ABSTRACT
This research work addressed itself to the way people tend to see fictional works. People see fictional works as being fictitious, but they are over laid with fact. This long essay, using Akachi Adimora. Ezeigbo’s works as guide, demonstrated the impact of the intermeddling of fact with fiction in literary works. They do not always obstruct each other and when harnessed depending on the ingenuity of the artist they can serve multiple purposes. The sociological socialist realism theory is used in this research work because real and factual events in Ezeigbo’s life are contained in her works. Ezeigbo make use of the Igbo setting. There are names proverbs, idioms and practices that epitomize the Igbo culture and Igbo world view. Her works are linked between her fiction and her lived experience. The major source of her stories is her own direct experience through fiction. Oral Aesthetics is highly portrayed in Ezeigbo’s works in her constant use of songs, proverbs, lullabies and the Igbo cultural setting. This study has shown that Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo, a fictional writer wrote about her own personal experiences in her novels and short stories.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0 CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Introduction
1 .2 Definition of Terms
1.3 The Last of the Strong Ones : A Synopsis
1.4 The Relationship Between Facts and Fiction
1.5 Research Problem
1.6 Methodology
1.7 Scope of Study and Limitation
1.8 Justification
1.9 Purpose of Study
1.10 Structure of Thesis
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Literature Review
2.1 Issues Relating to Akachi Adimora — Ezeigbo’s Writings
2.2 Aesthetics in Akachi’s Works.
2.3 Adimora — Ezeigbo’s Formal Aesthetics Borrowings from the
Oral Narrative Tradition.
2.4 The Role of the Writer in Literature
CHAPTER THREE
3.1 Fact and Fiction in Akachi Adimora —Ezeigbo’s The Last of the
Strong Ones and Children of the Eagle
3.2 The Search for Self
3.3 The War’s Untold Story: The Challenging Years of Youth
3.4 Marriage and Family Life
CHAPTER FOUR
4.1 The Aesthetics Residues of Facts and Fiction: An Example of Akachi’s The Last of the Strong Ones and
Children of the Eagle .
4.2 The Igbo Nuaces in The Last of the Strong Ones and
Children of the Eagle
CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 Summary of Findings and Conclusion of the Research Work
5.2 Summary
5.3 Findings
5.4 Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Literature is studied for various reasons. It covers all aspects of human life. It is all-embracing and encapsulating. It contains artistic truth, which is better than historical truth. An artistic truth applies to every situation of life while historical truth appeals to a specific situation of life.
A quality of Akachi Ezeigbo which makes her fiction not just reading matter is her ability to knit life experiences into art. There is an effort to make the incidents as realistic as possible not just in context but in form and style. Prominent among her choice of techniques is foreshadowing and the use of the third person omniscient narrator.
A writer is a “righter” righting the societal “wrongs”. This is another way of saying that a writer is a watchdog to the society. He comments upon social happenings with the aim of improving them. This argument can be used to nullify the “art-for-art-sake” philosophy of literature. Art – for – art – sake perception opines that literature should be on its own aesthetics and not be mixed up with politics. In reality, literature cannot really be separated from human experience from the political, social, religious and cultural realm.
Literature is essentially a creative art. Hence, originality and creativity are the key words. Most of the ideas in 1 are either totally imagined (fiction) or partially imagined. Partial imagination is interplay of fact and art known as faction.
The generally accepted notion is that literature mirrors the society. But literature, as can be deduced from the present ideological trends does not stop at mirroring the society. It does more than mirror the society. It does not just give us the picture of our lives alone but goes further to suggest ways of improving ourselves. Literature is th private and public awareness given to both the individual and the society respectively through the exposure of the hidden or open truths that people seem to be ignorant of. Literature aims at affecting a change in the societal status quo.
Omotayo Oloruntoba -Oju (1999) cited in Ibrahim B.F. & Akande F.F, States that;
The term. literature may be used to refer to any material in written form or any other material whose features lend them to literary appreciation or appraisal… the term in a specialized sense refers to works of art in any of the established literary genres, prose, poetry and drama..
One would have expected Oloruntoba – Oju to have recognized the un-established and un-written genre (material as well in her definition of literature in order to make such a definition comprehensive enough. According to Terry Eagleton (1983) Cited in Akande and Ibrahim (1997),
Literature is a liberating force, freeing us from the inherent shackles placed upon us by the society. Literary criticism is therefore born out of it struggle against a loss of culture and its feature becomes defined as struggle against the foreseen bourgeois stat and it’s has no predetermined future.
All definitions of literature hang on essentially what literature looks like, what it aims at doing or what it is for or why it is the way it is or what it should be used for. Literature as a discipline is a spoken or written medium which uses languages, plot, character and setting to give us a picture of what our life looks like.
Literature draws its strength from actual life. It deals with human life with all its complexities and difficulties. Literature deals with the Joys, Sorrows, Poverty, Plenty and above all death to which man is subjected and which is man’s enemy.
The Literature of a particular community can be defined as the sum total of all works of imagination either in oral or written form, in prose or in verse .which have helped to reflect and project the life and culture of that community in the three important areas of narrative fiction, drama and poetry. Literature, like all other art forms draws on human experience and tries to reflect the same and communicate it back to man in an ordered or artistic form. This is because the human condition is the reality known to most men and women and it is this reality that literary artists depend on for their writings.
Literature may deal with particular and contemporary events and issues or with attitudes and behavior in contemporary and particular situations. For example, Achebe’s A Man of the People (1966) deals with politics and politicians in the early years of Nigerian independence. A very remarkable way of showing the despicable, ruthless and selfish politician of the period is found in the portraiture of Chief Nanga. Also in Nigeria, the events of the civil war of 1967 — 1970 are made memorable in for example:
Akachi-Adimora’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002). These writing are varied accounts of the Nigerian civil war, a contemporary event and through them unborn generations will be aware, even if not of the full factual details of the war of at least the basic perceptions of the war.
Literature enlarges ones experience. Some texts will lend themselves to easy understanding simply because of the reader’s actual experience. Hence, all definitions of literature boil down to and emphasize its nature, form and utility. These days, unlike in the past when the literature of a people is said to be the unwritten records of those set of people, the word literature is used to refer to a collection of historical, geographical and academic records such as personal essays, speeches, biographies and letters.
Nigerian writers generally appear to be more interested in recreating in the reader’s mind, a whole traditional way of life, bringing out varying degrees a man’s realities, by making use of frequent allusions to their people’s customs ‘and tradition. They bring on record communal activities such as festivals, ceremonies, ritual practices, beliefs, occupations and the co-existing nature typical of all Africans.
Hence, these writers have their foundations in the cultural heritage of their respective ethnic groups. Ernest Emenyonu (1972) rightly puts it thus:
In a multi-ethnic nation like Nigeria, it is imperative that the culture and life-ways of the component units should be given full airing so that national sentiments could be built upon the foundation of understanding.
In the same vein, Emmanuel Obiechina (1975) reasserts that “it is only by incorporating Nigerian tradition in our writings that make them Nigerian”.
Finally, literature is a portrait of man and his environment held up for him to see by the artist, so that he can have profound reflections about his world view and general existence. Critics of literature must understand it’s interdisciplinary nature for an intensive and extensive comprehension. Literature should contain ideology and also reflect the human mind. This is the meeting point between creativity and criticism.
1.2 DEFINITION OF TERMS:
a)
Facts can be defined as concrete reality or actual reality or actual presentation of events that have historical record. The reality could be social, economics or politics. The rise of facts in the novel was necessitated when there came the need for the actual documentation of events that occurred in the life of the people in a society or the society itself. Example are autobiographies, Biographies, documentary. All these give the actual events as they occurred and are recorded down through an element of creative imagination.
A writer like Adimora-Ezeigbo has shown in her trilogy an attempt to understand her society and relate with it in the context of a global historiography that shaped the works of pioneer writers and which as has been stated, is still unfolding. In simple terms then, the span of Nigerian literary history is still too short to evaluate the performance of writers on the basis of ‘generation’. The task of periodizing, and indeed, of writing a comprehensive and reliable account of Nigerian literature is rightly that of a future generation of critics for whom compilations of the nature attempted here would function as data. Facts are real issues discussed in Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo’s works like: feminism/gender issues, The Orature of the Igbo’s and the Aesthetics of facts and fiction. Akachi Adimora. — Ezeigbo in her The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) emphasized on the issue of feminism. In The Last of the Strong Ones(1996) Adimora — Ezeigbo continues what Chinua Achebe had begun more than forty years (40) before with his novel Things Fall Apart (1958). He wanted to show;
That African people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans; … their societies were not mindless but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and value and beauty. They had poetry and; above all, they had dignity …. The worst thing that can happen to any people is the loss of their dignity and self-respect. The writer’s duty is to help them regain it by showing them in human terms what happened to them, what they lost. There is a saying in Igbo that a man who can’t tell where the rain began to beat him cannot know where he dried his body. The writer can tell the people where the rain began to beat them.
Achebe’s literary portrait of the history and culture of the Igbo was limited to the extent that he marginalized women and neglected their voice. While Achebe thematizes the curse of colonialism with a view to men alone, and without a deeper examination of gender relations, Adimora — Ezeigbo is interested not only in colonialism, but also in gender relations on the eve of colonization. Unlike in Things fall Apart (1958), existing gender relations are not merely portrayed, but institutions such as polygamy and violence against women are put in a critical light. This double — tracked thematic orientation of the novel is also manifested in the narrator, who is commissioned by the inhabitants of the village “to preserve our tradition and guide our people back to our way of life before ‘Kosiri’ infested us with their presence” (p.82). In very concrete terms, she has the task of recording the life stories of the four Oluada, the “top women representatives” of .Umuga, who are also the main figures in the Umuada, the association of the daughters of Umuga. Later she is appointed chronicler of the colonial destruction of Umuga. The first person narrator lives up .to both tasks in the novels. By using the medium of literature for remembrance, she puts herself in the oral narrative tradition, to which the first-person narrator herself refers when she names “the family historian, the storyteller and the custodian of tradition” in one breath (p.83). This goes along with the fact that the narrator tells the story in an oral narrative style. Ezeigbo manages to imitate conventions of spoken language, so that when reading one has the impression that one is hearing the novel rather than reading it.
b) FICTION
Fiction is an abiding social beauty, the expression of human activities in written words; the expression and the impression of the people who have created it; it is the production of what purports to be an authentic account of the actual experience of individuals.
The novel reflects actual human experience narrated in a straight forward manner. While reading any novel, the reader might feel that he is reading about his own character or about his neighbors. This kind of reading is purely for enjoyment, leisure and probably to while away time, Besides, since prose is a narrative form, it becomes more accessible to the reader than other genres of literature especially in the African setting where the culture involves storytelling techniques.
Here, the literary artist is able to use very effectively, l for communicative purposes through imagination and creativity. And basically, the novel can be classified into fiction and non — fiction. Fiction in opposition to non — fiction is the prose from which the element are based on mere creative imagination of the artist rather than the real life situations presented by the non — fictional writers who are the novelists.
1.3 THE LAST OF THE STRONG ONES (1996) A SYNOPSIS
The novel is an imaginative reconstruction of the history of Uga, a town in South Eastern Nigeria. Woven around the lives of four influential women who flourish alongside their male counterparts in the leadership of their town, the story relates the struggle of a people to free their community from the clutches of meddlesome British colonialists, chronicling their experience as they resist a disruptive order that threatens their tradition and their humanity. Amidst the dramatic build up to an inevitable collision between tradition and change, the author embarks on a journey of role re- evaluation and redefinition of womanhood within the context of the Igbo culture.
Following the footsteps of Nigeria’s first female novelist, Flora Nwapa, who protested the relegation of the Igbo whom in a patriarchal society in her works Efuru (1966) and Idu (1968), Ezeigbo’s work is a reaction to the unacceptable socioeconomic situation of Igbo women in particular and Nigerian women in general, under colonial rule.
Like other Novelists in the womanist genre, Ezeigbo is preoccupied with the struggle for change, consciously expressed in the different forms of protest. In the case of The Last of the StrongOnes (1996) however, the author chooses to’ reconstruct the social realities of the Umuga community by entrenching women in active leadership roles alongside their male counterparts. This can be seen as a deliberate insistence on positive Igbo Heroines as a means of drawing attention to the importance and relevance of the woman’s voice, despite tradition.
