The major pivot around which the art of literary creativity revolves is life. A work of art can n... more The major pivot around which the art of literary creativity revolves is life. A work of art can neither exist in a vacuum nor can it be divorced from the myriad of socio-political factors or social realities that negatively or positively influence the worldview of man. These factors can either be political, historical, biographical, or sociological. What this entails is that literature derives its main essence from life, as the creative writer is provoked to present the losses and gains, the ills and virtues, of a society with a view to highlighting or sensitizing the people to the solutions of these problems. A work of art also entertains as it educates. This confers on literature the ability to influence human beings psychologically, spiritually, and physically depending on the sensitivity and/or the world-view of the writer. This paper explores how Femi Osofisan sees politics as a tool of social organization in his dramaturgy with a critical study of six of his plays:
Introduction Ideology underscores how we make sense of history and reality. It is the underlying ... more Introduction Ideology underscores how we make sense of history and reality. It is the underlying theory that governs every organized movement, institution, and government. In Politics, ideology superintends the constructs, subversions, moderations, and resistance of power. In Literature, ideology plays even a deluxe role as it is the vehicle that drives political and cultural purposes. A close consideration of the African creative canvass reveals that her imaginative writings are burdened with the ideology of socio-cultural redemption. Although replete with a recasting of themes that stress the subversions and resistance of political and religious power, especially in the continent’s post-colonial space, there is not much thematic commitment among creative writers to the ideology that constructs and moderates power. Using the New Historicism as the theoretical basis, this paper proposes that to understand the logic that has bedeviled post-colonial African governance, there is need to revisit power structures that characterize the continent’s pre-colonial history. It is in this burden that this paper shall attempt to examine the dialectics of political ideology, power relations and the prophetic in Baṣọrun Gáà ̀. The paper also argues that the private anxieties of the playwright, as presented in the play, 160 Lere Adeyemi are prophetic in nature and that Baṣọrun Gáà is weakened by the burdens of ̀ his strength, in other words, blinded by sight.
The Thunder in a Woman is a novel that pictures the exilic identities of Coli and Zara. It is a l... more The Thunder in a Woman is a novel that pictures the exilic identities of Coli and Zara. It is a love story about the excesses of the modern days and how the western values have negatively affected Africa’s conservative way of life. The major thrust being how repressing an unpleasant experience can heal a psychologically disturbed patient. The author, Tayo Olafioye argues that “true love” is an illusion. He talks about culture clash and how an exilic consciousness, tempered by the polarity of cultural idiosyncrasies can lead to conflict. That Coli eventually becomes a victor in the face of psychological stress is attributable to his ability to purge himself of pains both in writing (scriptotherapy) and talking (talking care). The overall effect of catharsis as it relates to scriptotherapy is therefore justified in this novel. At the beginning of this novel, Coli is pre-occupied with the debilitating thoughts that are capable of stunting his heart. At the end an insuperable atmosphere of calmness and orderliness is restored as Coli finds himself hale and hearty. He survives the experience through what psychoanalytic theory calls “free association”.
The concept of feminism varies from one continent to another. In Africa, a woman has to struggle ... more The concept of feminism varies from one continent to another. In Africa, a woman has to struggle with the man who arrogates all political and social rights to himself, and relentlessly refuses the woman a place. If we are to go by the popular belief that the totality of a people's outlook is harmoniously encapsulated in its body of literature, then it may not be out of place to turn to African literature in questing for the woman's place in Africa and more importantly the reconstruction of the woman's position in the continent. Against this background, this paper discusses the reconstruction of womanhood as independent rather than emotional, and 'as one that can attain recognition based on her innate prowess and energy potentials rather than clamoring for recognition based on gender sentiments. I will draw specific illustrations from three of Femi Osofisan's dramaturgy-Mororuntodun, Tegonni, and Yungba and the Dance Contest as we progress.
There has always been a war somewhere in the world among Homo sapiens, allegedly the most advance... more There has always been a war somewhere in the world among Homo sapiens, allegedly the most advanced species in the universe. In Africa, right on the heels of colonialism and the celebration of independence loom the devastation and desolation of war. It is not a sweeping statement to conclude that everywhere colonialism has touched in Africa and let go, ruthless tribal wars have followed suit. The thematic preoccupation of the postwar literature is the training of children, mostly boys, to kill, in the form of the phenomenon of the 'child soldier'. This article argues that one of the extreme cases of geopolitical illness that Africa suffers is the prominence of war in the turbulent journeys of her nation-states to nationhood. The article also examines the psychological implications of wars and bloodshed on the lives of children, who ought to be protected, which results in illness behaviours. We explore these themes with close reference to Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation.
