SATIRE AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN WOLE SOYINKA’S KONGI’S HARVEST AND OLA ROTIMI’S OUR HUSBAND HAS GONE MAD AGAIN
Abstract
This
research focuses on the social and political ills prevalent in the African
societies with the view of correcting them thus, making the contemporary
society a better place to live. Using two texts from renowned Nigeria writers,
the economic, social and political evils are being satirized to involve
transformation. Here the moral decadence, religious hypocrisy, marital imbalance
and corruption palpable a savage, portrait of a group of dictatorial African
leaders are portrayed in the texts of study. This study brings to limelight the
evil inherent in African socio-political system and calls for a change,
especially in the Nigerian society.
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
From the days of the Greek philosopher,
Socrates, writers have been in the vanguard of social change, challenging the
mores of oppressive society. The artist’s mode of assessing the socio-political the system in the society is satire: a form of writing which makes fun of the evil
or foolish behavior of people, institution and the society in general. The African Playwrights like
Soyinka, Osofisan, Sutherland, J. P. Clark, Ola Rotimi etc. have made use of
satire as an artistic mode of expressing the societal and political realities
in contemporary Africa. The African society for them is obviously a chaotic
one, where the dreams and aspirations of the people remain unrealized. They have
seen with shock the endemic corruption, moral decadence, and political exploitation
that have become part and parcel of society.
1.1 Background to the
Study
It is universally conceived by many literary
scholars, that literature mirrors the society. However, literature goes to
depicts various aspect of human life. The social, political religious,
economic and historical aspects of human lives are expressed through
literature. For the sake of this study, we shall concentrate on dramatic
generic from the literature and social control.
This research concentrates on the concept of satire
used by African playwrights cussing Wole Soyinka and Ola Rotimi as a case
study to effect some societal. Satire is any piece of writing that used device
sure as Irony. A text or performance that uses irony or wit to expose or attack
human vice, foolishness or stupidity.
As a literary manner, Satire is concerned with
ridiculing human and institutional follies with the intention of correcting
them. Satire may be represented in the mode allegory and also mode imitation
through pictures and caricatures. It is the insidious treatment of the subject in
dramatic fashion, also in the mode of lampoon which an individual is represented in
a violent way, this makes it subject of laughter. Therefore, Satire is employed
to mock or censor the action of man or his belief. It is also used to assess the
state of man in his society and to create a difference between the present
situation and the ideal situation.
Through the use of Satire, the study investigates how
the two authors chosen for this research exposed the ills the vices in the
Nigeria socio-political system in the post-independence era. It also focuses
on the awareness of the people to the policies of the government, the tyranny, and evil that pervaded his role and the bridge of justices and
misrepresentation of the truth. The work is also embarked upon to establish
the fact that political and economic violence is a phenomenon satire by a literary
masterpiece.
It can be said that Wole Soyinka and Ola Rotimi use
satire in two texts as a literary device to express the made fun of Nigeria
institutions or individual by drawing the attention of the people to their vice
with the aim of making amendments. Satire is a major tool in bringing about
social transformation.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Many African nations are in crises today because of
the experience of the colonialism and the ensuing postcolonialism. This
because of the leadership style in Africa and Nigeria
Most new leaders who have successful tutelage and who
became the stooge of the east while colonial masters took over the political
power and put into practice when they learned their noble dreams and popular
postulations quickly demise in the face of power and wealth. They themselves
have the blessed of the earth, and compassion for the general welfare of the
people were no more in priority or a worthy cause of fight for.
However, satire became very important in the post
independent Nigeria as it is used to attack them for new colonialism,
corruption, hypocrisy, ignorance and administration and other vices.
1.3 Objectives
of the Study
This study is important as it brings to bear issues
that are integral to our society which many people are not aware of. The study
tends to
(i) Re-emphasis
and exposes the use of satire by African playwright to lash political larders
and religious larders and highly esteemed people in the society.
(ii) Serve
as a corrective instrument for the socio-political problem of Nigeria
contemporary society.
(iii) Create awareness of people to the
policies of the government, the autocratic and evil pervaded its rule.
(iv) Expose
the ills and vices in the Nigeria socio –
system since independence as well as drawing attention to the weakness
in the society also the attitude which must be changed if the society is to
develop.
1.4 Significance
of the Study
Study of this nature is embarked upon to establish
the fact political and economic violence is a phenomenon satire by literary
writers. It goes a long way not only to attack the assumed unattackable ills
and vice in human life which are mostly blinded by emotional instinct, but also
as like no other literary application brought reformation to all these ills and
vices in terms of political, social and economic ways.
1.5 Purpose
of the Study
The purpose of this study analyzes the conditions
that have bedeviled and continue to haunt the Nigeria society. Also, the purpose is to developed an understanding and appreciation of the range of the
literature is written in the post-colonial era, and to examine how the post
independent Nigerian experience has given rise to the use of satire as a literary
device to portray this period.
