CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS OF CHRIS EGBAREVBA’S CANOPY OF THUNDER

 CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS OF CHRIS EGBAREVBA’S CANOPY OF THUNDER

                Bio-data of the Author

Chris Egbarevba comes from Benin City in Edo State. He is a senior lecturer in the Department of English, University of Uyo, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. Chris Egharevba was the pioneer chairman of the Association of Nigeria Author (ANA) Akwa Ibom State branch. His writing is influenced by the two spheres of life he went through. Firstly, his writing portrays the view against the backdrop of an unbeliever. Secondly, there is a deviation from the radical new point of Marxist principle to the cleansing of the socio-political misdemeanors of the society through moral ethics and principles as a believer.

His philosophy, in Legacy of thunder and Canopy of thunder, portrays Chris Egharevba as a revolutionist and a reformer, the author professes the eradication of socio-political vices through violence. This is evident in the use of “Voice of Thunder”, a violent radical cult group whose major aim is to wipe out corrupt leaders through violence. His published works include: Canopy of thunder (1989), Voice of Thunder (1999), Broken Chains (2000), Clouds of Blood (2001) and Legacy of Thunder (2001).

           

 ANALYSIS OF CHRIS EGBAREVBA’S CANOPY OF THUNDER

Chris Egharevba, in Canopy of Thunder, satirizes the level of social decadence and violence playing in the Nigerian society. The story revolves around the less-privileged and the wealthy classes of the society exemplified by the characters: Nosa, Omoregie, Idubor, etc and the radical approaches the humiliated implore to ameliorate oppression and suppression of the masses. Members of the upper class promulgate stringent laws to aggravate poverty on the poor masses. This is portrayed in the rule made by the chief medical officer in Ogo Hospital in which an operation can only be performed after obtaining explicit permission from the headquarters. For example, “a beautiful young lady… was carried on a makeshift bed to Ogo hospital, she was in labour and bleeding profusely, due to an earlier interference with the delivery” (COT, 4). With this excruciating pain, Dr. Omorgie decided in deviance to the chief medical officers’ instruction, to operate her.

The child was born but surprisingly, the boy was alive and after two minutes the mother died with a smile on her face, ‘not with a face marred by painful contortions’ (COT 7). Constable Nosa who eventually is the child delivered by Dr. Omoregie becomes a police officer, his first assignment is to satirize the area of street Urchins and prostitutes. Secondly, Nosa changes to the Motor Traffic Division (MTB). Within six months, under the scorching sun or icing vain, constable Nosa as a traffic Warden had been performing his duty with some zeal efficiency as he had done in the criminal division.

One eventful day, while he is directing traffic zooming from Akpakpan road, he started passing the vehicles from James Watt, a side road suddenly, he heard a prolonged scratching sound of tires on the tarred road behind him. He turns casually and sees it is a blue Mercedes Benz 0280E automatic nodding to a halt. Incidentally, the man sitting in the owner’s seat point a finger at him and shouts his anger childishly against the delays. The man in the owner’s seat chides ‘you think you can delay me eh? Try such nonsense and you will smell yourself’ (COT 26).

This incident leads to Nosa being reprimanded by the D.P.O. Eventually, he is re-deployed to guard the living resident of Honourable Adams. Honourable Adams is a minority leader. His promiscuous behaviour irritates Nosa who believes that the money Honourable Adams spends on harlots and the hiring of exorbitant hotels could be re-channeled to anchor the poverty rate of the masses. Incidentally, while these thoughts were going on in Nosa’s mind, he inadvertently discharges a bullet through the pelvis of a man he was to protect. Constable Nosa is dismayed and is handed over to the police for questioning while Honourable Adams is taken to the Hospital. At the police detention, Nosa meets Dr. Omoregie, an activist who was equally arrested for insight violence against the government that humiliates and suppress the masses. Nosa is inspired by Omoregie’s teachings and philosophies of violence while in prison. He hates injustices and oppression and his whole philosophy finds concrete reality which confirms with Omoregie’s thus:

Throughout my youth... I have been truanted, abused, and discarded as an abomination, as a thing fated for the refuse dump. I was given all sorts of names, bastard, and killer of my mother and so on (COT 94).

