The definition of "protest literature" is obviously fluid. Deconstructionists might argue that all literary writing is ultimately a form of protest. Social and historical critics might argue that literary protests must contain a specific political aim, such as changing a law. A Marxist critic might argue that literary protest should disturb the social order in terms of the relationship between social classes. A feminist critic might argue that protest does or does not promote a gender bias. A psychologist might see literary protest as a manifestation of the subconscious. A traditional literary critic might argue the moral relationship between aesthetics and the political message of protest literature. In African Literature culture and experience rather than language becomes the essence of literature.
Subalternism is clearly evident in African writing as pattern of “slave narrative” writing is seen. The ‘other’ or the colony is mostly representational. The informative and representative function is seen in Leopold Sedar Senghor’s writing as it shows that Africans share certain distinctive and innate characteristics, values and aesthetics. In the poem ‘New York’, Senghor argues that the black community of Harlem should ‘Listen to the far beating of your nocturnal heart, rhythm/ and blood of the drum’ and ‘let the black blood flow into/ your blood’. The word nocturnal is interesting because it refers to the image of night. By using the imagery of night, Senghor is asserting that one’s African heritage (one’s Blackness) is both inescapable and natural (like night-time). Negritude is the active rooting of an Black identity in this inescapable and natural African essence. The major premise of Negritude is therefore that one’s biological make-up (race) defines one’s outer (skin colour) as well as inner (spirit/essence) traits. Negritude is a concept which holds that there is a ‘shared culture and subjectivity and spiritual essence’ among members of the same racial group. As Irele explains, there is a ‘parallel between this conception and the racial doctrines propounded in Europe, presenting the Negro as an inherently inferior being to the white man, and which provided the ultimate ideological rationale for Western imperialism’. Instead of rejecting the (colonialist) theory that race defines one’s being; Negritude rejects the assumption that the African is inherently inferior to the “white man”. To Senghor, this makes Negritude a weapon against colonialism and an ‘instrument of liberation’.
Like Senghor, Bernard Dadie also speaks of how Africans need to take pride in themselves and their heritage. Dadie, in his poem “I give you thanks my God”, thanks god for making him black and being able to carry the sadness of the world which can be seen as him comparing the black race to Jesus Christ, who was said to carry the sadness of the world as well. In “Dry your tears, Afrika”, Dadie speaks about Africans realize their fruitless journeys only on return to Africa. Dadie’s ideas sound almost like a re-discovering of one’s own homeland, since the journey towards knowledge of self is not to be sought on settings other than one’s native land. In the poems last section, the idea has been made possible by the end of the slave trade only in the 19th century, so that, now, Africa’s children are no longer weaned from or forced out of their homeland, but continue to grow up there, with their parents no longer afraid that their offspring may never learn what play.
Dadies protest against westernization can only be juxtaposed by ‘Nothing's Changed', which is the expression of Tatamkhulu Afrika's opposition to the system of apartheid in South Africa, under which black people were denied many of their basic rights, and were not allowed to mix freely with white people. Afrika was actually born in Egypt but went to live in South Africa as a young child. Here he returns to South Africa after the apartheid system had been abolished, but finds that black people still do not have equal rights. The most important image in the poem is that of the "glass" which shuts out the speaker in the poem. It is a symbol of the divisions of colour, and class - often the same thing in South Africa. He wants Africans to break this glass in protest of the way society is functioning even though apartheid is abolished.
The undertone of protest is so strong in African writing that it seems to have affected the subconscious of Gabriel Okara. Even though it is said that he wrote the poem ‘Mystic Drum’ for a girl he loved, it is very evident that the lady can be a representation of western culture, colonization and negative impact of industrialization on mother Africa. Like Afrika, Chinua Achebe’s work focuses on the effect of Christian influences, the clash of Western and traditional African values and the traditions of Igbo society during and after the colonial era. Much of Chinua Achebe's literature was inspired by the events of the Biafran War and by the responses to a war that, for many Igbo writers, was a struggle for survival, a search for a new beginning for Africa, and a redefinition of Black identity in the context of a complex world behavior. A leading novelist at the time, Chinua Achebe was a pioneer in post-war Igbo literary activities. Achebe maintained
“It is clear to me that an African creative writer who tries to avoid the big social and political issues of contemporary Africa will end up being completely irrelevant --- like the absurd man in the proverb who leaves his burning house to pursue a rat fleeing from the flames.”
African writers do not hide the fact that the colonialism has affected their creativity in no small way. To understand the various forms of protest in African writing one must keep in mind the various forms of injustice and atrocities that the people of its nations have gone through. It is this and the fight against convergence of cultures that most African writers are against. The poems mentioned in this analysis all have a sense of pride of being African that their writers do not want the people of Africa to forget.