The link between gender and creativity has often been emphasised in scholarly appraisals of women... more The link between gender and creativity has often been emphasised in scholarly appraisals of women writings. Consequently, the diversity and strong presence of women writings on the scene of contemporary Nigerian prose fiction have centralised gender discourse in the scholarship on recent Nigerian prose writings. This paper scrutinises religious figures in Chika Unigwe’s Night Dancer towards a deeper engagement with her treatment of mother-daughter relations and gender complexities. Gods and goddesses are deployed as metaphorical tools towards comprehension of the relations of male and female mortals in the narrative. Furthermore, the characters in Night Dancer are re-imagined and analysed using religious imagery. This paper establishes that the religious metaphors in Unigwe’s Night Dancer reflect core fundamental truths of gender relations in the society and serve as grand metaphors through which the trope of the absent mother in relation to the daughter and gender conceptions of the fictive world of Night Dancer could be interrogated.Keywords: Religious Metaphors; Gender Complexities; Chika Unigwe; Third-generation Nigerian women writings; mother-daughter relationship.
There has always been a war somewhere in the world among Homo sapiens, allegedly the most advance... more There has always been a war somewhere in the world among Homo sapiens, allegedly the most advanced species in the universe. In Africa, right on the heels of colonialism and the celebration of independence loom the devastation and desolation of war. It is not a sweeping statement to conclude that everywhere colonialism has touched in Africa and let go, ruthless tribal wars have followed suit. The thematic preoccupation of the post-war literature is the training of children, mostly boys, to kill, in the form of the phenomenon of the ‘child soldier’. This article argues that one of the extreme cases of geopolitical illness that Africa suffers is the prominence of war in the turbulent journeys of her nation-states to nationhood. The article also examines the psychological implications of wars and bloodshed on the lives of children, who ought to be protected, which results in illness behaviours. We explore these themes with close reference to Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation. Omon O...
The concept of feminism varies from one continent to another. In Africa, a woman has to struggle ... more The concept of feminism varies from one continent to another. In Africa, a woman has to struggle with the man who arrogates all political and social rights to himself, and relentlessly refuses the woman a place. If we are to go by the popular belief that the totality of a people's outlook is harmoniously encapsulated in its body of literature, then it may not be out of place to turn to African literature in questing for the woman's place in Africa and more importantly the re-construction of the woman's position in the continent. Against this background, this paper discusses the re-construction of womanhood as independent rather than emotional, and 'as one that can attain recognition based on her innate prowess and energy potentials rather than clamoring for recognition based on gender sentiments. I will draw specific illustrations from three of Femi Osofisan's dramaturgy - Mororuntodun, Tegonni, and Yungba and the Dance Contest as we progress.
Feminist criticism, an off-shoot of the Women Liberation Movement of the 1960s, is a gender-based... more Feminist criticism, an off-shoot of the Women Liberation Movement of the 1960s, is a gender-based discourse that considers, in some details, the significance of images of women constructed by literature as derogatory and biased; hence, the need to reconstruct womanhood in literary works. From time immemorial and according to historical facts, the Nigerian woman is seen as the bolt of a repressive patriarchal structure that persistently reduced her dignity and human essence and compelled her submission to the whims and caprices of the man. Woman, therefore over the years, has been so long conditioned in the environment of masculine dominance. With the advent of modernization however the world-view of woman and man starts to experience a radical change that calls for a reconstruction of the place of woman round the globe. The enlightenment leads to the feminist criticism among others. Tanure Ojaide represents this world-view in his collection: God’s Medicine-Men and Other Stories. The...
The inculcation and transmission of socio-cultural, ideological and moral expectations of every s... more The inculcation and transmission of socio-cultural, ideological and moral expectations of every society are is as much the role of individuals and institutions of that society as the available oral or written records of the society. With the advent of modernity, the mass media have come to play crucial roles in the socialization and conditioning of members of the society to accepted or expected roles and behaviour. The theatre has come to be very relevant in this regard. Diverse thematic preoccupations have actually authenticated the social relevance of theatre and the home video, especially in the Nigerian Nollywood industry. The focus on inter-personal relationship is particularly remarkable. Some Nollywood movies are particularly exemplary in their deconstruction of the man/woman relationship in the African society. This paper studied 'Reloaded', a Nigerian Nollywood movie. The choice of the movie, Reloaded for this paper is informed by it radical departure from the African feminist tradition of womanism which tends to reject a radical response by women to their subjugation, and rather favours a sort of mild-even passive-dialogic synergy with men. This advocacy for complementarity, as we can see in a movie like Reloaded, has not brought the muchdesired solution to women subjugation. This revelation is much more in consonance with reality; the reality that response to issues is spontaneous and universally natural to individuals rather than being unifocal. Using the sociological approach and adopting a critical analysis method, this study finds out that reality in the Nigerian society has shown that, in many cases, passivity, docility and persuasion have failed to bring about desired results where corrective retaliation has done the magic. The man/woman relationship is not an exception, as it is revealed in Reloaded.