Nosa is rejected in society because the man who impregnated his mother refuses to claim him after the death of his mother. Dr. Omoregie injects the spirit of violence and revolution into Nosa’s bloodstream thus:

To break the circle of injustice calls for violence… against the system and those perpetrating it for such violence to be effective, there is the need for organization (COT 98).

Therefore, Omoregie preaches that the age of appealing to the conscience of the oppressors is gone while the oppressors have oppressed with violence and it needs a counter-violence to destroy their power.

Eventually, Constable Nosa is released from jail because of the corrupt antics of the former school mate, Chief Amenaghawon Idubor who is now a politician and a member of the house while Dr. Omoregie was sentenced to death. On a fateful day, everybody including Chief Idubor, the judge etc. visited the ground in which Omoregie is to be executed. The revolutionist group voice of thunder (VOT) nurtured by Dr. Omoregie storms the execution ground with barrages of gunshots. Constable Nosa, who is the orderly, assigned to the chief judge, shots the chief judge personally, paradoxically, these barrages of gunshots spit violence elements of oppression, suppression, and injustice to the masses. After the death of Dr. Omoregie, his wife Malsoken takes over the charge of the radical group voice of thunder (VOT) to continue to fight against corruption, injustice, humiliation, oppression, and so on through the name of violence.

Themes in Canopy of Thunder

Chris Egharevba examines various themes in the novel. He laments on the widespread oppression and humiliation of the masses, injustice, violence, and poverty. Thus, this section x-rays the various themes in the novel which include: poverty, corruption, and violence.

Theme of Poverty

Due to poverty Nosa’s father deserted and abandoned Nosa because his father had no money to lay such claim after the death of Nosa’s mother, and Nosa was nurtured by his uncle. Also, Esohe’s death is not connected with her deplorable health condition; she has no financial power or aid to attend ante-natal care services during her pregnancy period. Therefore, during her delivery, she developed a complication and bleed to death.

Furthermore, poverty drives Osagie Omoregie to engage in work study. He would go to the market to offload bags of rice, beans, and groundnuts before he could pay his school fee after being sent away and abandoned by his paternal family for refusing to make up his father’s chieftaincy post. Osagie rejects the chieftaincy stool because its educations are aimed at giving the recipients a sense of dignity and pride. The curriculum includes courses like walking with dignified steps and an air of arrogance and importance looking at other human beings as inferior, demanding things without pleading, building, diplomacy amongst others.

In-fact, Omoregie is tutored on the act of extorting, exploiting and subjugating his fellow clan-men. He hates the false sense of pride and everything that had to be with grooming for the future position. Therefore, he decided against his uncle’s wish to feel where he will have a proper education to fight against agencies of poverty and oppression in society. During the course of eradicating poverty and oppression in society, he indoctrinates people with the principles and philosophy of violence.

            Theme of Corruption

One of the major causes of violence in society is the insurgence of corrupt officers in the mechanism of governance. In a bit to correcting this anomaly, the poor masses resort to violence, corruption in the novel is that of social corruption which involves the misappropriation and mismanagement of public funds and moral corruption which entails the immoral attitude of individuals.

Socially, some characters in the novel are depicted as corrupt political leaders. Honourable Chief Idubor, for instance, defrauds his people in order to be rich. He maintains that many of his colleagues acquire wealth dishonestly.

Idubor’s elder brother is the chairman of a local government area. His brother asks him to supervise the construction of roads, bridges, housing estates, schools etc. The people taught Idubor was godsent to establish most of these social amenities. So, when the ban of politics is lifted, he went back to the people deceiving them by pretending as if he provided the people. Honourable Chief Idubor dupes his people and siphons the public funds into his personal account. Also, the mode of operation involved in the release of Nosa from prison is questionable. Honourable Idubor claims that he had to bribe the judges with heavy loads of cash to secure the release of Nosa who is his former seatmate in school.