Thus, by tracing the history of the Umuga community through the voices of women and reconstructing the transition process via women’s experiences, pains and emotions, t author protests the one sided presentation of gender roles in the writings of men which overlooked the militant role of women in the struggle against Colonialism (C.F. Nina Mba 1997).
Adimora Ezeigbo, through her fictional novels enlightens her readers on issues concerning her society. Social realities are entailed in her works, these issues are facts.
1.4 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FACTS AND FICTION.
Literature teaches moral lessons to man. A lot of lessons can be learnt from various works of literature. This is what we mean by didacticism. At the same time, literature is a source of entertainment. It is a known fact that man is always facing one problem or the other, because of the complexity and multiplicity of human problems. Human mind is most of the time being troubled. Literature can be used to heal the mind. This is what we mean by psycho-therapeutic function of literature. One should not forget to mention the fact that literature can be used to promote culture. Through it, we are exposed to the norms and values of various human societies.
Recently, I asked my sisters to make their biodata available to me as soon as possible, to write down facts about their lives that I might include in the family book. I belie\re I should also put together facts about my life that can go into the book. What is fact? And what is fiction? Can a line be really drawn between the two? I often think that the line between fact and fiction is blurred. What about the myths that society surrounds itself with? Is myth fact or fiction? People create myths to explain the unexplainable, the unknowable. In my family, we have our myths, just as Umuga has her myths (p.368).
The above excerpt by the author, explains that facts are real events and happenings in her life. Through her short stories and novels, the author tells us about her family background and childhood in ‘The Blind Man of Ekwulu’. She also tells us ‘The War’s Untold Unstory’: The challenging years of youth and also through her short story ‘Agarachaa’, She writes on the fact of the memories of her youth. However, ‘The life out there’ tells us the single and searching days of the author. In ‘The life out there’, the author writes on the strict, stern and constraining background in which she grew:
My parents were strict with us… I was a subdued child and quick in obeying whatever rules my parents laid down. One of those rules was that we were never to have boyfriends. I remember the day a boy posted a letter to our house without my knowledge and it got into my father’s hand. He read it and threatened to give the letter to the principal of my school and even to stop my education. You can imagine how I lost my patience with the boy upon my return to school. I warned him never to write such letters to me again… (Wov: 18).
Ezeigbo also wrote about her marriage and family life in ‘A Day to Remember’ (Rituals and Departures).It tells us about the author’s early marriage while in school and her first pregnancy.
Ezeigbo in her trilogy puts all these short stories together to produce a bigger novel. The writer is seen in the character Nnenne. She is a lecturer and a writer.
‘…She was happy; she was free from lectures, from supervision of projects and dissertations’ (COE: 343).
Ezeigbo in her literary works tells her readers the story of her life, family and children. She makes use of the novel because it gives her an avenue to depict fictional characters that represent her in her works. These events in her works are real but told as stories to entertain her readers and show her skill in writing.
1.5 RESEARCH PROBLEM
This research study will address itself to the way people tend to see fictional works. People see fictional works as being fictitious but they are over laid with fact. This study using Akachi Adimora – Ezeigbo’s works as guide, will demonstrate the impact of the intermeddling of fact with fiction in literary works.
1.6 METHODOLOGY
This research work will make use of the sociological theory. This theory is adopted for this study because Ezeigbo’s two works; The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children c the Eagle (2002) are centered on literature and the society. Sociological theory relates arts to the society. This is virtually important because literature cannot exist without the society. This study will also make use of the Socialist realism theory as a branch of sociological theory.
1.7 SCOPE OF STUDY AND LIMITATION
This research work titled Facts and fiction in Akachi Adimora — Ezeigbo’s The Last of the• strong Ones(1996 and Children of the
Eagle (2002), will begin with facts and fiction in literatuTe. The researcher will limit this study to areas of Orature, Feminism /Gender issues and Aesthetics concerning Ezeigbo’s works. This study is supposed to contain, broader aspects of facts and fiction. But due to time and space, this study will limit itself to the study of facts and fiction in Ezeigbo’s two works The researcher’s inability to interview Akachi , personally due to distance of learning is a limitation. Ezeigbo is a new writer. This fact led to difficulties in getting materials for the research work. This research work will pioneer criticism on the novelist.
1.8 JUSTIFICATION
This research work is carried out on Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo’s works because she ranks among the most out — spoken and prolific writers of modern times who use their literary works to challenge colonialist literatures and also African men’s literature. Akachi’s two works, The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002) are used for this study because the author infuses oral narratives of Igbo land. By adapting oral narrative devices, Adimora Ezeigbo decolonizes or, to be more precise, appropriates the Western’ based and determined novel and short story genre. This topic was chosen by the researcher because little has been done on Facts and Fiction in Ezeigbo’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002). The research will find out the realities in Ezeigbo’s fictional works. This research is carried out on Akachi because her novels have won awards and also because she is an award winning writer. She has won four major literary awards. She has also won several academic awards.
1.9 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This research will exhibit that literature contains fact and fiction. They do not always obstruct each other and when harnessed depending on the ingenuity of the artist they can serve multiple purposes This study will show how Ezeigbo through her works reenacts the evolution of modern Nigeria from the era of colonial incursion to the present. Ezeigbo’s works show with priority the role of women in the making of national history. Ezeigbo’s maturation in her literary writing will be exhibited in this research work.
1.10 STRUCTURE OF THESIS
Chapter one of this work covers the introduction to literature. It explains the definition of terms and it’s relationship. It also shows the research problem, purpose of the study, scope of the study and limitation, justification and methodology.
Chapter two of this research work contains the literature review. It entails the role of the Nigerian writer, issues related to Ezeigbo’s works and the use of oral literature in Ezeigbo’s fiction.
Chapter three of this study titled “Facts and Fiction in Akachi’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002)”, looks at the realities in Ezeigbo’s fiction.
Chapter four of this study covers the “Aesthetics residues of facts and fiction; An example of Akachi’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002)”.
Chapter Five is the summary of findings and conclusion of the research work.
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Tags: FACTS AND FICTION IN AKACHI ADIMORA – EZEIGBO’S CHILDREN OF THE EAGLE AND THE LAST OF THE STRONG ONES
ABSTRACT
This research work addressed itself to the way people tend to see fictional works. People see fictional works as being fictitious, but they are over laid with fact. This long essay, using Akachi Adimora. Ezeigbo’s works as guide, demonstrated the impact of the intermeddling of fact with fiction in literary works. They do not always obstruct each other and when harnessed depending on the ingenuity of the artist they can serve multiple purposes. The sociological socialist realism theory is used in this research work because real and factual events in Ezeigbo’s life are contained in her works. Ezeigbo make use of the Igbo setting. There are names proverbs, idioms and practices that epitomize the Igbo culture and Igbo world view. Her works are linked between her fiction and her lived experience. The major source of her stories is her own direct experience through fiction. Oral Aesthetics is highly portrayed in Ezeigbo’s works in her constant use of songs, proverbs, lullabies and the Igbo cultural setting. This study has shown that Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo, a fictional writer wrote about her own personal experiences in her novels and short stories.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0 CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Introduction
1 .2 Definition of Terms
1.3 The Last of the Strong Ones : A Synopsis
1.4 The Relationship Between Facts and Fiction
1.5 Research Problem
1.6 Methodology
1.7 Scope of Study and Limitation
1.8 Justification
1.9 Purpose of Study
1.10 Structure of Thesis
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Literature Review
2.1 Issues Relating to Akachi Adimora — Ezeigbo’s Writings
2.2 Aesthetics in Akachi’s Works.
2.3 Adimora — Ezeigbo’s Formal Aesthetics Borrowings from the
Oral Narrative Tradition.
2.4 The Role of the Writer in Literature
CHAPTER THREE
3.1 Fact and Fiction in Akachi Adimora —Ezeigbo’s The Last of the
Strong Ones and Children of the Eagle
3.2 The Search for Self
3.3 The War’s Untold Story: The Challenging Years of Youth
3.4 Marriage and Family Life
CHAPTER FOUR
4.1 The Aesthetics Residues of Facts and Fiction: An Example of Akachi’s The Last of the Strong Ones and
Children of the Eagle .
4.2 The Igbo Nuaces in The Last of the Strong Ones and
Children of the Eagle
CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 Summary of Findings and Conclusion of the Research Work
5.2 Summary
5.3 Findings
5.4 Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Literature is studied for various reasons. It covers all aspects of human life. It is all-embracing and encapsulating. It contains artistic truth, which is better than historical truth. An artistic truth applies to every situation of life while historical truth appeals to a specific situation of life.
A quality of Akachi Ezeigbo which makes her fiction not just reading matter is her ability to knit life experiences into art. There is an effort to make the incidents as realistic as possible not just in context but in form and style. Prominent among her choice of techniques is foreshadowing and the use of the third person omniscient narrator.
A writer is a “righter” righting the societal “wrongs”. This is another way of saying that a writer is a watchdog to the society. He comments upon social happenings with the aim of improving them. This argument can be used to nullify the “art-for-art-sake” philosophy of literature. Art – for – art – sake perception opines that literature should be on its own aesthetics and not be mixed up with politics. In reality, literature cannot really be separated from human experience from the political, social, religious and cultural realm.
Literature is essentially a creative art. Hence, originality and creativity are the key words. Most of the ideas in 1 are either totally imagined (fiction) or partially imagined. Partial imagination is interplay of fact and art known as faction.
The generally accepted notion is that literature mirrors the society. But literature, as can be deduced from the present ideological trends does not stop at mirroring the society. It does more than mirror the society. It does not just give us the picture of our lives alone but goes further to suggest ways of improving ourselves. Literature is th private and public awareness given to both the individual and the society respectively through the exposure of the hidden or open truths that people seem to be ignorant of. Literature aims at affecting a change in the societal status quo.
Omotayo Oloruntoba -Oju (1999) cited in Ibrahim B.F. & Akande F.F, States that;
The term. literature may be used to refer to any material in written form or any other material whose features lend them to literary appreciation or appraisal… the term in a specialized sense refers to works of art in any of the established literary genres, prose, poetry and drama..
One would have expected Oloruntoba – Oju to have recognized the un-established and un-written genre (material as well in her definition of literature in order to make such a definition comprehensive enough. According to Terry Eagleton (1983) Cited in Akande and Ibrahim (1997),
Literature is a liberating force, freeing us from the inherent shackles placed upon us by the society. Literary criticism is therefore born out of it struggle against a loss of culture and its feature becomes defined as struggle against the foreseen bourgeois stat and it’s has no predetermined future.
All definitions of literature hang on essentially what literature looks like, what it aims at doing or what it is for or why it is the way it is or what it should be used for. Literature as a discipline is a spoken or written medium which uses languages, plot, character and setting to give us a picture of what our life looks like.
Literature draws its strength from actual life. It deals with human life with all its complexities and difficulties. Literature deals with the Joys, Sorrows, Poverty, Plenty and above all death to which man is subjected and which is man’s enemy.
The Literature of a particular community can be defined as the sum total of all works of imagination either in oral or written form, in prose or in verse .which have helped to reflect and project the life and culture of that community in the three important areas of narrative fiction, drama and poetry. Literature, like all other art forms draws on human experience and tries to reflect the same and communicate it back to man in an ordered or artistic form. This is because the human condition is the reality known to most men and women and it is this reality that literary artists depend on for their writings.
Literature may deal with particular and contemporary events and issues or with attitudes and behavior in contemporary and particular situations. For example, Achebe’s A Man of the People (1966) deals with politics and politicians in the early years of Nigerian independence. A very remarkable way of showing the despicable, ruthless and selfish politician of the period is found in the portraiture of Chief Nanga. Also in Nigeria, the events of the civil war of 1967 — 1970 are made memorable in for example:
Akachi-Adimora’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002). These writing are varied accounts of the Nigerian civil war, a contemporary event and through them unborn generations will be aware, even if not of the full factual details of the war of at least the basic perceptions of the war.
Literature enlarges ones experience. Some texts will lend themselves to easy understanding simply because of the reader’s actual experience. Hence, all definitions of literature boil down to and emphasize its nature, form and utility. These days, unlike in the past when the literature of a people is said to be the unwritten records of those set of people, the word literature is used to refer to a collection of historical, geographical and academic records such as personal essays, speeches, biographies and letters.
Nigerian writers generally appear to be more interested in recreating in the reader’s mind, a whole traditional way of life, bringing out varying degrees a man’s realities, by making use of frequent allusions to their people’s customs ‘and tradition. They bring on record communal activities such as festivals, ceremonies, ritual practices, beliefs, occupations and the co-existing nature typical of all Africans.
