Gendered Expectations and Narrative Resistance in Ayobami Adebayo's Stay with Me: An African Feminist Reading

The article also explores how expectations of the society permeate the lives of the characters in the novel, Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo, which reveals how gender culture, and morality all get entangled in the modern Nigerian society. It analyses how Adebayo develops a story where social dictates govern the emotional, psychological, and moral conduct, especially among women whose identity has been culturally bound to marriage and motherhood. The paper uses the experiences of the main character, Yejide, to examine how societal pressures are a tool of control and form the agency of females and the boundaries of individuality. The research paper is based on the African Feminist Criticism and Sociocultural Theory, with an argument that the book, Stay With Me, is an intersectional criticism of patriarchy, religion, and communal morality as the forces that keep on subjugating women. It also indicates that societal expectations are not only the means of conformity but also the psychological pressures which produce alienation and internalized oppression. Finally, the story of Adebayo makes individual suffering a collective statement about the Nigerian womanhood and the necessity of cultural redefinitions of gender equity.