aid this provides the reader with a sense of what a typical woman was not supposed to be- any deviation from that norm automatically fuelled the masses to believe that something was innately wrong with her.
             The psuedo-patriarchal culture of many African societies, are as such because men are merely figureheads- hence the title of "mother Africa". If it is that women are the life givers of society, and are put upon infinite pedestals, why have they come to be revered yet discarded? In African Literature women are somehow always placed in the background of all that is happening yet their purpose screams throughput the novels in which they appear. In July's people July's wife and mother are hardly mentioned yet we get from them a sense of strength. They are the ones who bear his children and run his home. Even though July's wife suspects that he has another woman she says nothing like a good African wife. Nadine Gordimer manages to gives us an insight into the minds of these nameless female faces that are usually placed as doormats to our quite often male protagonists in African Literature. Through Maureen we are able to c
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