Satire in Contemporary African Drama: A Case Study of Harvest of Corruption by Frank Ogodo Ogbeche and Death and the Kings Horseman by Wole Soyinka
Chapter One
Aims and Objectives
This study aims at studying Frank OgodoOgbeche the “Harvest of Corruption” and Wole Soyinka Beyond the “Death and the Kings Horseman” how they uses satire to bring to the knowledge of individuals that the correction or reconstruction of the society begins with oneself and this became of paramount importance because this is another way of sensitizing the people about social ills.
Specifically, the study sought to
- analyze the harvest of corruption regarding satire in contemporary African drama
- determine the roles of all characters in harvest of corruption
- examine the death and the king’s horseman on the basis of satire in contemporary African drama
- assess satire as a dramatic tool for societal reformation
Chapter Two
Literature review
Theoretical Framework
This study approaches from the structuralist perspective using structuralism theory. Structuralism may be defined as the project of giving literary criticism the theoretical rigour of a science of language: the attempt ‘to rethink everything through once again in terms of linguistics’ (Frederick Jameson, The Prison-House of Language, 4). Structuralism is also a theoretical paradigm that emerges from theories of languages and linguistics, and it looks for underlying elements in culture and literature that can be connected so that critics can develop general conclusions about the individual works and the systems from which they emerge. Structuralist believes that these language symbols, extends far beyond written or oral communication.
Structuralism originated in the early 1900s in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and subsequent Prague, Moscow and Copenhagan schools of linguistics. It appeared in academia in the second half of the 20th century and grew to become one of the most popular approaches in academic fields concerned with the analysis of language, culture and society. Structuralism argues that a specific domain of culture may be understood by means of a structure modeled on language that is distinct both from the organizations of reality and those of ideals or the imagination. Alternatively, as summarized by philosopher Simon Blackburn, structuralism is “the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture”. Structuralism holds that all human activity and its products, even perception and thought itself are constructed and not natural and in particular, that everything has meaning because of language system in which we operates. It is closely related to semiotics, the study of signs, symbols and communication and how meaning is constructed and understood.
This study is also based on satire as a genre of literature in relation to society and how it can be used as a means for correcting societal anomalies or ills with areas of analysis typically based on the analysis of the text under study bringing out the satiric features and how the features have being used successfully to pass the message in the text across to people.
Literature and Society
As stated by Adeseeke, Adek, (2008: 12) literature is important to societies because it is a mirror of things that are happening or have happened within a society. Literature can also be a way for people to learn more about the past and can even be a way for people to reduce certain amounts of stress in their own lives. However, literature refers to imaginative recreation of social reality; it is an approximation of reality itself. Literature is social in so as far as the literary creator is seen as a member of his society and one who has internalized the values of his society; it cannot be of any meaning outside the nature of man. Socially, literature can carefully seek ways of introducing innovations in the society (Awodiya, 2010: 34). Frank OgodoOgbeche and Wole Soyinka as playwright searches for solution to societies problems through satire as a propaganda machine designed to achieve their purpose.
According to Wellek and Warren (2004:94), literature is a social institution which uses language as its medium of communication. Language is itself a social creation. Traditional literary devices such as symbolism and satire are social in their very nature. Literature represents life, and literature, to a great extent, is social reality. The poets, dramatists (playwrights) and novelists are themselves members of society possessed of specific social status and thus address a target audience. Indeed, literature has actually progressed in connection with particular social institutions. It also has a social function which cannot be said to be purely individual. Thus the questions raised by literary study are ultimately or by implication, social questions of tradition and convention, norms and myths.
The inquiry concerning literature and society gives rise to an attempt to describe and define the influence of literature on society. De Bonald (2009:193-210) states that “literature is an expression of society” which could be better extended to mean that a writer expresses his experience and total conception of life and not the “whole of life”. The author should be a representative of his age and society. Since every writer is a member of society, he can be studied as social being. Though his biography is the main source, such a study can easily widen into one of the whole milieu from which he came and in which he lived. We can show what was the exact share of aristocrats, bourgeois and proletarians in the history of literature. The social allegiance, attitude and ideology of a writer can be studied not only in his writings but also frequently in biographical extra-literary documents. The writer has been a citizen, has pronounced on questions of social and political importance, and has taken part in the issues of his time.
Chapter Three
Textual Analysis of Harvest of Corruption
This textual analysis was adapted from Akinyele, (2016) who carefully reviewed and analyzed the “Harvest of Corruption by Frank OgodoOgbache”. Therefore, according to Akinyele “Harvest of Corruption” is centred on the acts of public servants in a country called Jacassa. The principal public servant in the play was Chief Haladu Ade Amaka, the minister of external relations. He was corrupt, an unpatriotic and a sexual pervert. He maintains a retinue of girls whom he philanders with and who also do cocaine trips for him. He was an exploiter of the state who robs her blind in an act popularly referred to as “Pen-robbery.