Morally, the behaviour of the Member of Parliament is appalling. Most of them are promiscuous. Honorable Chief Idubor indulges in sexual immorality with Christ his former classmate in a brothel every night. Similarly, constable Nosa arrests his former teacher nicknamed “Encyclopedia” in a chalet with a woman. Honourable Idubor, Adam, etc. indulge in promiscuity for mere pleasure as well as humiliating and oppressing the less-privileged whereas the poor lady arrested in the social home by constable Nosa, engages in social services as a result of poverty.

            Theme of Violence

The theme of violence is highlighted in the novel. This concept of violence is implored by the less privileged to fight against corruption oppression and humiliation of the masses to liberate the resources for everybody’s advantage.

In the novel, Chris Egharevba employs violence to fight corrupt government while Nosa fights against corruption with the hunger strike. Omerigie helps him to understand that is a wrong measure. Nosa’s acquaintance with Dr. Omoregie shapes his idea of the society and how to fight injustice Dr. Omoregie told Nosa that:

This was the era of violence and to solve the social problems violence is needed… His wife has demonstrated the validity of violence as a means to solving issues. He had been taken through birth, sex and confirmed by supernatural elements that man’s existence on earth was conditioned by violence (COT 92).

Therefore, Egharevba maintains that fight against corruption, the voice of thunder (VOT) is the only Sano performance in the face of continued oppression and tyranny by the establishment. They must be forced to listen to the voice of thunder and the voice of violence that is the reason why Nosa and other members of the VOT ambushed the venue for the execution of Dr. Omoregie and killed all the top government officials who attended the execution because the serenity of the moon has been polluted by sweat and blood of the oppressed and as such the era of passivity is no more: (COT 41) violence thus is an in-built mechanism of Marxist principle employed to eradicate oppression and totalitarian leaders.

            Characterization

Characterization, in the literary study according to Meger Adams, examines the role and significance of characters in the development of the plot of any literary work. A literary writer uses the behaviour, actions and interaction of characters to explore the various theme highlighted in any work of arts. In this section, the following characters: Honourable Idubor, Constable Nosa, Dr. Omoregie are the characters used in the novel.

            Honourable Chief Idubor

Honourable Chief Idubor is a member of the parliament who achieves this goal through his fraudulent chairman. His elder brother sends him to supervise some constituency projects he provided for his people but Idubor on the other hand, claims and makes his people believe that he is the one providing those social amenities. His falsehood is to cause the people ignorantly voted him to the parliament in which he uses his position as a parliamentarian to fraud the people and the government.

Honourable Chief Idubor is corrupt. He indulges in corrupt practices. A typical example is when he claims that he bribes the judges to get his classmate – Constable Nosa – released from police detention, somebody due for imprisonment for attempting murder of an honorable member of the parliament, Honourable Adams.

Unfortunately, Honourable Chief Idubor meets his water too when members of the voice of thunder (VOT) revolt and go on the wanton killing of corrupt politicians the day Dr. Osagie Omoregie is to be executed.

            Constable Nosa

Constable Nosa is the hero of the novel. The story begins with his horrible birth in which his mother dies afterward and ends in a grotesque or mayhem. The Chief Medical officer refuses to operate Esobe, Nosa’s mother due to some stringent law prohibiting such operations until he receives permission from the headquarters. The prolonged labour develops complications and Dr. Omoregie defies odds to operate and delivers her of the baby.

At last, the child was born but the mother died after two minutes. Nosa becomes a police officer. His first assignment is to sanitize a street colonized harlot, on one of the occasions.

Constable Nosa was confronted with the riot and decay city as caused by poverty. Poverty causes some people to commit some social crimes such as thuggery, robbery, prostitution etc. the excerpt below paints a picture of aged prostitution and her activity as witnessed by Constable Nosa:

She… began to undress her. Her slain seems to have fought a losing battle with bleaching cream she had been using, making her skin uneven in colour. Her breast was flabby and pendulous, her stomach was quivering so too were here sagging buttocks. As she stretched out her hand and tickled his genital… (COT 11).

