This paper examines Wole Soyinka’s representation of man’s duality and his perception and attitud... more This paper examines Wole Soyinka’s representation of man’s duality and his perception and attitude towards the earth and his fellow man in society in Madmen and Specialists. It argues that an exploration of man’s dual nature would aid our understanding of his bizarre urge to destroy the natural environment and inflict pain on his kind at times and preserve both at other times. Through contrastive analysis, it scrutinizes Wole Soyinka’s portrayal of characters with negative and positive tendencies toward mother earth. Those with negative desires are constructed in the male-dominated destructive cult of ‘AS’ while those with positive ones are healers populated by women. This study also explores the tension between the sexes in a patriarchal society where men’s sole motivation is a depraved exploitation of human and natural resources of the earth, while women work hard at preserving and sustaining the earth and its assets. Reader-Response and Eco-Feminism are deployed as theoretical fr...
IKENGA International Journal of Institute of African Studies
Our literature review shows that Adichie’s works, including Purple Hibiscus, recognize gender mar... more Our literature review shows that Adichie’s works, including Purple Hibiscus, recognize gender marginalization in areas undermined by many African authors. These areas includeparenting and child development that determine individual emotional stabilityand social responsibility. This study interrogates the form of cultural upbringing of a child which stifles the unconscious selfhood of an individual whose existential being is subject to both the conscious and the unconscious. The study focuses onthe subtleties of parenting and character formation in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. Tracing individual identity models of ‘dependency’ and ‘autonomy, it further investigates characters’ emotional stability and social responsibilityas outcomes of socio-cultural empowerment through child development processes. The study takes a developmental analysis of characters and circumstances that surround each character’s social behaviour in the novel. This is determined using Erikson’s psychoanalytic model...
African traditional drama has been researched from several perspectives. But there are hardly stu... more African traditional drama has been researched from several perspectives. But there are hardly studies fully focusing on the deployment of language to achieve performance goals in particular performances. This failure may have roots in the widely held assumption that verbal language (dialogue) is not a serious element of African traditional drama. Studying language in particular performances will show that there are instances of full and effective deployment of verbal communication in the African traditional drama. This article, therefore, studies language in ewa-ọma performances. Using basic literary appreciation and critical analysis methods, with a new historicist bias, the literary and rhetorical components of language are identified and analyzed according to their space-time relevance in two performances, to demonstrate the manner of realization of dialogue and (inter)weaving of literary and rhetorical strategies. Literary tropes and rhetorical devices are effectively deployed i...
Critics assume that all autobiographical writings are essentially subject-oriented, and therefore... more Critics assume that all autobiographical writings are essentially subject-oriented, and therefore, unsuitable as a source of social history. Because of this critical perspec tive, travelogues are regarded as subjective and self-aggrandising. However, colonialist travelogues once served Euro-America as a source of construction of the history of their colonies and mapping of their cultural landscapes. It was employed at the time as instruments of cultural prejudice and colonial agenda. Using historico-biographical reading method, this paper examines the social awareness dimension of contemporary and post-colonial travelogues and how they have served and still serve as instruments of social and cultural critique through its interrogation of the geo-cultural spaces of the colonial metropolis. This is to underline the fact that travelogues, like other autobiographical writings, combine both the functions of self understanding and social criticism. By exploring how post-colonial travelogu...
Much classificatory work has been done on the African festival performance. However, such work la... more Much classificatory work has been done on the African festival performance. However, such work largely has to do with identifying and classifying the continent’s performances in general. Some, but not many, of the individual festival performances have received classificatory attention. However, for the purpose of systematic documentation it is desirable to classify the individual performances where it is possible to do so, particularly when pioneering work on them is involved. This is the motivation for this study, a pioneering work on the Ewa-oma festival performances of Nkporo. The multiple-criteria approach is used, and narrowed down to five criteria: duration, plot, style, theme and character. Fifty-two (52) Ẹwa-ọma performances recorded in an audio-visual device during the 2000, 2001 and 2002 editions of the festival are used for type classification. Four types of Ẹwa-ọma performances are identified: the song-dance drama (subclassified into long song-dance drama; short songdance drama; song-dance drama with represented action; song-dance drama with narration; and poetic narrative song-dance drama). Another is the solo drama (subclassified into narrated solo drama; solo drama with represented action; narrated solo drama with represented action). The third is the declamatory drama (subclassified into solo declamatory drama with represented action; pure declamatory drama; and declamatory drama with song-dance and narration). The last is the represented action (subclassified into long represented action; short represented action; episodic represented action; and organic represented action). Six thematic thrusts – moralistic, gender, religious, incongruous, ideological, and the eclectic – are also distinguished. Similarly, two character types, stock and round, are identified. This classification is based on the enacted performances. Future classification may focus on the Ẹwa-ọma songs
This paper examines Wole Soyinka’s representation of man’s duality and his perception and attitud... more This paper examines Wole Soyinka’s representation of man’s duality and his perception and attitude towards the earth and his fellow man in society in Madmen and Specialists. It argues that an exploration of man’s dual nature would aid our understanding of his bizarre urge to destroy the natural environment and inflict pain on his kind at times and preserve both at other times. Through contrastive analysis, it scrutinizes Wole Soyinka’s portrayal of characters with negative and positive tendencies toward mother earth. Those with negative desires are constructed in the male-dominated destructive cult of ‘AS’ while those with positive ones are healers populated by women. This study also explores the tension between the sexes in a patriarchal society where men’s sole motivation is a depraved exploitation of human and natural resources of the earth, while women work hard at preserving and sustaining the earth and its assets. Reader-Response and Eco-Feminism are deployed as theoretical fr...
