TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page
Abstract
Table of contents
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
1.0 Literature and Society in Nigerian
1.1 Statement of the Problem
1.2 Aim and Objectives
1.3 Scope and Delimitation
1.4 Justification of Study
1.5 Theoretical Framework
1.6 The Structuralist Concept of Binary
1.7 Unity as Used in this Study
1.8 Literature Review
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Chinua Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart and its various interpretations of Binarisms
2.1 The Diagrammatic Representation of the Structuralist Binarism
2.2 Table
2.3 Table
2.4 Table
2.5 Table
2.6 The Role of Colonialism in the Nigerian Literary Formation
2.7 The Clash between Western Values and African Traditional Culture
2.7 Binary Oppositions in Characterization
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 Iyayi‟s Violence: The Intricate Relationship between Literature and the Society
3.1 Diagram Illustrations
3.2 Table
3.3 Table
3.4 Table
3.5 Post-War Reminiscences Prevalent in the Text
3.6 Structuralist Analysis of Binary as Predominant In Iyayi‟s Violence
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 Habila‟s Measuring Time: A Reflection of the Modern Nigerian Society
4.1 Diagrams Illustrating Binarisms and Oppositions
4.2 Table
4.3 Table
4.4 Table
4.5 Table
4.6 Explorations of Levels of Inconsistencies in Measuring Time
CHAPTER FIVE:
5.1 Conclusion
Bibliography
ABSTRACT
This study attempts an exploration of how unity and coherence through contradictions are achieved in Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart, Iyayi‟s Violence and Habila‟s Measuring Time. It is significant to state that the choice of these texts is informed by the need to comprehend how various generations of Nigerian writers have negotiated the contradictions, tensions, distortions and challenges, which have characterized the social, historical and political landscape of Nigeria. In addition, this study reflects the many dimensions of contradictions, distortions, tensions, injustice and disillusionment prevailing in the selected texts. It touches on character juxtaposition, comparative analysis, differences and interrelationships among structures in the texts. It however achieves unity and coherence by showing the connection of representations in the texts. For instance, Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart projects unity and coherence of the African culture as well as Western religion through distortions and tensions evident in the text. The writer‟s skilful portrayal of the two cultures, co-existing side by side, is one of such structuralists binarism achieved in this study. Iyayi explores unity and coherence by pointing out the insensitive nature of the government. He encourages the masses to unite in the struggle towards a desirable and functional social order in the country. Habila‟s Measuring Time depicts family disunity and its effect on the individual character. He achieves unity and coherence in the text, emphasizing on individual contributions towards the unity and development in the community. Structuralism as a reading method is appropriate. This is in relation to its distinctive features of binary oppositions, the primacy of the text and the generation of meaning through differences, etc. The deployment of these features enhances the understanding of the contradictions, distortions and tensions predominant in the texts. The study therefore establishes that in spite of these contradictions, complexities, disintegrations and distortions the texts display some levels of unity and coherence towards a desirable functional society.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
The study attempts to explore and examine how literary texts achieve unity and
coherence through contradictions in Chinua Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart (1958), Festus Iyayi‟s
Violence (1979), and Helon Habila‟s Measuring Time (2006). The study foregrounds the manner
in which the selected Nigerian novelists appropriated and engaged the social realities, changes,
challenges, sensibilities experienced in Nigeria to recreate and express a new consciousness.
To understand the nature of this new consciousness, the contact of Africa with the
Western world is significant in the modern literary imports of Nigeria and Africa at large. The
contact significantly impacted on the formation of literature from the oral to the written form, the
language use from indigenous languages to the English language, the change in thematic values
of cultural encapsulation, the issues of colonialism and post-independence disillusionment, etc.
This contact with the Western world and its implication has drawn critical attention in Oswald
Spengler‟s Decline of the West (1918), Franz Fanon‟s Wretched of the Earth (1968), Walter
Rodney‟s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), Austine Amanze Akpuda‟s
Reconstructing the Canon, Joseph Conrad‟s Heart of Darkness (1988), and many other literary
and critical texts. These works essentially explore and articulate the many dimensions of
colonialism. One of such relevant comments to this study is credited to Simon Gikandi
(2007:54):
But what is now considered to be the heart of literary scholarship on the continent could not have acquired its current identity or function if the traumatic encounter between Africa and Europe had not taken place. Not only were the founders of modern African literature colonial subjects but colonialism was also to be the most important and enduring theme in their works. From the eighteenth century onwards, the colonial situation shaped what it meant to be an African writer, shaped the language of African writing, and over determined the culture of letters in African...,
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