Gender and sexual identity in six selected Amharic plays

Abstract

The study examines six Amharic dramas, written and staged across three major Ethiopian political regimes—namely the Imperial period of Haile Selassie, the Derg regime, and the EPRDF- PP (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front- Prosperity Party) era. The purpose of this analysis is to interpret, critique, and deconstruct the ways in which identity is constructed and represented in these plays, focusing particularly on personal, bodily, social, economic, cultural, natural, and marital dimensions of identity. The selected dramas were chosen based on artistic and literary merit, including the playwrights’ theatrical training, linguistic creativity, narrative construction, and depth of thematic engagement. Using purposive sampling, six plays were examined through qualitative research methods, employing cultural studies and textual-discourse analysis as interpretive frameworks.The findings indicate that in three of the plays—Yeshoh Aklil (1952), Enatna Lijoch (1967), and Wubetn Filega (2012)—female characters are frequently represented as weak, dependent, exploited, and subordinate, whereas male characters are constructed as powerful, dominant, autonomous, and authoritative. However, in Yalachcha Gabicha (1957), a different portrayal emerges: the relationship between husband and wife is represented as hybrid, collaborative, and mutually empowering, thus suggesting a reconfiguration of gender roles. Similarly, in Hod Yifjew (1977), gender and power relations are inverted, with woman depicted as dominant and victorious, while men are subordinated—an image that disrupts conventional patriarchal representations. On the other hand, Martha, a female Character (in "Keselamta Gar " Play ), Who is a unique female character compared to other women characters portrayed in the rest of five plays in that she is swinging from a critical feminist and a women who wants to be dominant over her husbands to a female who likes strongly to marry a man, for she can't live without a husband plus giving birth and having a child.