Hence, these writers have their foundations in the cultural heritage of their respective ethnic groups. Ernest Emenyonu (1972) rightly puts it thus:
In a multi-ethnic nation like Nigeria, it is imperative that the culture and life-ways of the component units should be given full airing so that national sentiments could be built upon the foundation of understanding.
In the same vein, Emmanuel Obiechina (1975) reasserts that “it is only by incorporating Nigerian tradition in our writings that make them Nigerian”.
Finally, literature is a portrait of man and his environment held up for him to see by the artist, so that he can have profound reflections about his world view and general existence. Critics of literature must understand it’s interdisciplinary nature for an intensive and extensive comprehension. Literature should contain ideology and also reflect the human mind. This is the meeting point between creativity and criticism.
1.2 DEFINITION OF TERMS:
a)
Facts can be defined as concrete reality or actual reality or actual presentation of events that have historical record. The reality could be social, economics or politics. The rise of facts in the novel was necessitated when there came the need for the actual documentation of events that occurred in the life of the people in a society or the society itself. Example are autobiographies, Biographies, documentary. All these give the actual events as they occurred and are recorded down through an element of creative imagination.
A writer like Adimora-Ezeigbo has shown in her trilogy an attempt to understand her society and relate with it in the context of a global historiography that shaped the works of pioneer writers and which as has been stated, is still unfolding. In simple terms then, the span of Nigerian literary history is still too short to evaluate the performance of writers on the basis of ‘generation’. The task of periodizing, and indeed, of writing a comprehensive and reliable account of Nigerian literature is rightly that of a future generation of critics for whom compilations of the nature attempted here would function as data. Facts are real issues discussed in Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo’s works like: feminism/gender issues, The Orature of the Igbo’s and the Aesthetics of facts and fiction. Akachi Adimora. — Ezeigbo in her The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) emphasized on the issue of feminism. In The Last of the Strong Ones(1996) Adimora — Ezeigbo continues what Chinua Achebe had begun more than forty years (40) before with his novel Things Fall Apart (1958). He wanted to show;
That African people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans; … their societies were not mindless but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and value and beauty. They had poetry and; above all, they had dignity …. The worst thing that can happen to any people is the loss of their dignity and self-respect. The writer’s duty is to help them regain it by showing them in human terms what happened to them, what they lost. There is a saying in Igbo that a man who can’t tell where the rain began to beat him cannot know where he dried his body. The writer can tell the people where the rain began to beat them.
Achebe’s literary portrait of the history and culture of the Igbo was limited to the extent that he marginalized women and neglected their voice. While Achebe thematizes the curse of colonialism with a view to men alone, and without a deeper examination of gender relations, Adimora — Ezeigbo is interested not only in colonialism, but also in gender relations on the eve of colonization. Unlike in Things fall Apart (1958), existing gender relations are not merely portrayed, but institutions such as polygamy and violence against women are put in a critical light. This double — tracked thematic orientation of the novel is also manifested in the narrator, who is commissioned by the inhabitants of the village “to preserve our tradition and guide our people back to our way of life before ‘Kosiri’ infested us with their presence” (p.82). In very concrete terms, she has the task of recording the life stories of the four Oluada, the “top women representatives” of .Umuga, who are also the main figures in the Umuada, the association of the daughters of Umuga. Later she is appointed chronicler of the colonial destruction of Umuga. The first person narrator lives up .to both tasks in the novels. By using the medium of literature for remembrance, she puts herself in the oral narrative tradition, to which the first-person narrator herself refers when she names “the family historian, the storyteller and the custodian of tradition” in one breath (p.83). This goes along with the fact that the narrator tells the story in an oral narrative style. Ezeigbo manages to imitate conventions of spoken language, so that when reading one has the impression that one is hearing the novel rather than reading it.
b) FICTION
Fiction is an abiding social beauty, the expression of human activities in written words; the expression and the impression of the people who have created it; it is the production of what purports to be an authentic account of the actual experience of individuals.
The novel reflects actual human experience narrated in a straight forward manner. While reading any novel, the reader might feel that he is reading about his own character or about his neighbors. This kind of reading is purely for enjoyment, leisure and probably to while away time, Besides, since prose is a narrative form, it becomes more accessible to the reader than other genres of literature especially in the African setting where the culture involves storytelling techniques.
Here, the literary artist is able to use very effectively, l for communicative purposes through imagination and creativity. And basically, the novel can be classified into fiction and non — fiction. Fiction in opposition to non — fiction is the prose from which the element are based on mere creative imagination of the artist rather than the real life situations presented by the non — fictional writers who are the novelists.
1.3 THE LAST OF THE STRONG ONES (1996) A SYNOPSIS
The novel is an imaginative reconstruction of the history of Uga, a town in South Eastern Nigeria. Woven around the lives of four influential women who flourish alongside their male counterparts in the leadership of their town, the story relates the struggle of a people to free their community from the clutches of meddlesome British colonialists, chronicling their experience as they resist a disruptive order that threatens their tradition and their humanity. Amidst the dramatic build up to an inevitable collision between tradition and change, the author embarks on a journey of role re- evaluation and redefinition of womanhood within the context of the Igbo culture.
Following the footsteps of Nigeria’s first female novelist, Flora Nwapa, who protested the relegation of the Igbo whom in a patriarchal society in her works Efuru (1966) and Idu (1968), Ezeigbo’s work is a reaction to the unacceptable socioeconomic situation of Igbo women in particular and Nigerian women in general, under colonial rule.
Like other Novelists in the womanist genre, Ezeigbo is preoccupied with the struggle for change, consciously expressed in the different forms of protest. In the case of The Last of the StrongOnes (1996) however, the author chooses to’ reconstruct the social realities of the Umuga community by entrenching women in active leadership roles alongside their male counterparts. This can be seen as a deliberate insistence on positive Igbo Heroines as a means of drawing attention to the importance and relevance of the woman’s voice, despite tradition.
Thus, by tracing the history of the Umuga community through the voices of women and reconstructing the transition process via women’s experiences, pains and emotions, t author protests the one sided presentation of gender roles in the writings of men which overlooked the militant role of women in the struggle against Colonialism (C.F. Nina Mba 1997).
Adimora Ezeigbo, through her fictional novels enlightens her readers on issues concerning her society. Social realities are entailed in her works, these issues are facts.
1.4 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FACTS AND FICTION.
Literature teaches moral lessons to man. A lot of lessons can be learnt from various works of literature. This is what we mean by didacticism. At the same time, literature is a source of entertainment. It is a known fact that man is always facing one problem or the other, because of the complexity and multiplicity of human problems. Human mind is most of the time being troubled. Literature can be used to heal the mind. This is what we mean by psycho-therapeutic function of literature. One should not forget to mention the fact that literature can be used to promote culture. Through it, we are exposed to the norms and values of various human societies.
Recently, I asked my sisters to make their biodata available to me as soon as possible, to write down facts about their lives that I might include in the family book. I belie\re I should also put together facts about my life that can go into the book. What is fact? And what is fiction? Can a line be really drawn between the two? I often think that the line between fact and fiction is blurred. What about the myths that society surrounds itself with? Is myth fact or fiction? People create myths to explain the unexplainable, the unknowable. In my family, we have our myths, just as Umuga has her myths (p.368).
The above excerpt by the author, explains that facts are real events and happenings in her life. Through her short stories and novels, the author tells us about her family background and childhood in ‘The Blind Man of Ekwulu’. She also tells us ‘The War’s Untold Unstory’: The challenging years of youth and also through her short story ‘Agarachaa’, She writes on the fact of the memories of her youth. However, ‘The life out there’ tells us the single and searching days of the author. In ‘The life out there’, the author writes on the strict, stern and constraining background in which she grew:
My parents were strict with us… I was a subdued child and quick in obeying whatever rules my parents laid down. One of those rules was that we were never to have boyfriends. I remember the day a boy posted a letter to our house without my knowledge and it got into my father’s hand. He read it and threatened to give the letter to the principal of my school and even to stop my education. You can imagine how I lost my patience with the boy upon my return to school. I warned him never to write such letters to me again… (Wov: 18).
Ezeigbo also wrote about her marriage and family life in ‘A Day to Remember’ (Rituals and Departures).It tells us about the author’s early marriage while in school and her first pregnancy.
Ezeigbo in her trilogy puts all these short stories together to produce a bigger novel. The writer is seen in the character Nnenne. She is a lecturer and a writer.
‘…She was happy; she was free from lectures, from supervision of projects and dissertations’ (COE: 343).
Ezeigbo in her literary works tells her readers the story of her life, family and children. She makes use of the novel because it gives her an avenue to depict fictional characters that represent her in her works. These events in her works are real but told as stories to entertain her readers and show her skill in writing.
1.5 RESEARCH PROBLEM
This research study will address itself to the way people tend to see fictional works. People see fictional works as being fictitious but they are over laid with fact. This study using Akachi Adimora – Ezeigbo’s works as guide, will demonstrate the impact of the intermeddling of fact with fiction in literary works.
1.6 METHODOLOGY
This research work will make use of the sociological theory. This theory is adopted for this study because Ezeigbo’s two works; The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children c the Eagle (2002) are centered on literature and the society. Sociological theory relates arts to the society. This is virtually important because literature cannot exist without the society. This study will also make use of the Socialist realism theory as a branch of sociological theory.
1.7 SCOPE OF STUDY AND LIMITATION
This research work titled Facts and fiction in Akachi Adimora — Ezeigbo’s The Last of the• strong Ones(1996 and Children of the
Eagle (2002), will begin with facts and fiction in literatuTe. The researcher will limit this study to areas of Orature, Feminism /Gender issues and Aesthetics concerning Ezeigbo’s works. This study is supposed to contain, broader aspects of facts and fiction. But due to time and space, this study will limit itself to the study of facts and fiction in Ezeigbo’s two works The researcher’s inability to interview Akachi , personally due to distance of learning is a limitation. Ezeigbo is a new writer. This fact led to difficulties in getting materials for the research work. This research work will pioneer criticism on the novelist.
1.8 JUSTIFICATION
This research work is carried out on Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo’s works because she ranks among the most out — spoken and prolific writers of modern times who use their literary works to challenge colonialist literatures and also African men’s literature. Akachi’s two works, The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002) are used for this study because the author infuses oral narratives of Igbo land. By adapting oral narrative devices, Adimora Ezeigbo decolonizes or, to be more precise, appropriates the Western’ based and determined novel and short story genre. This topic was chosen by the researcher because little has been done on Facts and Fiction in Ezeigbo’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002). The research will find out the realities in Ezeigbo’s fictional works. This research is carried out on Akachi because her novels have won awards and also because she is an award winning writer. She has won four major literary awards. She has also won several academic awards.
1.9 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This research will exhibit that literature contains fact and fiction. They do not always obstruct each other and when harnessed depending on the ingenuity of the artist they can serve multiple purposes This study will show how Ezeigbo through her works reenacts the evolution of modern Nigeria from the era of colonial incursion to the present. Ezeigbo’s works show with priority the role of women in the making of national history. Ezeigbo’s maturation in her literary writing will be exhibited in this research work.
1.10 STRUCTURE OF THESIS
Chapter one of this work covers the introduction to literature. It explains the definition of terms and it’s relationship. It also shows the research problem, purpose of the study, scope of the study and limitation, justification and methodology.
Chapter two of this research work contains the literature review. It entails the role of the Nigerian writer, issues related to Ezeigbo’s works and the use of oral literature in Ezeigbo’s fiction.
Chapter three of this study titled “Facts and Fiction in Akachi’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002)”, looks at the realities in Ezeigbo’s fiction.
Chapter four of this study covers the “Aesthetics residues of facts and fiction; An example of Akachi’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002)”.
Chapter Five is the summary of findings and conclusion of the research work.
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Tags: FACTS AND FICTION IN AKACHI ADIMORA – EZEIGBO’S CHILDREN OF THE EAGLE AND THE LAST OF THE STRONG ONES
ABSTRACT
This project work is on political corruption and symbolism. This project work brings out the corrupt practices by politicians and military rulers. To also brings out the symbols used in the novels. Chapter one is an introduction on political corruption in Nigeria and the way the military took over and ruled Nigeria. Chapter two is on the related literature review, chapter three is on political corruption and symbolism in Adichie Chumamanda Ngozi Half of a yellow Sun. Chapter four is on the political corruption and symbolism in Okey Ndibe’s Arrows of Rain chapter five of this project work is the conclusion. This project research concludes that though the coming of the British to colonise us brought civilization and also divisions among the ethnic groups which led to war. War leads to destruction of lives and properties, it should therefore be avoided.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Political corruption is the use of power by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality is considered political corruption. Most economic political and social problems in under developed societies like Nigeria emanate from corruption. Some of these problems include lack of accountability, diversion of public resources to private ownership, different types of discriminations, ethnicity. Lack of competence, inefficiency etc.