1.6 Methodology
The fact to be used will be collected from the two
drama texts based on the concept of satire in the texts. Hence, the social
aspect expresses the salient events in contemporary Nigerian society with
regards to man. The social problems of the society are not just religious and
political manipulations which is prominent in Wole Soyinka’s Kong is Harvest but also the moral
decadence, where the moral imbalance is also seen in the texts, signifying the
total domestic disorder in the Nigeria system. Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again is a political problem, abuse of
power, complexities of power, intrigues of power and hurt of power in African
leadership. Also, the tool which Wole Soyinka and Ola Rotimi employ to satirize
in Kongi’s Harvest and Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again
respectively shall be examined.
This research will be divided into four-part, chapter
one presents different literary definitions of satire, important satiric strategies
and important of satire both to the individual and the society at large. All
expressed in the background to the study. Chapter two dwells with the review of
the related literature. It will examine different scholars and critics view
about the novel under study and the use of satire as a vital tool by the
authors will be examined. The chapter examines critically, Wole Soyinka’s Kongi Harvest, thematic analysis and
setting.
Chapter four examines critically, Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, issues
of dictatorship and use of literary devices. Chapter five which will be the
conclusion of this study is a brief summary and evaluation of what the study
entails. For the purpose of analysis of the data collected for the study, the
research entails the use of textual analysis as parameters for drawing a conclusion on the research findings.
1.7 Authors
Biodata
1.7.1 Wole Soyinka; Named Oluwole Babatunde
Soyinka was born on the 13th day of July 1934 in
Abeokuta, Ogun state, Nigeria. He hails from Isara Rome in Ogun State. He was
the second of the six children born to his family. His father Samuel Ayodele
Soyinka was an Anglican minister, and his mother Grace Eniola Soyinka was a
trader.
Wole Soyinka had his elementary education at the St.
Peters primary school in Abeokuta, from where he proceeded to Abeokuta Grammar
school for his secondary education. He gained admission into Federal Government
College, Ibadan in 1946. In 1952, he proceeded to the University College
Ibadan, now University of Ibadan where he studied, Western History, English
Literature and Greeks. In 1954, Soyinka began work on a short radio play,
“Keffi’s birthday threat”, which was broadcast by the Nigerian Broadcasting
Service.
Wole Soyinka went to England in 1954 to continue his
studies in the literature. There, he worked with and learned from topnotch British
writers before he defended his Bachelor of Arts degree. Soyinka worked as an
editor for a satirical magazine, The Engle.
Soyinka wrote his first major play, The Swape
Dwellers in 1958. His second, the Lion and the Jewel, ca,e in 1959. After the
publication of these two books, he was invited to Royal Court Theatre, London,
where he worked as a play reader. As of 1959, some Soyinka poems, such as “The
Immigrant” and “My Next Door Neighbour” were already published in the Nigerian
magazine, The Black Orpheus.
After receiving The Rockefeller Research Fellowship
grant for research on African Theatre, he returned to Nigeria. Though he had
won many international awards earlier, Wole Soyinka Shot to global fame when he
won the Nobel Prize for peace in 1986. Later in the same year, Wole Soyinka
received The Agip Prize for literature. In all, he won over twenty national and
international awards and honours.
1.7.2
Emmanuel Gladstone Olawale Rotimi
Was born on April 13th, 1938, the son of a Yoruba
father from Western Nigeria and an Ijaw mother from Rivers State in the Niger
Delta of Eastern Nigeria. The young Rotimi took part in some amateur plays
directed by his father, making his stage debut at the age of four. This the tradition of family involvement in dramatic performance continued throughout
his life.
Ola
Rotimi attended primary school in Port Harcourt in Eastern Nigeria and the
Methodist Boys High school in Lagos, Nigeria’s capital. Capable in four
language English, Ijaw, Yoruba and Pidgin-the playwright Rotimi drew on his rich
linguistic heritage. Although his plays and written in English, they contain a
smattering of the other three languages as well, and his English on Oxford or
Boston; rather it is alive with the rhythms the aphorisms, and the pulse of
Nigerian English. His later plays increasingly included African Languages and a
Nigerian Version of pidgin English in their dialogue, although English remained
the main language.
From
1959 until 1966, Rotimi studied in the United States. He received a Nigerian
Federal Government scholarship to attend Boston University, where he majored in
playwriting and directing. Upon returning to Nigeria in the 1960s, Rotimi
taught at the University of Ife (now Obafemi, Awolowo University), where he
founded the Onolokun Acting Company. In 2000, he returned to Ile-Ife, joining
the faculty of Obafemi Awolowo University where he lectured till his demise.
Hazel (his wife) died in May, 200, only a couple of months before Rotimi’s
death. His drama include; The God’s Are
Note To Blame (produced 1968; published, 1971), Kurumi and the prodigal
(produced 1961; published as Kurnnmi, 1971), Nogbaisi (published, 1974),
Holding Tanks (1979), etc.
His
works are also a social satire, his views have shaped the conduct of the
theatre and have demonstrated the power of drama shape the thinking of the
society and attempted to solve some of the problems encountered in everyday
living.
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