Anowa

Anowa is a spirited young woman with a restless temperament. When the play begins, she considers becoming a priestess, which would require her to forego marriage. However, when she meets Kofi, she seems to experience the proverbial “love at first sight.” Even though her mother protests, Anowa marries Kofi and leaves her family home forever. Perhaps this is because she only believes herself to be in love, or maybe the love is real. But it is also possible that she does it simply to prove that she can make her own choices. Because Anowa knows the folk tales in which unruly, commitment-phobic young women bring disaster on their villages, she sees her departure as an opportunity to change the tradition for all women. However, she her union with Kofi is marked with apathy and contempt once it appears that they will never be able to have children together. The character of Anowa can be seen as a triumph—if a tragic one—of feminism, in that she makes her own choices and earns the right to her own failures. But for the more conservative, it is also possible to read Anowa as a cautionary tale of the price that will be paid for breaking with tradition.