Constable Nosa discovers that the poor masses indulge in this humiliating job to find a means of livelihood, surprisingly the man whom the prostitute is tickling his genitals is Nosa’s former teacher nick-named “Encyclopedia”. The encyclopedia is a disciplinarian who once punished Nosa wanders “how” and “why” his teacher’s moral can degenerate to such low ebb. Eventually, Nosa is imprisoned because he inadvertently shoots Chief Honourable Adams because of Adam’s promiscuity. At the police detention. Nosa imbibes the philosophy of violence from Dr. Omoregie. Dr. Omoregie tells Nosa that he should not fight corruption and suppression of the masses through hunger, strikes because this was the era of violence and to solve the societal problem violence was needed (COT 92).

Nosa, therefore, resorts to using violence to quell all social problems and their collaborators. On the fateful day that Omoregie, the leaders of the voice of thunder (VOT) is to be executed, Nosa went on a shooting rampage killing the judge whom he is to protect before he was reduced to rubbles by barrages of gunshots from the security officers.

            Dr. Osagie Omoregie

Dr. Osagie Omoregie is posted to Ogo Hospital after his medical studies in school. In the Hospital the obnoxious policies promulgated by the hospital medical authorities did not conform to his concerts for fellow human beings patients are only given attention from the resident doctors. Only when the Chief medical officer receives instructions from the headquarters. This situation usually jeopardizes the life of patients. On one occasion, Dr. Omoregie defines the regulation of the hospital authorities to operate upon a young lady who was in labour. Dr. Omoregie is dismissed for daring the hospital authorities. He goes back for school for higher qualification in which he takes up a teaching appointment at Zauzau University.

At the university, Dr. Osagie Omoregie is confronted with a various element of oppression, humiliation, and suppression of the masses. This makes him to start a secret revolutionary group called “voice of thunder” to use violence to eradicate these social vices. He holds conferences and seminars to create awareness of the modus operandi of the organization. On the day he plans a massive rally for all the chapters of the organization to coverage at one point, he is arrested and incarcerated.

After serious trails, he is sentenced to death. All members of the parliament including the state chief judge were in attendance on the day Omoregie was to be executed. Peradventure, the execution ground is thrown into chaotic scenes. The pandemonium results in many deaths including Nosa, Omoregie and other members of the parliament.

Honourable Chief Idubor is ambushed and killed while making love to a prostitute (Christy) in his car. Thus, the violence that ensues in the novel is a result of Dr. Omoregie’s philosophies and doctrines on the eradication of poverty. Corruption and operation of the masses through the use of violence.

            Style in Canopy of Thunder

            Language

Chris Egharevba’s Canopy of Thunder heavily depends upon descriptive power in order to illustrate details of his characters, inner thought and being. He uses language to portray pain, sorrow, poverty, disillusionment, frustration disappointment. For instance, the graphic of suffering women is painted in the extract below through the use of language:

A beautiful young lady… was carried on a makeshift bed in front of a crowded, she was in labour and bleeding profusely… Her beautiful face contoured in intense pain and he how tiny echoed painfully into the silent morning, (COT 4).

The graphic pictures depict sorrow, pain and disillusionment witnessed by the writer. This state of frustration is strong, painted on the face of the eighteen years old young woman wriggling in excruciating labour pains. Similarly, Nosa’s frustration, dejection, and sadness is expressed in the following graphic pictures.

Throughout my youth, I have been taunted, abused scorned, discarded as an abomination, as a thing fated for the refuse dump, I was given all sort of names, bastard, killer of my mother (COT, 94).

Here, language is used to paint a graphic picture of the pathetic state of Nosa whose mother died after child’s birth. Nosa is taunted because the culture whose mother died at child-birth is an evil child.

Techniques

The narrative technique is amongst the major stylistic feature in Canopy of Thunder Egharevba adopts the omniscient narrative position, that is, the first person point of view who knows all the characters and the incidents that evolve around them. This style illuminates on the agony that befalls Nosa’s mother, Esohe. The narrator gives a vivid picture of Esche's ordeal during labour. This narrative device helps to evoke pity in the mind of the reader towards Esohe and hatred towards the people or members of the government who play obnoxious laws to victimize the masses. Similarly, the omniscient narrator follows Nosa through his childhood experiences, disillusionment, disappointment and frantic effort to salvage the poor state of the masses leads him to embrace Dr. Omoregie’s doctrine of Marxism and he is killed as he tries to revenge the execution of Dr. Omoregie.