The major pivot around which the art of literary creativity revolves is life. A work of art can n... more The major pivot around which the art of literary creativity revolves is life. A work of art can neither exist in a vacuum nor can it be divorced from the myriad of socio-political factors or social realities that negatively or positively influence the worldview of man. These factors can either be political, historical, biographical, or sociological. What this entails is that literature derives its main essence from life, as the creative writer is provoked to present the losses and gains, the ills and virtues, of a society with a view to highlighting or sensitizing the people to the solutions of these problems. A work of art also entertains as it educates. This confers on literature the ability to influence human beings psychologically, spiritually, and physically depending on the sensitivity and/or the world-view of the writer. This paper explores how Femi Osofisan sees politics as a tool of social organization in his dramaturgy with a critical study of six of his plays:
Everything good will come presents the trope of the absent mother which scholars have identified ... more Everything good will come presents the trope of the absent mother which scholars have identified as a significant feature of third generation Nigerian women prose fiction writings. Besides the trope of the absent mother, religion and identity also feature prominently in Atta's Everything good will come. This article harmonises these three dominant motifs in the narrative towards an examination of the complexity of identity formation in Everything good will come. The article focuses on Mike's sculptures as an artistic depiction of the dynamics that ultimately influence Enitan's identity formation. Due to the plurality of religious ideologies in the postcolonial Nigeria depicted in the narrative, the motifs of Christianity and traditional religion present in the narrative are explored towards illumination of key elements of the text. Christian motifs provide deeper comprehension of the dynamics that influence the relationship of Enitan and Sheri against the backdrop of the...
The major pivot around which the art of literary creativity revolves is life. A work of art can n... more The major pivot around which the art of literary creativity revolves is life. A work of art can neither exist in a vacuum nor can it be divorced from the myriad of socio-political factors or social realities that negatively or positively influence the worldview of man. These factors can either be political, historical, biographical, or sociological. What this entails is that literature derives its main essence from life, as the creative writer is provoked to present the losses and gains, the ills and virtues, of a society with a view to highlighting or sensitizing the people to the solutions of these problems. A work of art also entertains as it educates. This confers on literature the ability to influence human beings psychologically, spiritually, and physically depending on the sensitivity and/or the world-view of the writer. This paper explores how Femi Osofisan sees politics as a tool of social organization in his dramaturgy with a critical study of six of his plays:
Introduction Ideology underscores how we make sense of history and reality. It is the underlying ... more Introduction Ideology underscores how we make sense of history and reality. It is the underlying theory that governs every organized movement, institution, and government. In Politics, ideology superintends the constructs, subversions, moderations, and resistance of power. In Literature, ideology plays even a deluxe role as it is the vehicle that drives political and cultural purposes. A close consideration of the African creative canvass reveals that her imaginative writings are burdened with the ideology of socio-cultural redemption. Although replete with a recasting of themes that stress the subversions and resistance of political and religious power, especially in the continent’s post-colonial space, there is not much thematic commitment among creative writers to the ideology that constructs and moderates power. Using the New Historicism as the theoretical basis, this paper proposes that to understand the logic that has bedeviled post-colonial African governance, there is need to revisit power structures that characterize the continent’s pre-colonial history. It is in this burden that this paper shall attempt to examine the dialectics of political ideology, power relations and the prophetic in Baṣọrun Gáà ̀. The paper also argues that the private anxieties of the playwright, as presented in the play, 160 Lere Adeyemi are prophetic in nature and that Baṣọrun Gáà is weakened by the burdens of ̀ his strength, in other words, blinded by sight.