There are many causes of political corruption such as ineffective political processes, ineffective political financing, and poverty. Ethnic and religious difference.
A lot of secrecy still pervades government document and this underlies the need for the passage of the freedom of information bill presently before Nigeria‟s National Assembly, also law public participation in Government to mention a few.
The pervasive corrupt practices have been blamed on the colonial masters. According to this view, the nation‟s colonial history may have restricted any early influences in an ethical revolution.
Throughout the colonial period most Nigerians were struck in Ignorance and poverty.
The level of corruption raised serious alarm that attracted the concern of both Nigerians and international community which rated Nigeria as one of the most corrupt countries.
Although, the government embarked upon anti-corruption measures but were not sincerely and properly implemented such that the expected objective and goal were not achieved. The problem was rather aggravated. Since then, corruption has continued to militate against national development.
In Nigeria corruption is a problem that has to be rooted out.
Owusi (2002), however in his book, The Root Causes of Corruption in West Africa, was of the view that;
Corruption is made up of opportunist manipulation or branches of existing laws and regulation for advantages.
He emphasized that;
Our inordinate desire for wealth, power prestige and high status and its desirous consumption of scarce, expensive and prestigious import commodities is no doubt one of the roads to corruption in the society”.
Over the years, the country has seen its wealth withered with little to show in living conditions of the average people.
As with many other African nations, Nigeria was an artificial structure initiated by former colonial powers which had neglected to consider religious linguistic and ethnic differences.
The causes of Nigeria Civil War were diverse although, in his memoir, journalist Alex Mitchell blames involvement of the British, Dutch, French and Italian oil companies whose battles for the rich Nigerian oil fields started the Civil War and kept it going.
Nigerian‟s political problems also started from the manner in which the British took over power, administered and abandoned government and people of Nigeria. The British administrators did not make effort to weld the country together and unite the heterogenous group of people. Though many technologies we have today are due to their enlightenment.
Northern leaders however, fear that independence would mean political and economic domination by the more westernized elites in the south, preferred the perpetuation of British rule. As a condition for accepting independence, they demanded that the country continue to be divided into three regions with the North having a clear majority.
On January 15, 1966, major Kaduna Nzeogwu and other junior Army officers (mostly majors and captains) attempted a coup d‟etat. It was generally speculated that the coup had been initiated by the Igbo and for their own primary benefit, because of the ethnicity of those that were killed. The two major political leaders of the North, the Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the Premier of the Northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello was executed by major Nzeogwu. Also murdered was Sir Ahmadu Bello‟s wife
The coup was not only generally carried out in the Northern region, it was most successful there. The fact that the officer, Lieutenant Connell. Arthur Umegbe was killed can be attributed to the more fact that the officers in charge of implementing Nzeogwu‟s plans in the East were incompetent. The coup, also referred to as the coup of the five majors, has been described in some quarters as Nigeria‟s only revolutionary coup. This was the first coup in the short life of Nigeria‟s nascent democracy. Claims of electoral fraud was one of the reasons given by the coup plotters. This coup resulted in General Johnson Aguyi-Ironsi, an Igbo and Head of the Nigerian Army, taking power as General becoming the first Military Head of State in Nigeria.
By the late 1960s the literature of disillusionment was taking form as a reflection of the widespread violent conflict and political corruption which had began to take hold throughout African societies. Such conflicts inevitably threw the nationalist project into turnoil: how can one speak of a nation or even Pan-African identity when a national is at war with itself? In terms of the novel as genre, Gikandi states that in the mid-1960s the form and function of the novel changed almost overnight, moving the reader away from the sometimes celebratory and utopian tone of earlier novels to a grim critique of the narrative of cultural nationalism. This was a generation of writers who are consciously distancing themselves from the project of cultural nationalism.
This interventionist reading of the contemporary problems regarding ethnic conflict in Africa is one that is shared by writers as diverse as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ngugi Wa Thion‟o. Discussing Nigeria Adichie takes the view that the idea of the tribe has, its roots in colonialism as people did not consciously identify themselves as Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa until the involvement of the British.
The British governed Nigeria indirectly through their traditional rulers, as a result the true leader of the masses were hamstrung and held down. Just because Africans were given authority to rule over her own people. They saw it as means to maltreat those that have more than them and sell his or her brother and sister, mother to gain favour from the superior leaders. The British (Adewale Ademoyeya:why we Struck).
These actions by the local and foreign leaders made the people to seek for independence. Many of them were not thinking straight anymore. The present leadership blame the colonial masters and fore runners of independence for their actions for not doing what is expected of them and also for the embezzlement and stealing of public fund. The political elicits in other to become rich and influential in the society, steal and blame it on the economy and leaders. No one takes responsibility for his own crime and actions.
The politicians and military rulers blame one another for a bad government no one agrees that the other is better than himself.
Emeka Nwabueze is of the opinion that, the question is not weather we should wage war against corruption or not, my quarrel is that the fight should be waged within the context of the constitution.
Several opinions hold that Nigerian political and economic underdevelopment since independence has been as a result of pervasive corrupt practices in both private and public fields: Nepotism which means favouratism granted in politics or business to relatives regardless of merit.
Bribery which is an act of giving money or gift giving that alters the behaviour of the recipient.
Political Scandal is a kind of political corruption that is exposed and becomes a scandal, in which politicians or government officials are accused of engaging in various illegal, corrupt or unethical practices.
Electoral Fraud is the illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result whether by increasing the vote share of the rival candidates, or both. Embezzlement, abuse of office etc.
Arnold saw corruption as receiving or offering of money or other advantages in return for contract, acquiring an opportunity, unqualified favor, pervasion of Justice, leading ahead of a queue and the likes. He saw corruption as poverty in juxtaposition to great wealth and luxury or crook in order to live big.
A symbol is an object that represents, stands for or suggests an idea, belief, action, or material entity. Symbols take the form of words, sounds gestures or visual images and are used to convey ideas and beliefs.
It‟s also a sign, shape or object which is used to represent something else.
Symbol is seen in every culture, religion and society. This makes symbol universally acceptable in the sense that it does not exist in one society and is absent in another. There are cultural and religious symbols. Cultural symbols are seen in language, traditional attire, and tribal marks, sacred objects of ancestral qualities; like “ofo” in Igbo culture as the communion of the ancestors. In Igbo culture, grey hair is a symbol of old age and should attain contesy and respect, proverb also in Igbo society are symbolic because they are embodiment of wisdom and tradition.
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Political corruption is the abuse of political powers by the government leaders to extract and accumulate for private gain.
Corruption has eaten deep into the system and has destroyed lives and communities and undermines countries and institutions.
The legacy and practices of corruption in different level of ethnic groups leads to war which leaves painful memory behind.
The attempt to create a common understanding has led to the research of this project work.
PURPOSE OF STUDY
The purpose of this paper is to identify the cause of political corruption, its consequences, find a way to prevent it and effect a change. There are also issues were readers find it difficult to identify the presence of symbols in Nigerian fiction and also to understand its meaning the study of this work is to emphasis more on its way out.
SCOPE OF STUDY
The project is the study of political corruption and symbolism and it is mainly focused on two novels: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Arrows of Rain by Okey Ndibe and other relevant literary work of some other Nigerian and African writers and commentaries on corruption and symbolism.
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
This research paper will help inform readers who have interest in political corruption and symbolism with the help of using Half of a Yellow Sun by Adichie Chimamanda and Okey Ndibe‟s Arrows of Rain.
This work will expose how the governments corrupt the society, what happened before, during and after the Biafran War and military rule and how it affected the live of the masses.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The main sources of this project are the factual analysis of the two novels Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie and Arrows of Rain by Okey Ndibe.
Other sources of research are from the library, texts, the internet, Journal and reviews of related texts.
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No Fraudulent company uses Bank Account as a means of payment, because Bank Account contains the overall information of the owner
CAUTION/WARNING
Please, DO NOT COPY any of our materials on this website WORD-TO-WORD. These materials are to assist, direct you during your project. Study the materials carefully and use the information in them to develop your own new copy. Copying these materials word-to-word is CHEATING/ ILLEGAL because it affects Educational standard, and we will not be held responsible for it. If you must copy word-to-word please do not order/buy.
That you ordered this material shows you have agreed not to copy word-to-word.
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Tags: POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND SYMBOLISM IN ADICHIE CHIMAMANDA NGOZI’S HALF OF A YELLOW SUN AND OKEY NDIBE’S ARROWS OF RAIN
ABSTRACT
This project work is on political corruption and symbolism. This project work brings out the corrupt practices by politicians and military rulers. To also brings out the symbols used in the novels. Chapter one is an introduction on political corruption in Nigeria and the way the military took over and ruled Nigeria. Chapter two is on the related literature review, chapter three is on political corruption and symbolism in Adichie Chumamanda Ngozi Half of a yellow Sun. Chapter four is on the political corruption and symbolism in Okey Ndibe’s Arrows of Rain chapter five of this project work is the conclusion. This project research concludes that though the coming of the British to colonise us brought civilization and also divisions among the ethnic groups which led to war. War leads to destruction of lives and properties, it should therefore be avoided.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Political corruption is the use of power by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality is considered political corruption. Most economic political and social problems in under developed societies like Nigeria emanate from corruption. Some of these problems include lack of accountability, diversion of public resources to private ownership, different types of discriminations, ethnicity. Lack of competence, inefficiency etc.
There are many causes of political corruption such as ineffective political processes, ineffective political financing, and poverty. Ethnic and religious difference.
A lot of secrecy still pervades government document and this underlies the need for the passage of the freedom of information bill presently before Nigeria‟s National Assembly, also law public participation in Government to mention a few.
The pervasive corrupt practices have been blamed on the colonial masters. According to this view, the nation‟s colonial history may have restricted any early influences in an ethical revolution.
Throughout the colonial period most Nigerians were struck in Ignorance and poverty.
The level of corruption raised serious alarm that attracted the concern of both Nigerians and international community which rated Nigeria as one of the most corrupt countries.
Although, the government embarked upon anti-corruption measures but were not sincerely and properly implemented such that the expected objective and goal were not achieved. The problem was rather aggravated. Since then, corruption has continued to militate against national development.
In Nigeria corruption is a problem that has to be rooted out.
Owusi (2002), however in his book, The Root Causes of Corruption in West Africa, was of the view that;
Corruption is made up of opportunist manipulation or branches of existing laws and regulation for advantages.
He emphasized that;
Our inordinate desire for wealth, power prestige and high status and its desirous consumption of scarce, expensive and prestigious import commodities is no doubt one of the roads to corruption in the society”.
Over the years, the country has seen its wealth withered with little to show in living conditions of the average people.
As with many other African nations, Nigeria was an artificial structure initiated by former colonial powers which had neglected to consider religious linguistic and ethnic differences.
The causes of Nigeria Civil War were diverse although, in his memoir, journalist Alex Mitchell blames involvement of the British, Dutch, French and Italian oil companies whose battles for the rich Nigerian oil fields started the Civil War and kept it going.
Nigerian‟s political problems also started from the manner in which the British took over power, administered and abandoned government and people of Nigeria. The British administrators did not make effort to weld the country together and unite the heterogenous group of people. Though many technologies we have today are due to their enlightenment.
Northern leaders however, fear that independence would mean political and economic domination by the more westernized elites in the south, preferred the perpetuation of British rule. As a condition for accepting independence, they demanded that the country continue to be divided into three regions with the North having a clear majority.
On January 15, 1966, major Kaduna Nzeogwu and other junior Army officers (mostly majors and captains) attempted a coup d‟etat. It was generally speculated that the coup had been initiated by the Igbo and for their own primary benefit, because of the ethnicity of those that were killed. The two major political leaders of the North, the Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the Premier of the Northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello was executed by major Nzeogwu. Also murdered was Sir Ahmadu Bello‟s wife
The coup was not only generally carried out in the Northern region, it was most successful there. The fact that the officer, Lieutenant Connell. Arthur Umegbe was killed can be attributed to the more fact that the officers in charge of implementing Nzeogwu‟s plans in the East were incompetent. The coup, also referred to as the coup of the five majors, has been described in some quarters as Nigeria‟s only revolutionary coup. This was the first coup in the short life of Nigeria‟s nascent democracy. Claims of electoral fraud was one of the reasons given by the coup plotters. This coup resulted in General Johnson Aguyi-Ironsi, an Igbo and Head of the Nigerian Army, taking power as General becoming the first Military Head of State in Nigeria.
