Soyinka, a man born in the unstable time of British colonialism in Nigeria, used the entertainment platform of drama to promote thought regarding tradition and modernity in a style filled with satire and drama in tragic form. The Yoruba culture, which he was birthed into, created a barrier for the inhabitants of his region of anti-imperialism, and many discredited any further expansion as they were so deeply rooted in their old ways and their old gods. Soyinka saw the advantages of British practice but wanted to keep from losing the ancient and traditional culture that he grew up in. He combined the style of modern drama in arrangements of comedy and tragedy in an effort to compare and contrast the two different ways of thinking. He was able to reach his people as well as the British people to show the two sides of the cultural coin. His desire was to have the Yoruban and European cultures mutually respect the other and their ways of life.
In the city of Abeokuta, Ogun State in Nigeria was the location of Soyinka’s birth. At the time this city, like many others, was under the rule of the British. He studied abroad in England and relocated there to finish his studies in English literature through a scholarship at the University of Leeds in England. In grade school is where Soyinka found his niche, the theatre. He acted in many plays and wrote some pieces for a local radio station. Theatre was his stage and podium and as he said in an interview with Harry Kieseler of the University of California in 2008: “There’s a kind of a dynamic quality to theatre, and that dynamic quality expresses itself in relation to, first of all, the environment in which it is being staged, and the audience, the nature of the audience, the quality of the ...
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...e bigger meaning behind some of the customs that the Yorubans had in the hopes that the British would one day understand.
These two plays give us insight into the native African culture and Soyinka is able to reach a multitude of audiences with his style. He was unafraid in his quest to merge the ideals of the Westerners and the Yorubans, and present them in an arrangement that was accepting by many. Twenty-two months in prison and the label of a traitor for his ideals and his roles in talks of peace during civil war couldn’t stop him. He sought to bring harmony to the worlds of the Yorubans and the British in the means he knew how to express them, through writing. His love for his country and customs as well as for the education he received while traveling throughout Europe and the Americas made him one of the greatest playwrights and authors Africa had ever seen.
The opening of the novel places the reader not in Falola's shoes as a child, but rather as an adult scholar attempting to procure information from his own family. This proves easier said than done as Falola takes us through the process of obtaining specific dates in a society that deems them irrelevant. By examining the difficulty that Falola has in this seemingly simple task, the reader begins to understand the way in which time and space are intertwined and weighed in Africa. This concept of "connections between words, space, and rituals" encompasses the way that Africans perceive the world around them - as a series of interrelated events rather than specific instances in time (Falola 224). This approach also stems from the concept that the family unit, the village, and the elders come before the individual in all instances, making a detail such as a birthday unimportant when it comes to the welfare of the whole. Introducing the reader to the complexities of African conventions, Falola expands their minds and challenges them to view the forthcoming narrative with untainted eyes.
Olaudah Equiano in his Interesting Narrative is taken from his African home and thrown into a Western world completely foreign to him. Equiano is a slave for a total of ten years and endeavors to take on certain traits and customs of Western thinking. He takes great pains to improve himself, learn religion, and adopt Western mercantilism. However, Equiano holds on to a great deal of his African heritage. Throughout the narrative, the author keeps his African innocence and purity of intent; two qualities he finds sorely lacking in the Europeans. This compromise leaves him in a volatile middle ground between his adapted West and his native Africa. Olaudah Equiano takes on Western ideals while keeping several of his African values; this makes him a man associated with two cultures but a member of neither.
“Segu is a garden where cunning grows. Segu is built on treachery. Speak of Segu outside Segu, but do not speak of Segu in Segu” (Conde 3). These are the symbolic opening words to the novel Segu by Maryse Conde. The kingdom of Segu in the eighteenth and nineteenth century represents the rise and fall of many kingdoms in the pre-colonial Africa. Therefore, Segu indirectly represents the enduring struggles, triumphs, and defeats of people who are of African decent in numerous countries around the world. There are three major historical concepts that are the focus of this book. One is the spread of the Islamic religion. Another is the slave trade, and the last is the new trade in the nineteenth century and the coming of new ideas from Europe (legitimate commerce). However, Segu does not simply explain these circumstances externally, but rather with a re-enactment that tells a story of the state of affairs on a personal level, along with the political one. By doing this, the book actually unfolds many deceitful explanations for the decline of West African countries in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
In the novel Segu, Maryse Conde beautifully constructs personal and in depth images of African history through the use of four main characters that depict the struggles and importance of family in what is now present day Mali. These four characters and also brothers, by the names of Tiekoro, Siga, Naba, and Malobali are faced with a world changing around their beloved city of Bambara with new customs of the Islamic religion and the developing ideas of European commerce and slave trade. These new expansions in Africa become stepping stones for the Troare brothers to face head on and they have brought both victory and heartache for them and their family. These four characters are centralized throughout this novel because they provide the reader with an inside account of what life is like during a time where traditional Africa begins to change due to the forceful injection of conquering settlers and religions. This creates a split between family members, a mixing of cultures, and the loss of one’s traditions in the Bambara society which is a reflection of the (WHAT ARE SOME CHANGES) changes that occur in societies across the world.