The Thunder in a Woman is a novel that pictures the exilic identities of Coli and Zara. It is a l... more The Thunder in a Woman is a novel that pictures the exilic identities of Coli and Zara. It is a love story about the excesses of the modern days and how the western values have negatively affected Africa’s conservative way of life. The major thrust being how repressing an unpleasant experience can heal a psychologically disturbed patient. The author, Tayo Olafioye argues that “true love” is an illusion. He talks about culture clash and how an exilic consciousness, tempered by the polarity of cultural idiosyncrasies can lead to conflict. That Coli eventually becomes a victor in the face of psychological stress is attributable to his ability to purge himself of pains both in writing (scriptotherapy) and talking (talking care). The overall effect of catharsis as it relates to scriptotherapy is therefore justified in this novel. At the beginning of this novel, Coli is pre-occupied with the debilitating thoughts that are capable of stunting his heart. At the end an insuperable atmosphere of calmness and orderliness is restored as Coli finds himself hale and hearty. He survives the experience through what psychoanalytic theory calls “free association”.
The concept of feminism varies from one continent to another. In Africa, a woman has to struggle ... more The concept of feminism varies from one continent to another. In Africa, a woman has to struggle with the man who arrogates all political and social rights to himself, and relentlessly refuses the woman a place. If we are to go by the popular belief that the totality of a people's outlook is harmoniously encapsulated in its body of literature, then it may not be out of place to turn to African literature in questing for the woman's place in Africa and more importantly the reconstruction of the woman's position in the continent. Against this background, this paper discusses the reconstruction of womanhood as independent rather than emotional, and 'as one that can attain recognition based on her innate prowess and energy potentials rather than clamoring for recognition based on gender sentiments. I will draw specific illustrations from three of Femi Osofisan's dramaturgy-Mororuntodun, Tegonni, and Yungba and the Dance Contest as we progress.
There has always been a war somewhere in the world among Homo sapiens, allegedly the most advance... more There has always been a war somewhere in the world among Homo sapiens, allegedly the most advanced species in the universe. In Africa, right on the heels of colonialism and the celebration of independence loom the devastation and desolation of war. It is not a sweeping statement to conclude that everywhere colonialism has touched in Africa and let go, ruthless tribal wars have followed suit. The thematic preoccupation of the postwar literature is the training of children, mostly boys, to kill, in the form of the phenomenon of the 'child soldier'. This article argues that one of the extreme cases of geopolitical illness that Africa suffers is the prominence of war in the turbulent journeys of her nation-states to nationhood. The article also examines the psychological implications of wars and bloodshed on the lives of children, who ought to be protected, which results in illness behaviours. We explore these themes with close reference to Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation.
The link between gender and creativity has often been emphasised in scholarly appraisals of women... more The link between gender and creativity has often been emphasised in scholarly appraisals of women writings. Consequently, the diversity and strong presence of women writings on the scene of contemporary Nigerian prose fiction have centralised gender discourse in the scholarship on recent Nigerian prose writings. This paper scrutinises religious figures in Chika Unigwe’s Night Dancer towards a deeper engagement with her treatment of mother-daughter relations and gender complexities. Gods and goddesses are deployed as metaphorical tools towards comprehension of the relations of male and female mortals in the narrative. Furthermore, the characters in Night Dancer are re-imagined and analysed using religious imagery. This paper establishes that the religious metaphors in Unigwe’s Night Dancer reflect core fundamental truths of gender relations in the society and serve as grand metaphors through which the trope of the absent mother in relation to the daughter and gender conceptions of the fictive world of Night Dancer could be interrogated.Keywords: Religious Metaphors; Gender Complexities; Chika Unigwe; Third-generation Nigerian women writings; mother-daughter relationship.
There has always been a war somewhere in the world among Homo sapiens, allegedly the most advance... more There has always been a war somewhere in the world among Homo sapiens, allegedly the most advanced species in the universe. In Africa, right on the heels of colonialism and the celebration of independence loom the devastation and desolation of war. It is not a sweeping statement to conclude that everywhere colonialism has touched in Africa and let go, ruthless tribal wars have followed suit. The thematic preoccupation of the post-war literature is the training of children, mostly boys, to kill, in the form of the phenomenon of the ‘child soldier’. This article argues that one of the extreme cases of geopolitical illness that Africa suffers is the prominence of war in the turbulent journeys of her nation-states to nationhood. The article also examines the psychological implications of wars and bloodshed on the lives of children, who ought to be protected, which results in illness behaviours. We explore these themes with close reference to Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation. Omon O...
