Abstract

Identity refers to the sense that someone has of who he is and what he stands for - the question of self. Identity raises questions like; who am I? What makes the I what it is? Am I something given or something made? Is the I conceived at the individual or social level. Jary and Jary, (1991) important sources of identity are ethnicity, culture, nationality, sexuality, gender and class. Although it is individuals who project identity, the concept also relates to the social group to which the individual belongs and with which he identifies. Issues of gender and sexuality in contemporary African Writing have generated a lot of controversy especially supporting African Feminist Movements by Male African Writers. This paper seeks to discuss issues of identity construction from gender and sexuality perspectives through an African Male writer's point of view. Ngugi, in Wizard of the Crow, attempts to transcend the sexual allegory and hence to resolve the problem of gender and identity in ways that run counter to the biases embedded in the contemporary African Male literary tradition. A magnum opus, Wizard of the Crow, demonstrates Ngugi's portrayal of women characters in search of identity at a critical stage of Male Writings from the African continent. The paper presents critical analysis of the author's thematic concern in trying to construct an identity for the African Woman and to deconstruct the gender codes and to go against the canon represented by a large body of African Male Writers that have given the African Woman a label of the 'Other' in the continent's literary discourse.