It is difficult to imagine a play which is completely successful in portraying drama as Bertolt Brecht envisioned it to be. For many years before and since Brecht proposed his theory of “Epic Theatre”, writers, directors and actors have been focused on the vitality of entertaining the audience, and creating characters with which the spectator can empathize. ‘Epic Theatre’ believes that the actor-spectator relationship should be one of distinct separation, and that the spectator should learn from the actor rather than relate to him. Two contemporary plays that have been written in the last thirty years which examine and work with Brechtian ideals are ‘Fanshen’ by David Hare, and ‘The Laramie Project’ by Moises Kaufman. The question to be examined is whether either of these two plays are entirely successful in achieving what was later called, ‘The Alienation Effect”.
The criticism relies on two assumptions. One, that rhetoric creates reality, and two, that convergence occurs. With regards to rhetoric creating reality we are to assume that the symbolic forms that are created from the rhetoric are not imitations but organs of reality. This is because it is through their agency that anything becomes real. We assume to that convergence occurs because symbols not only create reality for individuals but that individual’s meanings can combine to create a shared reality for participants. The shared reality then provides a basis for the community of participants to discuss their common experiences and to achieve a mutual understanding. The consequence of this is that the individuals develop the same attitudes and emotions to the personae of the drama. Within this criticism the audience is seen as the most critical part because the sharing of the message is seen as being so significant.
In sub-Saharan Africa, thousands of languages, cultures, and geographical regions helped influence our African society. The ways in which we produce our artwork, spiritual ideals, and ritual performances are organic and raw. From the tropical regions of Congo and Ghana, to the arid regions of Mali; I pass through the global gateway into a domain where the Western world lost its roots and artistic imagination and grandeur. Africa appeals most to me for its ability to create a realm where the living, dead, and artistic ideals come into a single unit of tranquil philosophy.
The narrator portrays her degrading identity through her cultural detachment from Europe and Africa. The novel does not only tell the story through the exile she has suffered. At times, the narrator’s nocturnal writing offers the reader her inner thoughts, but it also displays her initiative to confide within her exile through nostalgia and lyricism. An analysis of multiple passages - regarding writing and geogra...
Angeles, Los. (2009). African arts. Volume 28. Published by African Studies Center, University of California.
Korang, Kwaku Larbi. “Making a Post-Eurocentric Humanity: Tragedy, Realism, and Things Fall Apart.” Research in African Literatures 42.2 (2011): 1–29. ProQuest. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
Clugston, R. W. (2010). Journey into literature. San Diego, California: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Retrieved from: https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUENG125.10.2/sections/h2.1
In conclusion Oyono criticizes the colonial time to a great extent to make the audience aware of the hypocritical method used to exploit the land and the destruction caused when citizens like Toundi who believed the false policy of assimilation. The Africans may have been claimed to be less civilized which is ironical to the idea of assimilation. Examples such as the priest or the immoral Madame are a part of the weak system which was enforced in Cameroon to civilize the natives. Such system which cannot follow its own rules cannot aid in controlling or improving the lives of others. The critics helped the audience to learn more about the problems and the ironical actions happening to Cameroon which could definitely not bring justice to the locals.
In Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie attempts to use history in order to gain leverage on the present, to subvert the single story stereotypes that dominate many contemporary discourses on Africa. Written in the genre of historical fiction, Adichie’s novel transcends beyond mere historical narration and recreates the polyphonic experiences of varying groups of people in Nigeria before and after the Civil War. She employs temporal distortion in her narrative, distorting time in order to illustrate the intertwining effects of the past and present, immersing deep into the impact of western domination that not only catalyzed the war, but continues to affect contemporary Africa. In this paper, I will analyze her portrayal of the multifaceted culture produced by colonialism – one that coalesces elements from traditional African culture with notions of western modernity to varying degrees. I will argue that Adichie uses a range of characters, including Odenigbo’s mother, Ugwu, Olanna and Kainene, to each represent a point in a spectrum between tradition and modernity.
The initial stanza introduces Africa from its very creation. Tagore describes the sea ‘[snatching]’ Africa ‘from the breast of Mother Asia’. The aggressive undertone of the verb, ‘snatched’ portrays the turmoil of the birthing process and it conjures an image of a child being seized from his or her nursing mother. The image, which cites one of the most primal human injustices, instantly discomforts readers. The line characterises Africa as an innocent child who is forced to be separated from her mother and whose nurturing has been stilted. This intensifies the effect of 'civilisation's barbarous greed' and exploitation by making it appear as a rape, thereby instigating a sense of outrage in readers. The personification of both the ‘angry sea’ who ‘snatched’ Africa and of ‘Mother Asia’, enlivens these elements of ...
Having done the above analysis on my favourite text, “Anowa” by Ama Ataa Aidoo, I realise that my like for the text have heightened because the analysis of Anowa has given me a deeper understanding of Africa’s colonialism. I now know what actually led to our colonialisation (the betrayal) and how it began(the bond of 1844) through the personal lives of Anowa and Kofi.