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 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 morals of an 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 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 was no more in priority or a
worthy cause of fight for.
However,
satire became very important in 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 and understanding and
appreciation of the range of the literature written in the post-colonial era,
and to examine how to post independent Nigerian experience has given rise to 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 the
contemporary Nigerian society with regards to man. The social problems of the
society is 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 the 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 at 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
honors.
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 tradition of family involvement in dramatic the 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 Talks
(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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