BATTERING AGAINST WOMEN: A CORPUS ANALYSIS OF OSINACHI NWACHUKWU’S EXPERIENCE AND ANGELA BROWNE’S WHEN BATTERED WOMEN KILL

Abstract

In a multi-cultural society like Nigeria where men are revered and reverenced as the superior personality, the women as the second class citizens who are merely existing because of the men in their lives, there are bound to be all forms of battering and dehumanization of the woman essence. This cultural violence which exists in different societies, range from physical violence to sexual and emotional violence. Sometimes these experiences metamorphose to psychological and spiritual violence with a depiction of where the women affected lose their sanity and aggressively deal with the other men folks who were not aware of their traumas and exploitations. The aftermath of these abusive experiences are enormous in some cases, some women do not get a chance to live to relay their ordeal because of the height of the brutality they encountered. This study aims at identifying and bringing out situations in the Nigerian society where women have experienced violence, battering and domestic abuse. It will also indicate the impact of the experiences on the individuals and the society at large. Trauma theory was adopted for the analysis of the hypothesis drawn for this study. The data for this study were the late Osinachi Nwachukwu’s personal experiences (the Nigerian gospel Artist) and that of the women in Angela Browne’s When Battered Women Kill. The method of approach to the study was based on content analysis approach of qualitative research method. The text and recount of experiences of the singer before her demise and purposive selection of twelve out of forty-two women experiences in the book were analyzed using thematic representations. The study concluded that women especially the average woman experience all sorts of victimization and abuse from their partners and women who had experienced assaults, battering and violence in their relationships at first, do not want to discuss the incidents or leave the relationship. They hide and believe it was a mistake and their partners will change with time.