By the late 1960s the literature of disillusionment was taking form as a reflection of the widespread violent conflict and political corruption which had began to take hold throughout African societies. Such conflicts inevitably threw the nationalist project into turnoil: how can one speak of a nation or even Pan-African identity when a national is at war with itself? In terms of the novel as genre, Gikandi states that in the mid-1960s the form and function of the novel changed almost overnight, moving the reader away from the sometimes celebratory and utopian tone of earlier novels to a grim critique of the narrative of cultural nationalism. This was a generation of writers who are consciously distancing themselves from the project of cultural nationalism.
This interventionist reading of the contemporary problems regarding ethnic conflict in Africa is one that is shared by writers as diverse as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Ngugi Wa Thion‟o. Discussing Nigeria Adichie takes the view that the idea of the tribe has, its roots in colonialism as people did not consciously identify themselves as Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa until the involvement of the British.
The British governed Nigeria indirectly through their traditional rulers, as a result the true leader of the masses were hamstrung and held down. Just because Africans were given authority to rule over her own people. They saw it as means to maltreat those that have more than them and sell his or her brother and sister, mother to gain favour from the superior leaders. The British (Adewale Ademoyeya:why we Struck).
These actions by the local and foreign leaders made the people to seek for independence. Many of them were not thinking straight anymore. The present leadership blame the colonial masters and fore runners of independence for their actions for not doing what is expected of them and also for the embezzlement and stealing of public fund. The political elicits in other to become rich and influential in the society, steal and blame it on the economy and leaders. No one takes responsibility for his own crime and actions.
The politicians and military rulers blame one another for a bad government no one agrees that the other is better than himself.
Emeka Nwabueze is of the opinion that, the question is not weather we should wage war against corruption or not, my quarrel is that the fight should be waged within the context of the constitution.
Several opinions hold that Nigerian political and economic underdevelopment since independence has been as a result of pervasive corrupt practices in both private and public fields: Nepotism which means favouratism granted in politics or business to relatives regardless of merit.
Bribery which is an act of giving money or gift giving that alters the behaviour of the recipient.
Political Scandal is a kind of political corruption that is exposed and becomes a scandal, in which politicians or government officials are accused of engaging in various illegal, corrupt or unethical practices.
Electoral Fraud is the illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result whether by increasing the vote share of the rival candidates, or both. Embezzlement, abuse of office etc.
Arnold saw corruption as receiving or offering of money or other advantages in return for contract, acquiring an opportunity, unqualified favor, pervasion of Justice, leading ahead of a queue and the likes. He saw corruption as poverty in juxtaposition to great wealth and luxury or crook in order to live big.
A symbol is an object that represents, stands for or suggests an idea, belief, action, or material entity. Symbols take the form of words, sounds gestures or visual images and are used to convey ideas and beliefs.
It‟s also a sign, shape or object which is used to represent something else.
Symbol is seen in every culture, religion and society. This makes symbol universally acceptable in the sense that it does not exist in one society and is absent in another. There are cultural and religious symbols. Cultural symbols are seen in language, traditional attire, and tribal marks, sacred objects of ancestral qualities; like “ofo” in Igbo culture as the communion of the ancestors. In Igbo culture, grey hair is a symbol of old age and should attain contesy and respect, proverb also in Igbo society are symbolic because they are embodiment of wisdom and tradition.
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Political corruption is the abuse of political powers by the government leaders to extract and accumulate for private gain.
Corruption has eaten deep into the system and has destroyed lives and communities and undermines countries and institutions.
The legacy and practices of corruption in different level of ethnic groups leads to war which leaves painful memory behind.
The attempt to create a common understanding has led to the research of this project work.
PURPOSE OF STUDY
The purpose of this paper is to identify the cause of political corruption, its consequences, find a way to prevent it and effect a change. There are also issues were readers find it difficult to identify the presence of symbols in Nigerian fiction and also to understand its meaning the study of this work is to emphasis more on its way out.
SCOPE OF STUDY
The project is the study of political corruption and symbolism and it is mainly focused on two novels: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Arrows of Rain by Okey Ndibe and other relevant literary work of some other Nigerian and African writers and commentaries on corruption and symbolism.
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
This research paper will help inform readers who have interest in political corruption and symbolism with the help of using Half of a Yellow Sun by Adichie Chimamanda and Okey Ndibe‟s Arrows of Rain.
This work will expose how the governments corrupt the society, what happened before, during and after the Biafran War and military rule and how it affected the live of the masses.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The main sources of this project are the factual analysis of the two novels Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie and Arrows of Rain by Okey Ndibe.
Other sources of research are from the library, texts, the internet, Journal and reviews of related texts.
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That you ordered this material shows you have agreed not to copy word-to-word.
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Tags: POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND SYMBOLISM IN ADICHIE CHIMAMANDA NGOZI’S HALF OF A YELLOW SUN AND OKEY NDIBE’S ARROWS OF RAIN
ABSTRACT
The Concept of Class struggle describes the constant conflict among the existing strata in every society. The purpose of this academic research is to explore the meaning and important of class struggle in the context of the selected texts. The theoretical framework for this research is the Marxist-Leninist theory, which could be simply summarized as the reaction of the exploited to get rid of exploitation and the exploiters. Various styles used by the duo of Iyayi and Falls is described. In the light of which class struggle is perceived as a necessity to relieve social strains of inequality and injustice.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Background
1.3 Aim of study
1.4 Scope of study
1.5 Justification of study
1.6 Research Methodology
1.7 Research questions
1.8 Definition of terms
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Overview
2.2 Class and its determinants
2.3 Relevant historic instances of class struggle
2.4 Contemporary instances of class struggle
2.5 Causes of class struggle
CHAPTER THREE
ANALYSIS OF FESTUS IYAYI’S VIOLENCE
3.1 Brief Biography of Festus Iyayi
3.2 Analysis of Major characters
3.3 Survey of class struggle in Violence
3.4 Class struggle as revelation of other themes in Violence
3.5 Literary techniques used in Festus Iyayi’s Violence
CHAPTER FOUR
ANALYSIS OF ANIMATA SOW FALL’S THE BEGGARS’ STRIKE
4.1 Brief Biography of Animata Sow Fall
4.2 Analysis of Major characters
4.3 Survey of class struggle in The Beggars’ strike
4.4 Literary techniques used in Animata Sow Fall’s The Beggars’ strike
CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 Conclusions and Recommendation
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The concept of class struggle describes a constant conflict among the existing strata in the society. In the Selected texts, Animata Sow Fall’s The Beggars’ strike and Festus iyayi’s Violence, themes pertaining to class struggle were described, Class struggle becomes a necessity in any society with a wide gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. This academic project examines the extent to which the duo of Animata and Iyayi utilized the theme – Class struggle, in their novels, The beggars’ strike and Violence respectively.
1.2 BACKGROUND
Karl Marx wrote to Friedrich Engels in 1882: “you know very well where we found our idea of class struggle; we found it in the work of the French historians who talked about the race struggle”. Class struggle predates Karl Marx; one may boldly say that it describes the history of all existing human civilizations.
Social classes are often described as either upper, middle or lower based on income, wealth or estate. However, Marxist notion of class in a capitalist setting is based on the control of means of production. Karl Marx describes two main classes:
Proletariat (Labour)
Bourgeoisie (Capitalist)
The Proletariat (labour) makes a living directly from their labour whereas the Bourgeoisie controls the means of production, exploiting the proletariat, living off the surplus value on cheap labour. This may be perceived as a form of neocolonialism, labour is exploited to create economic and socio-political dominance. A most shameful version of Apartheid in post colonial Africa, perpetrated by Africans on fellow Africans. Burdened by extreme poverty and hunger, the masses inevitably revolt against oppression. The ensuing struggle, though often violent, non-violent struggle is not uncommon.
In the selected texts, forms of class struggle includes: industrial strike actions, protests, rallies, pilferage, sabotage etc Class struggle in Africa is inextricably linked to corruption and injustice. In an unjust society where wealth is unevenly distributed and the rule of law biased, class struggle is seen as a necessity. It becomes the only available option for the masses to fight for economic and social relevance. Class struggle is a brave attempt at reshaping capitalism into a more equitable system of governance and giving birth to a truly egalitarian, economically viable and politically stable Nation. Class struggle is a bold step towards achieving a true utopian society, which is the ultimate Marxist phantom.
1.3 AIM OF STUDY
This study is a modest attempt at providing insight into the concept of class struggle in Africa. Based on the works of two distinguished proletarian writers, Animata Sow fall and Festus Iyayi in their works – The Beggars’ strike and Violence, the following objectives were brought to light:
Definition of and description of the concept of class;
Identification and description of the types of class in the selected texts;
Definition of class struggle;
Identification of similarities and differences between francophone and Anglophone African societies in terms of class and class struggle;
Identification of benefits and side-effects of class struggle;
Providing a workable solution to the problems of class struggle in Africa; and
Providing reliable answers to research questions set at the beginning of the study.
1.4 SCOPE OF STUDY
The focus of this study is Africa, with Senegal and Nigeria as case studies as portrayed by the duo of Animata and Iyayi in The beggars’ strike and Violence respectively. This research investigates how judiciously the understudied works reveal the existence of class struggle and other sub-themes like, oppression and negritude in the context of francophone and Anglophone Africa. The choice of works based on Senegal and Nigeria is motivated by the fact that, the two countries give a fair representation of West Africa, giving the Francophone and the Anglophone point of view. This is imperative as it is almost certainly impossible to study works from every part of Africa considering the constraints of time and resources.
1.5 JUSTIFICATION OF STUDY
The significance of this research apart from providing a reliable source of information for future researchers on class struggle is also of great value in appraisal of democratic values in Africa. Understanding the role of class struggle in society will strengthen Africa’s nascent democracy and promote good governance.
This research is also a celebration of artistic imagination and dexterity displayed by these distinguished African Writers, Animata Sowfall and Festus Iyayi.
1.6 METHODOLOGY AND THEORY
This research is both qualitative and descriptive, with thematic analysis of the texts. Themes of class struggle and related sub-themes like poverty, rule of law, democracy etc were adequately analyzed.
This research is based on the Marxist-Leninist theory of the society, which could be simply paraphrased as: The exploiters oppress the exploited while the exploited attempt to get ride of exploitation and the exploiters.
The sample frame is Senegal and Nigeria which were the setting in the selected texts, this research also made use of demographic analysis as well as a general overview of the
Characters and the artistic styles employed by the authors.
1.6.1 DESCRIPTION OF STUDY AREA
SENEGAL
Senegal a former French colony in West Africa, capital is Dakar. The current president is Abdoulaye Wade, re-elected in March 2007.
On an Area of 76000 sq mi bounded by Mauritania to the north, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south, the Atlantic Ocean to the west and to the east is Mali .On August 20, 1960 Senegal became an independent republic with the famous Leopold Sedar Senghor as first president. Previous unicameral system was abandoned in 2007, Senegal now run a bicameral parliament, consisting of the National Assemble and the Senate. Senegal is divided into 14 divisions, headed by local administrators appointed and accountable to the president. Power is intensely centralized and this often leads to criticism of Senegalese political structure, state and religion are not clearly demarcated as a majorly Islamic population, leaders of Islamic groups called the marabouts often play major role in politics.
Senegal has a wide variety of ethnic groups and, as in most West African countries, several languages are widely spoken. The Wolof are the largest single ethnic group in Senegal at 43 percent; the Fula and Toucouleur (also known as Halpulaar’en, literally “Pulaar-speakers”) (24 percent) are the second biggest group, followed by others that include the Serer (15 percent), Lebou (10 percent), Jola (4 percent), Mandinka (3 percent), Maures or Naarkajors, Soninke, Bassari and many smaller communities (9 percent).