IKENGA International Journal of Institute of African Studies
Our literature review shows that Adichie’s works, including Purple Hibiscus, recognize gender mar... more Our literature review shows that Adichie’s works, including Purple Hibiscus, recognize gender marginalization in areas undermined by many African authors. These areas includeparenting and child development that determine individual emotional stabilityand social responsibility. This study interrogates the form of cultural upbringing of a child which stifles the unconscious selfhood of an individual whose existential being is subject to both the conscious and the unconscious. The study focuses onthe subtleties of parenting and character formation in Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. Tracing individual identity models of ‘dependency’ and ‘autonomy, it further investigates characters’ emotional stability and social responsibilityas outcomes of socio-cultural empowerment through child development processes. The study takes a developmental analysis of characters and circumstances that surround each character’s social behaviour in the novel. This is determined using Erikson’s psychoanalytic model...
African traditional drama has been researched from several perspectives. But there are hardly stu... more African traditional drama has been researched from several perspectives. But there are hardly studies fully focusing on the deployment of language to achieve performance goals in particular performances. This failure may have roots in the widely held assumption that verbal language (dialogue) is not a serious element of African traditional drama. Studying language in particular performances will show that there are instances of full and effective deployment of verbal communication in the African traditional drama. This article, therefore, studies language in ewa-ọma performances. Using basic literary appreciation and critical analysis methods, with a new historicist bias, the literary and rhetorical components of language are identified and analyzed according to their space-time relevance in two performances, to demonstrate the manner of realization of dialogue and (inter)weaving of literary and rhetorical strategies. Literary tropes and rhetorical devices are effectively deployed i...
Critics assume that all autobiographical writings are essentially subject-oriented, and therefore... more Critics assume that all autobiographical writings are essentially subject-oriented, and therefore, unsuitable as a source of social history. Because of this critical perspec tive, travelogues are regarded as subjective and self-aggrandising. However, colonialist travelogues once served Euro-America as a source of construction of the history of their colonies and mapping of their cultural landscapes. It was employed at the time as instruments of cultural prejudice and colonial agenda. Using historico-biographical reading method, this paper examines the social awareness dimension of contemporary and post-colonial travelogues and how they have served and still serve as instruments of social and cultural critique through its interrogation of the geo-cultural spaces of the colonial metropolis. This is to underline the fact that travelogues, like other autobiographical writings, combine both the functions of self understanding and social criticism. By exploring how post-colonial travelogu...
Much classificatory work has been done on the African festival performance. However, such work la... more Much classificatory work has been done on the African festival performance. However, such work largely has to do with identifying and classifying the continent’s performances in general. Some, but not many, of the individual festival performances have received classificatory attention. However, for the purpose of systematic documentation it is desirable to classify the individual performances where it is possible to do so, particularly when pioneering work on them is involved. This is the motivation for this study, a pioneering work on the Ewa-oma festival performances of Nkporo. The multiple-criteria approach is used, and narrowed down to five criteria: duration, plot, style, theme and character. Fifty-two (52) Ẹwa-ọma performances recorded in an audio-visual device during the 2000, 2001 and 2002 editions of the festival are used for type classification. Four types of Ẹwa-ọma performances are identified: the song-dance drama (subclassified into long song-dance drama; short songdance drama; song-dance drama with represented action; song-dance drama with narration; and poetic narrative song-dance drama). Another is the solo drama (subclassified into narrated solo drama; solo drama with represented action; narrated solo drama with represented action). The third is the declamatory drama (subclassified into solo declamatory drama with represented action; pure declamatory drama; and declamatory drama with song-dance and narration). The last is the represented action (subclassified into long represented action; short represented action; episodic represented action; and organic represented action). Six thematic thrusts – moralistic, gender, religious, incongruous, ideological, and the eclectic – are also distinguished. Similarly, two character types, stock and round, are identified. This classification is based on the enacted performances. Future classification may focus on the Ẹwa-ọma songs
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Papers by Anya Egwu