Others who aid and abet him in these nefarious activities were the police commissioner who serves at the police headquarters inDarkin; Justice Odili a fat pot bellied man, Ochuole who organizes girls for cheif Ade-Amaka, including those who bear cocain for him; Aloho a girl who has just been offered a job in chief’s office as a protocol officer; madam hoha whose restaurant/hotel was a haven for criminal activities under the guise of beer parlours; and Defence Counsel who fought hard to defend the corrupt chief.
The play revolves around Aloho, who was a jobless university undergraduate, desperately in need of a job. She meets Ochuole, a notorious old school mate of hers who was the Chief Administrative Officer at the Ministry of External Relations. Ochuole offers to help her secure a job by speaking with the Honourable Minister of External Relations, Chief Ade Haladu-Amaka on her behalf. Aloho was offered a job as one of Chief Ade Haladu-Amaka’s protocol officers. Asides being an administrative officer, Ochuole involved with some illegal jobs for Chief Ade at Madam Hoha’s hotel. However, Chief Ade Haladu-Amaka gives Aloho a package containing hard drugs to deliver in the United States of America. Aloho unknowingly accepts the package and gets arrested at the airport by drug law enforcement officers. Chief Ade Haladu-Amaka bribes the judge and the prosecutors to set Aloho free.
Chapter Four
Textual Analysis of Death and the Kings Horseman
According to Gumbel, Andrewin 2009 maintained that Wole Soyinka is explaining what moved him, in the mid-1970s, to write his play Death and the King’s Horseman. And that means, inevitably, telling a story. Death and the King’s Horseman, one of Soyinka’s tragedies, presents a representation of the Yoruba worldview. In Yoruba cosmology, there are three worlds: the world of the living, the world of the dead, and the world of the unborn. This play focuses on what connects all three worlds—transition, the pathway on which members of the different worlds meet and interact.The opening of the play involves the ritual ceremonies for the burial of a dead king. Elesin, the king’s horseman, attired in glorious robes, enters the village marketplace in a majestic dance procession, followed by praise-singers and drummers. Elesin dances until he is in a trance, a state of transition. He performs poetry and song about the world of the ancestors and the connectedness of the three worlds.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Summary
The concern of this chapter is to recap what the researcher has discussed in the previous chapters. The main idea is that a man reaps what he sows. All the corrupt characters are brought to book in the end. Regarding the Harvest of corruption, Chief was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in imprisonment with hard labour and ordered to refund the embezzled funds. This punishment was his harvest of corruption. The humiliation suffered by Aloho for drug trafficking, her pregnancy and death also portray her harvest of corruption. Ochuole and Madam Hoha were sentenced to ten years in imprisonment with hard labour while Madam Hoha’s hotel was also sealed. This was their harvest of corruption. Justice Odili and the Commissioner of Police are sentenced to twenty years in imprisonment for receiving bribe. Ayo, the clerk is also punished as he was sentenced to five years imprisonment for receiving a bribe. Corruption The author illustrates the bribery, large-scale embezzlement in official quarters, drug trafficking, sexual immorality perpetuated by highly placed personalities who are supposed to be policy makers and law enforcement officers. Frank OgodoOgbeche showed how corruption permeates government institutions and every fabric of the society as well as the devastating effect corruption has on our everyday life. This work attempts to show that literature is an effective weapon for shaping the conditions, awareness of the people as well as to bring back right behaviours. This is achieved differently by different writers which is what constitutes style or distinguish their (writers) works.
This project looked at how Satire in Contemporary African Drama is ameans through which societal ills made fun of maliciously so as to be exposed and corrected. These social problems or issues trigger a move for a change in the society. The satirist therefore uses comic humour as an instrument of social mobilization and reconstruction in an evocative and humorous manner. To achieve this, Wole Soyinka explained what moved him, in the mid-1970s, to write his play Death and the King’s Horseman. Apart from this satire seeks to unravel societal defects in relation to what Soyinka calls the “rotten sub-belly of societyand these went in line with the analysis based on the satiric devices or features that characterized it as a satirical text.
Conclusion
In evaluating any work of art, we must make reference to our society, because a work of art cannot exist in a vacuum, it must relate to the society and must be about society with an aim to modify it. The playwright has open to us the social evils of the society ditto of deprivations, corruption, subjection and plethora of other actions through satire. His style is simple and polished but explosive and original with a satiric touch that is devastatingly amusing, mild (not harsh that will put people or readers away) and corrective as people are made to laugh at their bad behaviour and at the same time make corrections.
Recommendation
Recommendations are based on the findings of the research and if taking into consideration, it will help to improve individuals and the general society so as to promote right conducts amongst members of the society as well as to create room for advancement and development.Before society is reshaped, we the reader or consumers of any work of arts, must first correct ourselves from ill practices in the society through this, we are conscious of what is right and wrong. In other words, correction begins with oneself just as portrayed in the text under study. When individuals live with this notion, then they can stand bold and courageously to join forces with the satiric writers to reform the government and society at large. If a satirist makes fun of all people and their foibles, he or she tends to bring people together and enhancing their similarities therefore, the gentle approach (Horace satire) will basically lead them to realize by themselves that they are wrong which is a better idea than the harsh and more direct or specific attack on individuals (juvenal satire).
References
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