The main industries include food processing, mining, cement, artificial fertilizer, chemicals, textiles, refining imported petroleum, and tourism. Exports include fish, chemicals, cotton, fabrics, groundnuts, and calcium phosphate
Population Senegal has a population of over 12.5 million
Total GDP $13.472billion and per capita of $ 1,026 (2010 estimate)
Life expectancy 55.6 years (2008)
2010 Mo Ibrahim index of governance No.14 with a score of 56%
NIGERIA
The country is located in West Africa on an area of 356,667 sq mi and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. In terms of religion Nigeria is roughly split half and half between Muslims and Christians with a very small minority who practice traditional religion. Capital city is Abuja. Present president is Goodluck Jonathan. Nigeria a former British colony became independent in 1st October 1960
The president’s power is checked by a Senate and a House of Representatives, which are combined in a bicameral body called the National Assembly. The Senate is a 109-seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The House contains 360 seats and the number of seats per state is determined by population. Nigeria economy is largely based on petroleum.
Population is about 152million (2010estimate)
Total (nominal) GDP is $173.428 billion with per capita at $1,142
Life expectancy is 47 years
2010 Mo Ibrahim index of governance No.37 with a score of 43%
1.6.2 MARXIST-LENINIST THEORY OF SOCIETY
Marxism-Leninism is coined to denote the ideology that Vladimir Lenin had built upon the thought of Karl Marx. There are two broad areas that have set apart Marxism-Leninism as a school of thought.
First, Lenin’s followers generally view his additions to the body of Marxism as the practical aspect of Marx’s original theoretical contributions of the 19th century. Lenin called this time-frame the era of Imperialism.
Joseph Stalin wrote that; “Leninism grew up and took shape under the conditions of imperialism, when the contradictions of capitalism had reached an extreme point, when the proletarian revolution had become an immediate practical question, when the old period of preparation of the working class for revolution had arrived at and passed into a new period, that of direct assault on capitalism”
The most important consequence of a Leninist-style theory of Imperialism is the strategic need for workers in the industrialized countries to come together with the oppressed nations contained within their respective countries and colonies abroad in order to overthrow capitalism. This is the source of the slogan, which shows the Leninist conception that not only the proletariat, as is traditional to Marxism, are the sole revolutionary force, but all oppressed people; “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World, Unite!”
Second, the other distinguishing characteristic of Marxism-Leninism is how it approaches the question of organization. Lenin believed that the traditional model of the Social Democratic parties of the time, which was a loose, multitendency organization was inadequate for overthrowing the Tsarist regime in Russia. He proposed a cadre of professional revolutionaries that disciplined itself under the model of Democratic Centralism.
In solving the national question Leninism profer the following thesis:
a] The world is divided into two camps: the camp of a handful of civilised nations, which possess finance capital and exploit the vast majority of the population of the globe; and the camp of the oppressed and exploited peoples in the colonies and dependent countries, which constitute that majority;
b] The colonies and dependent countries, oppressed and exploited by finance capital, constitute a vast reserve and a very important source of strength for imperialism;
c] The revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples in the dependent and colonial countries against imperialism is the only road that leads to their emancipation from oppression and exploitation
1.7 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The following questions were modestly answered by this research:
What kind of ideological vision is demonstrated by Animata Sow fall and Festus Iyayi?
Race struggle is the predecessor of class struggle. Discuss
What are the similarities and differences between class struggle and race struggle?
Class struggle is an inevitable pre-requisite to achieving economic growth and socio-political stability in Africa. Discuss
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Class: A set, collection, group, or configuration containing members regarded as having certain attributes or traits in common; a kind or category, Social rank or caste
Class struggle: the Marxism the continual conflict between the capitalist and working classes for economic and political power Also called class war
Race struggle: conflicts or war between races and civilizations
Proletariat: The class of industrial wage earners who, possessing neither capital nor production means, must earn their living by selling their labor
Bourgeoisie: In Marxist theory, the social group opposed to the proletariat in the class struggle. The ruling class of the two basic classes of capitalist society, consisting of capitalists, manufacturers, bankers, and other employers. The bourgeoisie owns the most important of the means of production, through which it exploits the working class
Capitalism: An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market
Means of production: the raw materials and means of labour (tools, machines, etc.) employed in the production process
Marxist-Leninist theory: An expanded form of Marxism that emphasizes Lenin’s concept of imperialism as the final stage of capitalism and shifts the focus of struggle from developed to underdeveloped countries.
HOW TO GET THE FULL PROJECT WORK
PLEASE, print the following instructions and information if you will like to order/buy our complete written material(s).
HOW TO RECEIVE PROJECT MATERIAL(S)
After paying the appropriate amount (#10000) into our bank Account below, send the following information to
08068231953 or 08168759420
(1) Your project topics
(2) Email Address
(3) Payment Name
(4) Teller Number
We will send your material(s) immediately we receive bank alert
BANK ACCOUNTS
Account Name: AMUTAH DANIEL CHUKWUDI
Account Number: 0046579864
Bank: GTBank.
OR
Account Name: AMUTAH DANIEL CHUKWUDI
Account Number: 2023350498
Bank: UBA.
HOW TO IDENTIFY SCAM/FRAUD
As a result of fraud in Nigeria, people don’t believe there are good online businesses in Nigeria.
But on this site, we have provided “table of content and chapter one” of all our project topics and materials in order to convince you that we have the complete materials.
Secondly, we have provided our Bank Account on this site. Our Bank Account contains all information about the owner of this website. For your own security, all payment should be made in the bank.
No Fraudulent company uses Bank Account as a means of payment, because Bank Account contains the overall information of the owner
CAUTION/WARNING
Please, DO NOT COPY any of our materials on this website WORD-TO-WORD. These materials are to assist, direct you during your project. Study the materials carefully and use the information in them to develop your own new copy. Copying these materials word-to-word is CHEATING/ ILLEGAL because it affects Educational standard, and we will not be held responsible for it. If you must copy word-to-word please do not order/buy.
That you ordered this material shows you have agreed not to copy word-to-word.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL:
08068231953 or 08168759420
Visit any of our project websites below:
www.easyprojectmaterials.com
www.easyprojectmaterials.com.ng
www.easyprojectmaterial.net
www.easyprojectmaterial.net.ng
www.easyprojectsolutions.com
www.worldofnolimit.com
www.worldofnolimit.com
www.nairaproject.com.ng
www.nairaprojects.com.ng
www.nairaproject.net
www.nairaprojects.net
www.uniproject.com.ng
www.uniprojects.com.ng
Tags: CLASS STRUGGLE.A CASE STUDY OF FESTUS IYAYI’S VIOLENCE AND AMINATA SOW FALL’S THE BEGGARS STRIKE
ABSTRACT
The Concept of Class struggle describes the constant conflict among the existing strata in every society. The purpose of this academic research is to explore the meaning and important of class struggle in the context of the selected texts. The theoretical framework for this research is the Marxist-Leninist theory, which could be simply summarized as the reaction of the exploited to get rid of exploitation and the exploiters. Various styles used by the duo of Iyayi and Falls is described. In the light of which class struggle is perceived as a necessity to relieve social strains of inequality and injustice.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Background
1.3 Aim of study
1.4 Scope of study
1.5 Justification of study
1.6 Research Methodology
1.7 Research questions
1.8 Definition of terms
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Overview
2.2 Class and its determinants
2.3 Relevant historic instances of class struggle
2.4 Contemporary instances of class struggle
2.5 Causes of class struggle
CHAPTER THREE
ANALYSIS OF FESTUS IYAYI’S VIOLENCE
3.1 Brief Biography of Festus Iyayi
3.2 Analysis of Major characters
3.3 Survey of class struggle in Violence
3.4 Class struggle as revelation of other themes in Violence
3.5 Literary techniques used in Festus Iyayi’s Violence
CHAPTER FOUR
ANALYSIS OF ANIMATA SOW FALL’S THE BEGGARS’ STRIKE
4.1 Brief Biography of Animata Sow Fall
4.2 Analysis of Major characters
4.3 Survey of class struggle in The Beggars’ strike
4.4 Literary techniques used in Animata Sow Fall’s The Beggars’ strike
CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 Conclusions and Recommendation
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The concept of class struggle describes a constant conflict among the existing strata in the society. In the Selected texts, Animata Sow Fall’s The Beggars’ strike and Festus iyayi’s Violence, themes pertaining to class struggle were described, Class struggle becomes a necessity in any society with a wide gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. This academic project examines the extent to which the duo of Animata and Iyayi utilized the theme – Class struggle, in their novels, The beggars’ strike and Violence respectively.
1.2 BACKGROUND
Karl Marx wrote to Friedrich Engels in 1882: “you know very well where we found our idea of class struggle; we found it in the work of the French historians who talked about the race struggle”. Class struggle predates Karl Marx; one may boldly say that it describes the history of all existing human civilizations.
Social classes are often described as either upper, middle or lower based on income, wealth or estate. However, Marxist notion of class in a capitalist setting is based on the control of means of production. Karl Marx describes two main classes:
Proletariat (Labour)
Bourgeoisie (Capitalist)
The Proletariat (labour) makes a living directly from their labour whereas the Bourgeoisie controls the means of production, exploiting the proletariat, living off the surplus value on cheap labour. This may be perceived as a form of neocolonialism, labour is exploited to create economic and socio-political dominance. A most shameful version of Apartheid in post colonial Africa, perpetrated by Africans on fellow Africans. Burdened by extreme poverty and hunger, the masses inevitably revolt against oppression. The ensuing struggle, though often violent, non-violent struggle is not uncommon.
In the selected texts, forms of class struggle includes: industrial strike actions, protests, rallies, pilferage, sabotage etc Class struggle in Africa is inextricably linked to corruption and injustice. In an unjust society where wealth is unevenly distributed and the rule of law biased, class struggle is seen as a necessity. It becomes the only available option for the masses to fight for economic and social relevance. Class struggle is a brave attempt at reshaping capitalism into a more equitable system of governance and giving birth to a truly egalitarian, economically viable and politically stable Nation. Class struggle is a bold step towards achieving a true utopian society, which is the ultimate Marxist phantom.
1.3 AIM OF STUDY
This study is a modest attempt at providing insight into the concept of class struggle in Africa. Based on the works of two distinguished proletarian writers, Animata Sow fall and Festus Iyayi in their works – The Beggars’ strike and Violence, the following objectives were brought to light:
Definition of and description of the concept of class;
Identification and description of the types of class in the selected texts;
Definition of class struggle;
Identification of similarities and differences between francophone and Anglophone African societies in terms of class and class struggle;
Identification of benefits and side-effects of class struggle;
Providing a workable solution to the problems of class struggle in Africa; and
Providing reliable answers to research questions set at the beginning of the study.
1.4 SCOPE OF STUDY
The focus of this study is Africa, with Senegal and Nigeria as case studies as portrayed by the duo of Animata and Iyayi in The beggars’ strike and Violence respectively. This research investigates how judiciously the understudied works reveal the existence of class struggle and other sub-themes like, oppression and negritude in the context of francophone and Anglophone Africa. The choice of works based on Senegal and Nigeria is motivated by the fact that, the two countries give a fair representation of West Africa, giving the Francophone and the Anglophone point of view. This is imperative as it is almost certainly impossible to study works from every part of Africa considering the constraints of time and resources.
1.5 JUSTIFICATION OF STUDY
The significance of this research apart from providing a reliable source of information for future researchers on class struggle is also of great value in appraisal of democratic values in Africa. Understanding the role of class struggle in society will strengthen Africa’s nascent democracy and promote good governance.
This research is also a celebration of artistic imagination and dexterity displayed by these distinguished African Writers, Animata Sowfall and Festus Iyayi.
1.6 METHODOLOGY AND THEORY
This research is both qualitative and descriptive, with thematic analysis of the texts. Themes of class struggle and related sub-themes like poverty, rule of law, democracy etc were adequately analyzed.
This research is based on the Marxist-Leninist theory of the society, which could be simply paraphrased as: The exploiters oppress the exploited while the exploited attempt to get ride of exploitation and the exploiters.
The sample frame is Senegal and Nigeria which were the setting in the selected texts, this research also made use of demographic analysis as well as a general overview of the
Characters and the artistic styles employed by the authors.
1.6.1 DESCRIPTION OF STUDY AREA
SENEGAL
Senegal a former French colony in West Africa, capital is Dakar. The current president is Abdoulaye Wade, re-elected in March 2007.
