In the play Anowa that is a documentary film describes the advantages of traditional forms of art and trying to make them match with the modern activities and problems in the Ghana community such as issues affecting slavery and its effects on the Ghanaian citizens. At the start of the play, Anowa was seen as a beautiful and strong young lady who declined getting married to any man until she meets with her friend Kofi Ako. Despite her parents refusing to approve her marriage to Kofi describing him as a lazy man who cannot make a good husband, she disobeyed their advice. In her thought, Anowa was determined to run far away with her lover and swore never to return home. After they had left home, the two lovers became entrepreneurs trading with white foreigners they met in the new environment.
When they started having wealth, the relationship started reducing as Anowa was barren and started receiving mistreatment from her spouse making her live an unhappy marriage. In the end, the play ended with Kofi taking away his life and Anowa becoming insane (Behrent 1997). A form of life transformation was evidenced in the play that Kofi passed through from a devoted husband to an uncaring one. Anowa remains an outstanding of the thesis this paper targeted. It has successfully depicted the ideological aspirations in the Ghanaian scene, particularly in Africa holistically. The play probes them to re-evaluate the attitudes they portray towards their culture and traditions.
One of the prominent themes is a misuse of others in the family (3). It is depicted at the point where Kofi offers slave labor in the business he and his wife are operating.It created problems between Anowa and Kofi in the house later leading to his death. Kofi became a greedy man who could no longer care for his wife. Anowa, on the other hand, declined being dictated by a man later made her mad. Kofi being her husband, still had the old traditional mentality of slavery a belief that he saw should still apply in the modern society where women were dictated by their husbands and denied some of their rights in the family. This kind of mistreatment made Anowa unhappy in her marriage.
The fact that she was young never stopped from denying the elderly advice on the type of man to marry (4). Despite them being elderly in the society as a whole and making decisions. She saw this as an abuse of power making her consider as an unconditional order of dictatorship. In her marriage, she did accept to be misused by her husband as a slave something that made her not to enjoy her husband’s wealth. Anowa showed a society that is united by blood but divided by greed and slavery evils that made men be the final decision makers in the home without their ladies opposing the idea. Anowa being a modern girl grew up understanding that house chores are shared equally among couple (5).
As a summary, marital matters are very complex to handle as it takes the agreement of parents from both families to get involved in the negotiation. As explained Anowa failed to honor her parents after making her decision to marry Anowa. It was a sign of disrespect, and this made her not to receive family blessings making her suffer in her marriage. Her decision failed to help her as was unable to conceive and also, her husband taking away his life leaving her an abnormal widow.
Works cited
Behrent Meagan. Ama Ata Aidoo: Anowa. 1997. http://www.postcolonialweb.org/africa/ghana/aidoo/anowa1.html
