails and dehumanization. In both
novels, most of the women show resistance to the patriarchal society they live in. Both Zara and
Auntie Racheal refuse to stay with their husbands, and prove able to take charge of what is left of
their lives to a predictable conclusion. Habila gives economic independence to the women. For
instance, in both Waiting for an Angel and Measuring Time, women like Auntie Racheal, Zara,
Bintou, Hagar, Auntie Marina, Janice and others are economically independent. He depicts the
importance of formal education of women. Almost all, Habila’s women characters are in one way
or the other are educated up to secondary and University levels. The author believes that self-
assertion puts the man at the advantage over the women folks. Therefore, he creates equal treatment
for both men and women. This demonstrates robustly that where gender collaboration and
complementarity are respected, there is harmony. Therefore, gender consensus and collaboration
form part of the essential factors in communal/nation building.

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WORKS CITED
Adetayo Alabi, “Feminism and Literary Criticism: A comparative Reading of
Iyayi’s Novels,” Liwuram Journal of the Humanities Vol. 4/5
1988/89
Carolyn Martin Shaw, “You had a daughter but I am becoming a woman:Sexuality, Feminism and
Postcoloniality in Tsitsi Dangarambga’s Nervous Condition and She no
Longer Weeps, Research in African Literature, Vol. 38, 2007: pgs 7-27
Danrian .U. And Aloysins, U.O (2002), Major Themes in Africa/Literature, AP express Nsuka,
Nigeria
Helon Habila, (2002) Waiting for an Angel,Nigeria, Cassava Republic
Helon Habila, (2007) Measuring Time, Nigeria, Cassava Republic.
James Curey, (2008) Africa Writes Back: The Africa Writers Series
and the Lauch of Africa Literature, Heinemann Education
Books, Ibadan
Mathians O Nder, “Globalization and the African Creative Writer”, Journal of
Globalization and Internal Studies, Vol. 3, 2007
Obiechina Emmanuel, (1975) Culture, Tradition and Society in the West
Africa, Novel, Cambridge University press, Cambridge.
Ogunyemi, Chikwenye Okonjo, (1996). Africa Wo/Man Palava: The Nigerian Novel by
Women, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Patricia Waugh and Philip Rice (Ed) (2001) Modern Literature Theory,
New York, Oxford University press lnc