On an Area of 76000 sq mi bounded by Mauritania to the north, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south, the Atlantic Ocean to the west and to the east is Mali .On August 20, 1960 Senegal became an independent republic with the famous Leopold Sedar Senghor as first president. Previous unicameral system was abandoned in 2007, Senegal now run a bicameral parliament, consisting of the National Assemble and the Senate. Senegal is divided into 14 divisions, headed by local administrators appointed and accountable to the president. Power is intensely centralized and this often leads to criticism of Senegalese political structure, state and religion are not clearly demarcated as a majorly Islamic population, leaders of Islamic groups called the marabouts often play major role in politics.
Senegal has a wide variety of ethnic groups and, as in most West African countries, several languages are widely spoken. The Wolof are the largest single ethnic group in Senegal at 43 percent; the Fula and Toucouleur (also known as Halpulaar’en, literally “Pulaar-speakers”) (24 percent) are the second biggest group, followed by others that include the Serer (15 percent), Lebou (10 percent), Jola (4 percent), Mandinka (3 percent), Maures or Naarkajors, Soninke, Bassari and many smaller communities (9 percent).
The main industries include food processing, mining, cement, artificial fertilizer, chemicals, textiles, refining imported petroleum, and tourism. Exports include fish, chemicals, cotton, fabrics, groundnuts, and calcium phosphate
Population Senegal has a population of over 12.5 million
Total GDP $13.472billion and per capita of $ 1,026 (2010 estimate)
Life expectancy 55.6 years (2008)
2010 Mo Ibrahim index of governance No.14 with a score of 56%
NIGERIA
The country is located in West Africa on an area of 356,667 sq mi and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. In terms of religion Nigeria is roughly split half and half between Muslims and Christians with a very small minority who practice traditional religion. Capital city is Abuja. Present president is Goodluck Jonathan. Nigeria a former British colony became independent in 1st October 1960
The president’s power is checked by a Senate and a House of Representatives, which are combined in a bicameral body called the National Assembly. The Senate is a 109-seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms. The House contains 360 seats and the number of seats per state is determined by population. Nigeria economy is largely based on petroleum.
Population is about 152million (2010estimate)
Total (nominal) GDP is $173.428 billion with per capita at $1,142
Life expectancy is 47 years
2010 Mo Ibrahim index of governance No.37 with a score of 43%
1.6.2 MARXIST-LENINIST THEORY OF SOCIETY
Marxism-Leninism is coined to denote the ideology that Vladimir Lenin had built upon the thought of Karl Marx. There are two broad areas that have set apart Marxism-Leninism as a school of thought.
First, Lenin’s followers generally view his additions to the body of Marxism as the practical aspect of Marx’s original theoretical contributions of the 19th century. Lenin called this time-frame the era of Imperialism.
Joseph Stalin wrote that; “Leninism grew up and took shape under the conditions of imperialism, when the contradictions of capitalism had reached an extreme point, when the proletarian revolution had become an immediate practical question, when the old period of preparation of the working class for revolution had arrived at and passed into a new period, that of direct assault on capitalism”
The most important consequence of a Leninist-style theory of Imperialism is the strategic need for workers in the industrialized countries to come together with the oppressed nations contained within their respective countries and colonies abroad in order to overthrow capitalism. This is the source of the slogan, which shows the Leninist conception that not only the proletariat, as is traditional to Marxism, are the sole revolutionary force, but all oppressed people; “Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World, Unite!”
Second, the other distinguishing characteristic of Marxism-Leninism is how it approaches the question of organization. Lenin believed that the traditional model of the Social Democratic parties of the time, which was a loose, multitendency organization was inadequate for overthrowing the Tsarist regime in Russia. He proposed a cadre of professional revolutionaries that disciplined itself under the model of Democratic Centralism.
In solving the national question Leninism profer the following thesis:
a] The world is divided into two camps: the camp of a handful of civilised nations, which possess finance capital and exploit the vast majority of the population of the globe; and the camp of the oppressed and exploited peoples in the colonies and dependent countries, which constitute that majority;
b] The colonies and dependent countries, oppressed and exploited by finance capital, constitute a vast reserve and a very important source of strength for imperialism;
c] The revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples in the dependent and colonial countries against imperialism is the only road that leads to their emancipation from oppression and exploitation
1.7 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The following questions were modestly answered by this research:
What kind of ideological vision is demonstrated by Animata Sow fall and Festus Iyayi?
Race struggle is the predecessor of class struggle. Discuss
What are the similarities and differences between class struggle and race struggle?
Class struggle is an inevitable pre-requisite to achieving economic growth and socio-political stability in Africa. Discuss
DEFINITION OF TERMS
Class: A set, collection, group, or configuration containing members regarded as having certain attributes or traits in common; a kind or category, Social rank or caste
Class struggle: the Marxism the continual conflict between the capitalist and working classes for economic and political power Also called class war
Race struggle: conflicts or war between races and civilizations
Proletariat: The class of industrial wage earners who, possessing neither capital nor production means, must earn their living by selling their labor
Bourgeoisie: In Marxist theory, the social group opposed to the proletariat in the class struggle. The ruling class of the two basic classes of capitalist society, consisting of capitalists, manufacturers, bankers, and other employers. The bourgeoisie owns the most important of the means of production, through which it exploits the working class
Capitalism: An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market
Means of production: the raw materials and means of labour (tools, machines, etc.) employed in the production process
Marxist-Leninist theory: An expanded form of Marxism that emphasizes Lenin’s concept of imperialism as the final stage of capitalism and shifts the focus of struggle from developed to underdeveloped countries.
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Tags: CLASS STRUGGLE.A CASE STUDY OF FESTUS IYAYI’S VIOLENCE AND AMINATA SOW FALL’S THE BEGGARS STRIKE
ABSTRACT
Conflict is a disagreement or clash between people, ideas; or in the case of our study, cultures. Therefore, culture becomes a unique and sentimental phenomenon that is not only cherished but also protected dearly by an individual as well. Thus, a literature has become the means through which cultural sentiments are projected and expressed. For a long time, Africans in particular, have been subjected to cultural imposition and displacement of western culture. This report aimed at examining the Eurocentric psyche that considers westernization superior. This study has adopted the sociological theory by focusing on Soyinka’s texts; The Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman because they best suit our study. We discussed these conflicts through societal norms and belief system, psychological conflict and generation gap.
Wole Soyinka is Africa’s most distinguished playwright, winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. Nigerian literature was born in earnest with the award of Nobel Prize in literature to Wole Soyinka. Soyinka, often referred to as the Bringer of Light to African Literatures, has put Nigerian literature on the world map, and since 1986, hundreds of Nigerians have proudly taken to studying Nigerian literature, as departments of Nigerian literature are being created in all the universities across the country. Writers of different genres have been published. Some have won prizes, while some are finalists in national and international contests, adding their voices to the identity, authenticity, aesthetics and glory of Nigerian literature. Written by Wole Soyinka the play The Lion And The Jewel has its setting in the village of Ilunjunle in Yoruba West Africa. It was published in 1963 by Oxford University Press. This article is a modest attempt to bring out how his play The Lion And The Jewel is characterized by culture conflict, ribald comedy and love, where the old culture represented by the uneducated people in Ilunjunle, led by Baroka, Sidi and the rest, clashes with the new culture led by Lakunle, who is educated, school teacher by profession is influenced by the western ways.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Culture is a leaned behaviour which each person acquires as a member of a group or society. Therefore, each character is a product of its unique history. Culture is an extensive feature of a group or society, also, it is a mark of identification and something that the individual or groups could easily get sentimental about. Though the Encarta English Dictionary (2009ed) has different definition of culture varying from “arts collectively”, “knowledge and sophistication”, “shared beliefs and practices” and so on, but the definition that best suite our course of study is that which says that culture:
Are the beliefs, customs, practices and social behaviour of a particular nation or people. (Also) it can be a group of people whose shared beliefs and practices identify the particular place, class, or time to which they belong. 1
Culture is a human characteristic in which man expresses the totality of his ways of life in a collective setting. It can also be referred to as the sum total of human activities shared by members of a group. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, culture is defined as: “… broad-based as it is all civilizations, social and material inventions, institutions, and literary achievements of a people”.2
Culture is a sentimental phenomenon which an individual not only cherishes, but also protects dearly. Thus, literature becomes the medium through which cultural sentiments are expressed and projected. Africans in particular; have, for a long time, been subjected to cultural imposition and displacement of foreign culture. This was due to the invasion by the Arabs in the African regions. This is not to say that Africans received these foreign cultures whole-heartedly. There was resistance and there has continued to be resistance through African arts, ethnics and culture. As result of this resistance, the conflict between the western world and Africans began to manifest. Today, plays that protestant in nature are being written to this effect.
On this note, we shall define conflict by adapting the definition of the Encarta 2009 dictionary which states it is a disagreement or clash between ideas, principles, or people. It can also be a psychological state resulting from the often unconscious opposition between simultaneous but incompatible desires, needs, drives or impulse. The key words in the definition are “clash” and “disagreement”. This definition best suit our course of study because it is on this note that Wole Soyinka opposes in the two texts being understudied. African literary writers are victims of cultural imperialism as a result of European colonial rule, therefore, at one time or the other they try to force themselves from colonial cultural imposition while projecting and glorifying traditional cultures. In the words of Adeyemi (1993) citing Olorunmoye (15)”culture supplies us our habits of life…
Wole Soyinka is Africa’s most distinguished playwright, winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. Nigerian literature was born in earnest with the award of Nobel Prize in literature to Wole Soyinka. Soyinka, often referred to as the Bringer of Light to African Literatures, has put Nigerian literature on the world map, and since 1986, hundreds of Nigerians have proudly taken to studying Nigerian literature, as departments of Nigerian literature are being created in all the universities across the country.
Some have won prizes, while some are finalists in national and international contests, adding their voices to the identity, authenticity, aesthetics and glory of Nigerian literature. Written by Wole Soyinka, the play The Lion and the Jewel has its setting in the village of Ilunjunle in Yoruba West Africa. It was published in 1963 by Oxford University Press. The play The Lion and the Jewel is characterized by culture conflict, ribald comedy and love, where the old culture represented by the uneducated people in Ilunjunle, led by Baroka, Sidi and the rest, clashes with the new culture led by Lakunle, who is educated, a school teacher by profession, is
influenced by the western ways.
So many discussions have been made regarding the conflict between tradition and modernity in this play wherein tradition wins over modernity through the final action of Sidi. Now, if the play reflects a conflict between old ways and new ways, then who is the winner? One cannot answer this very easily. If he says that Sidi is the prize, then we see that she has been won by Baroka. And thus victory may seem to go to the older ways of life and then older beliefs he represents.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
But still we are confronted with some complications; the first is that Lakunle is not a particular convincing representative of modern ideas. There is evidence that he misunderstands some of the books he reads and he believes to be true. For example, he is wrong in saying that women’s brain is smaller than men’s. Then he is much fascinated by the most superficial aspects of modern ways of life, such as, night clubs, ballroom, dance, etc. He is full of halfbaked modern ideas which he exploits in denying to pay the bride price to Sidi.
` Baroka, the sixty-two year village chief of Ilujinle, on the other hand, opposes progress because he believes that it destroys the variety of ways in which people live and that he as well as Lakunle should learn things from one another. Baroka is anxious enough to make Sidi his wife and here comes the love-triangle of Sidi, Lakunle and Baroka wherein finally Sidi surrenders herself to Baroka. It is miraculous to know that a young man fails before an old man in the game of love and at the end Sidi willingly accepts Baroka, not Lakunle, as her husband.
This research acknowledges that the concept of culture has been overflowed but we are focusing our attention on the conflicts between the traditional and western culture by drawing examples from Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
1. To reveal the conflicting point between the traditional and western culture in Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka.
2. To examine the norms, nature, values and cultural practice of the Africans by looking at the plays which are set in the post-world war II Nigeria.
3. To examine the relation between conflict in traditional and modern msociety.
1.4 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
This work aims at finding the conflict between the traditional and western culture and how Wole Soyinka has been able to use both text; The Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman, to explore this. The research shall be limited to a critical analysis of the conflict between these two cultures mentioned by comparing the two texts and showing how they have been portrayed because both texts best capture the existence of the conflicts of the two cultures.
1.5 JUSTIFICATION
Today, Africans have neglected some of the rich cultural heritage and adopted the “white-man’s” culture. Some of which has prompted the clash between the African and western culture. Writers, poets and even dramatists have been using their works to sensitize these issues. Likewise, it is the belief of that the conclusion of this research work will make a significant impact on the development of African literature and add to the existing work of prominent researchers in exposing the conflict between African tradition and westernization.