The concept of feminism varies from one continent to another. In Africa, a woman has to struggle ... more The concept of feminism varies from one continent to another. In Africa, a woman has to struggle with the man who arrogates all political and social rights to himself, and relentlessly refuses the woman a place. If we are to go by the popular belief that the totality of a people's outlook is harmoniously encapsulated in its body of literature, then it may not be out of place to turn to African literature in questing for the woman's place in Africa and more importantly the re-construction of the woman's position in the continent. Against this background, this paper discusses the re-construction of womanhood as independent rather than emotional, and 'as one that can attain recognition based on her innate prowess and energy potentials rather than clamoring for recognition based on gender sentiments. I will draw specific illustrations from three of Femi Osofisan's dramaturgy - Mororuntodun, Tegonni, and Yungba and the Dance Contest as we progress.
Feminist criticism, an off-shoot of the Women Liberation Movement of the 1960s, is a gender-based... more Feminist criticism, an off-shoot of the Women Liberation Movement of the 1960s, is a gender-based discourse that considers, in some details, the significance of images of women constructed by literature as derogatory and biased; hence, the need to reconstruct womanhood in literary works. From time immemorial and according to historical facts, the Nigerian woman is seen as the bolt of a repressive patriarchal structure that persistently reduced her dignity and human essence and compelled her submission to the whims and caprices of the man. Woman, therefore over the years, has been so long conditioned in the environment of masculine dominance. With the advent of modernization however the world-view of woman and man starts to experience a radical change that calls for a reconstruction of the place of woman round the globe. The enlightenment leads to the feminist criticism among others. Tanure Ojaide represents this world-view in his collection: God’s Medicine-Men and Other Stories. The...
The inculcation and transmission of socio-cultural, ideological and moral expectations of every s... more The inculcation and transmission of socio-cultural, ideological and moral expectations of every society are is as much the role of individuals and institutions of that society as the available oral or written records of the society. With the advent of modernity, the mass media have come to play crucial roles in the socialization and conditioning of members of the society to accepted or expected roles and behaviour. The theatre has come to be very relevant in this regard. Diverse thematic preoccupations have actually authenticated the social relevance of theatre and the home video, especially in the Nigerian Nollywood industry. The focus on inter-personal relationship is particularly remarkable. Some Nollywood movies are particularly exemplary in their deconstruction of the man/woman relationship in the African society. This paper studied 'Reloaded', a Nigerian Nollywood movie. The choice of the movie, Reloaded for this paper is informed by it radical departure from the African feminist tradition of womanism which tends to reject a radical response by women to their subjugation, and rather favours a sort of mild-even passive-dialogic synergy with men. This advocacy for complementarity, as we can see in a movie like Reloaded, has not brought the muchdesired solution to women subjugation. This revelation is much more in consonance with reality; the reality that response to issues is spontaneous and universally natural to individuals rather than being unifocal. Using the sociological approach and adopting a critical analysis method, this study finds out that reality in the Nigerian society has shown that, in many cases, passivity, docility and persuasion have failed to bring about desired results where corrective retaliation has done the magic. The man/woman relationship is not an exception, as it is revealed in Reloaded.
The major pivot around which the art of literary creativity revolves is life. A work of art can n... more The major pivot around which the art of literary creativity revolves is life. A work of art can neither exist in a vacuum nor can it be divorced from the myriad of socio-political factors or social realities that negatively or positively influence the worldview of man. These factors can either be political, historical, biographical, or sociological. What this entails is that literature derives its main essence from life, as the creative writer is provoked to present the losses and gains, the ills and virtues, of a society with a view to highlighting or sensitizing the people to the solutions of these problems. A work of art also entertains as it educates. This confers on literature the ability to influence human beings psychologically, spiritually, and physically depending on the sensitivity and/or the world-view of the writer. This paper explores how Femi Osofisan sees politics as a tool of social organization in his dramaturgy with a critical study of six of his plays:
Everything good will come presents the trope of the absent mother which scholars have identified ... more Everything good will come presents the trope of the absent mother which scholars have identified as a significant feature of third generation Nigerian women prose fiction writings. Besides the trope of the absent mother, religion and identity also feature prominently in Atta's Everything good will come. This article harmonises these three dominant motifs in the narrative towards an examination of the complexity of identity formation in Everything good will come. The article focuses on Mike's sculptures as an artistic depiction of the dynamics that ultimately influence Enitan's identity formation. Due to the plurality of religious ideologies in the postcolonial Nigeria depicted in the narrative, the motifs of Christianity and traditional religion present in the narrative are explored towards illumination of key elements of the text. Christian motifs provide deeper comprehension of the dynamics that influence the relationship of Enitan and Sheri against the backdrop of the...
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