Metaphors of Modernity: Palimpsestic Identities, Polygamous Marriages and Global Capitalism in Aidoo’s Changes: A Love Story

Abstract

African routes to modernities have been marked by internal fissures and ambivalences that affect social life and political and economic structures in several ways. In the novel Changes: A Love Story, the Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo deals with the inconsistencies of modernities, asking whether global capitalism promotes gender equity or mainly contributes to social stratification, generating more complex hierarchies. This essay examines how Aidoo’s narrative utilizes women’s sexuality as an allegory to provide a vehement critique of colonial and post-independence policies, abusive indigenous practices, male privilege and corruption while shedding some light on women’s condition in modern urban Accra.