1.6 METHODOLOGY
For a clear and competent analysis of the texts set aside for this research we have adopted the sociological theory because it best suits the study. Under the sociological theory, we shall be looking at societal norms and belief system, psychological conflict and generation gap conflict. In the analysis of these elements, some of the dialogue of the characters in the texts shall be looked at, the characters and some events/ incidents as well.
Consequently, we have been able to give a brief introduction of conflict and culture. Also, we have been able to state our problem and purpose to which the research is being embarked upon. We pointed out our limitation and went ahead to give the theory in which the researcher aims to adopt. Therefore, at this point, we shall move on to our chapter two, which is the literature review.
1.7 DEFININITION OF TERMS
Conflict: Conflict is a disagreement or clash between people, ideas; or in the case of our study, cultures.
HOW TO GET THE FULL PROJECT WORK
PLEASE, print the following instructions and information if you will like to order/buy our complete written material(s).
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08139462710 or 08137701720
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(2) Email Address
(3) Payment Name
(4) Teller Number
We will send your material(s) immediately we receive bank alert
BANK ACCOUNTS
Account Name: AMUTAH DANIEL CHUKWUDI
Account Number: 0046579864
Bank: GTBank.
OR
Account Name: AMUTAH DANIEL CHUKWUDI
Account Number: 2023350498
Bank: UBA.
HOW TO IDENTIFY SCAM/FRAUD
As a result of fraud in Nigeria, people don’t believe there are good online businesses in Nigeria.
But on this site, we have provided “table of content and chapter one” of all our project topics and materials in order to convince you that we have the complete materials.
Secondly, we have provided our Bank Account on this site. Our Bank Account contains all information about the owner of this website. For your own security, all payment should be made in the bank.
No Fraudulent company uses Bank Account as a means of payment, because Bank Account contains the overall information of the owner
CAUTION/WARNING
Please, DO NOT COPY any of our materials on this website WORD-TO-WORD. These materials are to assist, direct you during your project. Study the materials carefully and use the information in them to develop your own new copy. Copying these materials word-to-word is CHEATING/ ILLEGAL because it affects Educational standard, and we will not be held responsible for it. If you must copy word-to-word please do not order/buy.
That you ordered this material shows you have agreed not to copy word-to-word.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL:
08139462710 or 08137701720
YOU CAN ALSO CALL:
08068231953, 08168759420
Visit any of our project websites below:
www.easyprojectmaterials.com
www.easyprojectmaterials.com.ng
www.easyprojectmaterial.net
www.easyprojectmaterial.net.ng
www.easyprojectsolutions.com
www.worldofnolimit.com
www.worldofnolimit.com
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Tags: CONFLICT BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AND WESTERN CULTURE: A CASE STUDY OF WOLE SOYINKA’S DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN” THE LION AND THE JEWEL
ABSTRACT
Conflict is a disagreement or clash between people, ideas; or in the case of our study, cultures. Therefore, culture becomes a unique and sentimental phenomenon that is not only cherished but also protected dearly by an individual as well. Thus, a literature has become the means through which cultural sentiments are projected and expressed. For a long time, Africans in particular, have been subjected to cultural imposition and displacement of western culture. This report aimed at examining the Eurocentric psyche that considers westernization superior. This study has adopted the sociological theory by focusing on Soyinka’s texts; The Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman because they best suit our study. We discussed these conflicts through societal norms and belief system, psychological conflict and generation gap.
Wole Soyinka is Africa’s most distinguished playwright, winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. Nigerian literature was born in earnest with the award of Nobel Prize in literature to Wole Soyinka. Soyinka, often referred to as the Bringer of Light to African Literatures, has put Nigerian literature on the world map, and since 1986, hundreds of Nigerians have proudly taken to studying Nigerian literature, as departments of Nigerian literature are being created in all the universities across the country. Writers of different genres have been published. Some have won prizes, while some are finalists in national and international contests, adding their voices to the identity, authenticity, aesthetics and glory of Nigerian literature. Written by Wole Soyinka the play The Lion And The Jewel has its setting in the village of Ilunjunle in Yoruba West Africa. It was published in 1963 by Oxford University Press. This article is a modest attempt to bring out how his play The Lion And The Jewel is characterized by culture conflict, ribald comedy and love, where the old culture represented by the uneducated people in Ilunjunle, led by Baroka, Sidi and the rest, clashes with the new culture led by Lakunle, who is educated, school teacher by profession is influenced by the western ways.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Culture is a leaned behaviour which each person acquires as a member of a group or society. Therefore, each character is a product of its unique history. Culture is an extensive feature of a group or society, also, it is a mark of identification and something that the individual or groups could easily get sentimental about. Though the Encarta English Dictionary (2009ed) has different definition of culture varying from “arts collectively”, “knowledge and sophistication”, “shared beliefs and practices” and so on, but the definition that best suite our course of study is that which says that culture:
Are the beliefs, customs, practices and social behaviour of a particular nation or people. (Also) it can be a group of people whose shared beliefs and practices identify the particular place, class, or time to which they belong. 1
Culture is a human characteristic in which man expresses the totality of his ways of life in a collective setting. It can also be referred to as the sum total of human activities shared by members of a group. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, culture is defined as: “… broad-based as it is all civilizations, social and material inventions, institutions, and literary achievements of a people”.2
Culture is a sentimental phenomenon which an individual not only cherishes, but also protects dearly. Thus, literature becomes the medium through which cultural sentiments are expressed and projected. Africans in particular; have, for a long time, been subjected to cultural imposition and displacement of foreign culture. This was due to the invasion by the Arabs in the African regions. This is not to say that Africans received these foreign cultures whole-heartedly. There was resistance and there has continued to be resistance through African arts, ethnics and culture. As result of this resistance, the conflict between the western world and Africans began to manifest. Today, plays that protestant in nature are being written to this effect.
On this note, we shall define conflict by adapting the definition of the Encarta 2009 dictionary which states it is a disagreement or clash between ideas, principles, or people. It can also be a psychological state resulting from the often unconscious opposition between simultaneous but incompatible desires, needs, drives or impulse. The key words in the definition are “clash” and “disagreement”. This definition best suit our course of study because it is on this note that Wole Soyinka opposes in the two texts being understudied. African literary writers are victims of cultural imperialism as a result of European colonial rule, therefore, at one time or the other they try to force themselves from colonial cultural imposition while projecting and glorifying traditional cultures. In the words of Adeyemi (1993) citing Olorunmoye (15)”culture supplies us our habits of life…
Wole Soyinka is Africa’s most distinguished playwright, winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986. Nigerian literature was born in earnest with the award of Nobel Prize in literature to Wole Soyinka. Soyinka, often referred to as the Bringer of Light to African Literatures, has put Nigerian literature on the world map, and since 1986, hundreds of Nigerians have proudly taken to studying Nigerian literature, as departments of Nigerian literature are being created in all the universities across the country.
Some have won prizes, while some are finalists in national and international contests, adding their voices to the identity, authenticity, aesthetics and glory of Nigerian literature. Written by Wole Soyinka, the play The Lion and the Jewel has its setting in the village of Ilunjunle in Yoruba West Africa. It was published in 1963 by Oxford University Press. The play The Lion and the Jewel is characterized by culture conflict, ribald comedy and love, where the old culture represented by the uneducated people in Ilunjunle, led by Baroka, Sidi and the rest, clashes with the new culture led by Lakunle, who is educated, a school teacher by profession, is
influenced by the western ways.
So many discussions have been made regarding the conflict between tradition and modernity in this play wherein tradition wins over modernity through the final action of Sidi. Now, if the play reflects a conflict between old ways and new ways, then who is the winner? One cannot answer this very easily. If he says that Sidi is the prize, then we see that she has been won by Baroka. And thus victory may seem to go to the older ways of life and then older beliefs he represents.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
But still we are confronted with some complications; the first is that Lakunle is not a particular convincing representative of modern ideas. There is evidence that he misunderstands some of the books he reads and he believes to be true. For example, he is wrong in saying that women’s brain is smaller than men’s. Then he is much fascinated by the most superficial aspects of modern ways of life, such as, night clubs, ballroom, dance, etc. He is full of halfbaked modern ideas which he exploits in denying to pay the bride price to Sidi.
` Baroka, the sixty-two year village chief of Ilujinle, on the other hand, opposes progress because he believes that it destroys the variety of ways in which people live and that he as well as Lakunle should learn things from one another. Baroka is anxious enough to make Sidi his wife and here comes the love-triangle of Sidi, Lakunle and Baroka wherein finally Sidi surrenders herself to Baroka. It is miraculous to know that a young man fails before an old man in the game of love and at the end Sidi willingly accepts Baroka, not Lakunle, as her husband.
This research acknowledges that the concept of culture has been overflowed but we are focusing our attention on the conflicts between the traditional and western culture by drawing examples from Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman.
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
1. To reveal the conflicting point between the traditional and western culture in Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka.
2. To examine the norms, nature, values and cultural practice of the Africans by looking at the plays which are set in the post-world war II Nigeria.
3. To examine the relation between conflict in traditional and modern msociety.
1.4 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
This work aims at finding the conflict between the traditional and western culture and how Wole Soyinka has been able to use both text; The Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman, to explore this. The research shall be limited to a critical analysis of the conflict between these two cultures mentioned by comparing the two texts and showing how they have been portrayed because both texts best capture the existence of the conflicts of the two cultures.
1.5 JUSTIFICATION
Today, Africans have neglected some of the rich cultural heritage and adopted the “white-man’s” culture. Some of which has prompted the clash between the African and western culture. Writers, poets and even dramatists have been using their works to sensitize these issues. Likewise, it is the belief of that the conclusion of this research work will make a significant impact on the development of African literature and add to the existing work of prominent researchers in exposing the conflict between African tradition and westernization.
1.6 METHODOLOGY
For a clear and competent analysis of the texts set aside for this research we have adopted the sociological theory because it best suits the study. Under the sociological theory, we shall be looking at societal norms and belief system, psychological conflict and generation gap conflict. In the analysis of these elements, some of the dialogue of the characters in the texts shall be looked at, the characters and some events/ incidents as well.
Consequently, we have been able to give a brief introduction of conflict and culture. Also, we have been able to state our problem and purpose to which the research is being embarked upon. We pointed out our limitation and went ahead to give the theory in which the researcher aims to adopt. Therefore, at this point, we shall move on to our chapter two, which is the literature review.
1.7 DEFININITION OF TERMS
Conflict: Conflict is a disagreement or clash between people, ideas; or in the case of our study, cultures.
HOW TO GET THE FULL PROJECT WORK
PLEASE, print the following instructions and information if you will like to order/buy our complete written material(s).
HOW TO RECEIVE PROJECT MATERIAL(S)
After paying the appropriate amount (#5000) into our bank Account below, send the following information to
08139462710 or 08137701720
(1) Your project topics
(2) Email Address
(3) Payment Name
(4) Teller Number
We will send your material(s) immediately we receive bank alert
BANK ACCOUNTS
Account Name: AMUTAH DANIEL CHUKWUDI
Account Number: 0046579864
Bank: GTBank.
OR
Account Name: AMUTAH DANIEL CHUKWUDI
Account Number: 2023350498
Bank: UBA.
HOW TO IDENTIFY SCAM/FRAUD
As a result of fraud in Nigeria, people don’t believe there are good online businesses in Nigeria.
But on this site, we have provided “table of content and chapter one” of all our project topics and materials in order to convince you that we have the complete materials.
Secondly, we have provided our Bank Account on this site. Our Bank Account contains all information about the owner of this website. For your own security, all payment should be made in the bank.
No Fraudulent company uses Bank Account as a means of payment, because Bank Account contains the overall information of the owner
CAUTION/WARNING
Please, DO NOT COPY any of our materials on this website WORD-TO-WORD. These materials are to assist, direct you during your project. Study the materials carefully and use the information in them to develop your own new copy. Copying these materials word-to-word is CHEATING/ ILLEGAL because it affects Educational standard, and we will not be held responsible for it. If you must copy word-to-word please do not order/buy.
That you ordered this material shows you have agreed not to copy word-to-word.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL:
08139462710 or 08137701720
YOU CAN ALSO CALL:
08068231953, 08168759420
Visit any of our project websites below:
www.easyprojectmaterials.com
www.easyprojectmaterials.com.ng
www.easyprojectmaterial.net
www.easyprojectmaterial.net.ng
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Tags: CONFLICT BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AND WESTERN CULTURE: A CASE STUDY OF WOLE SOYINKA’S DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN” THE LION AND THE JEWEL