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Childhoods Dis-Ordered: Non-Realist Narrative Modes in Selected Post-2000

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Childhoods Dis-Ordered: Non-Realist Narrative Modes in Selected Post-2000 Childhoods Dis-ordered: Non-Realist Narrative Modes in Selected Post-2000 West African War Novels Cecilia Addei (Mrs) A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor Philosophiae in the Department of English, University of the Western Cape. Supervisor: Dr F. Fiona Moolla i Childhoods Dis-ordered: Non-Realist Narrative Modes in Selected Post-2000 West African War Novels Cecilia Addei (Mrs) KEYWORDS: Childhood, Child soldier, Initiation, Bildungsroman, Surrealism, Magic Realism, Grotesque, Absurd, Non-realist narrative modes, West African Literature http://etd.uwc.ac.za ii DECLARATION I declare that “Childhoods Dis-ordered: Non-Realist Narrative Modes in Selected Post- 2000 West African War Novels” is my own work, that is has not been submitted for any degree or examination at any other university, and that all sources I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by complete references. Name: Cecilia Addei (Mrs) Student number: 3479184 Signed: __ Date: 23rd January, 2017 http://etd.uwc.ac.za iii ABSTRACT This study explores how selected West African war novels employ non-realist narrative modes to portray disruptions in the child’s development into adulthood. The novels considered are Chris Abani’s Song for Night (2007), Ahmadou Kourouma’s Allah is Not Obliged (2006), Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation (2005) and Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen and Me (2005). These novels strain at the conventions of realism as a consequence of the attempt to represent the disruptions in child development as a result of the upheavals of war. A core proposition of the study is to present why the authors in question are obliged to employ non-realist modes in representing disrupted childhoods that reflect the social and cultural disorder attendant upon war. The dissertation also asks pertinent questions regarding the ideological effect of these narrative strategies and the effect of the particular stylistic idiosyncrasies of each of the authors in figuring childhood in postcolonial Africa. The novels in question employ surrealism, the absurd, the grotesque and magical realism, in presenting the first person narratives of children in war situations, or the reflections of adult narrators on children affected by war. This study further analyses the ways the aesthetic modes employed by these authors underscore, in particular, children’s experiences of war. Through strategic use of specific literary techniques, these authors highlight questions of vulnerability, powerlessness and violence on children, as a group that has been victimised and co-opted into violence. The study further considers how these narrative transformations in the representations of children in novels, capture transformations in ideas about childhood in postcolonial Africa. CITATION STYLE: MLA (Gibaldi, 7th ed.) http://etd.uwc.ac.za iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am first of all grateful to Almighty God for the opportunity to gain admission into the PhD programme and the good health and sound mind He granted me during my years of study. To my supervisor, Dr Fiona Moolla, it has been great working with you. It is the confidence you had that I had found a great researchable topic and that I had the capacity to complete the thesis, that has brought this work this far. I am so grateful to you for the “can do” spirit you put in me. I am again grateful for your direction, patience and encouragement throughout my three years of study. In fact, I have really enjoyed working with you and have learnt so many good things from you which will enhance my career as an academic. To all the lecturers in the English department, your support has been so wonderful and I say God richly bless you all. I am also grateful to Mrs Sandra James, librarian of the faculty of Arts and Helena of inter-library loans, UWC library who made sure I got all the books and articles I needed for my study. To my family, I say God richly bless you. My dear husband Mr Isaac Addei, you became a mother and a father at the same time to our four little children so that I could have a PhD. You shared in all my moments of frustration and you encouraged me never to give up. May the Almighty God bless you for your sacrifices. And to my lovely children; Yaa, Afia, Kofi and Kwame, it was not easy to live without Mummy but you understood that I needed to add value to myself in my career so you were denied of a mother for three years. You have my sincere gratitude. I am also grateful to my parents and all my brothers and sisters for their prayers, support and words of encouragement. I am also grateful to the management of University of Mines and Technology, Ghana, for their financial support and the permissions granted me to travel to South Africa to work on the thesis. I am especially indebted to Dr Alexander Kakraba Dakubu, my former head of department http://etd.uwc.ac.za v and a good friend (now deceased), without whose support I could not have achieved this. He taught all the courses I was handling together with his own lecture load. May his kind soul rest in perfect peace. Finally, to the CODESTRA and South African National Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS), thank you very much for your funding and the mentor you provided to assist in the writing of this thesis. http://etd.uwc.ac.za vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Content Page DECLARATION ii ABSTRACT iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv INTRODUCTION 1 The Concept of Childhood 2 Childhood in Africa 7 Initiation – Forms of Initiation 13 The Bildungsroman 21 Overview of the Thesis 26 CHAPTER ONE WRITING WAR, WRONGING THE PERSON 28 Introduction 28 War in World Literature: An Overview 28 Figuring Men in War 42 War on Women, Women in War 46 War Literature and the Child 56 War in African Literature 56 The West African Writer and War 70 http://etd.uwc.ac.za vii The West African Child-Soldier Novel 62 Conclusion 65 CHAPTER TWO ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT IN CHRIS ABANI’S SONG FOR NIGHT 67 Introduction 67 The Representation of Child-Socialisation in Song for Night 72 The Male Initiation Motif in Song for Night 78 Surrealism: Origin and Debates 85 Surrealism in Song for Night 90 Conclusion 101 CHAPTER THREE VALIDATING THE TRUTH OF THE ABSURD IN AHMADOU KOUROUMA’S ALLAH IS NOT OBLIGED 102 Introduction 102 Frustrated Initiation and Development: An Absurd Reality 113 Finding Meaning in a Life: Birahima’s Paradoxes of the Absurd 120 Validating the Absurd: Religion and Folk Wisdom 131 Validating the Absurd: The Failure of Orality 133 Validating the Absurd: Dictionaries and Reason 137 Conclusion 141 http://etd.uwc.ac.za viii CHAPTER FOUR PERVERTED INITIATION AND EDUCATION IN UZODINMA IWEALA’S BEASTS OF NO NATION 143 Introduction 143 The Grotesque in World Literature 149 Beasts of No Nation as Grotesque Novel 156 Initiation, Personal Development, Education in Beasts of No Nation 166 Conclusion 173 CHAPTER FIVE REVERSE-DEVELOPMENT: MAGICAL REALISM IN DELIA JARRETT-MACAULEY’S MOSES, CITIZEN AND ME 175 Introduction 175 Magical Realism: Debates and Departures 181 Voiceovers of Trauma, Snapshots of Progress: The Potential of the Magical in Narrative and Photography 188 Reverse Development and Re-education: Magical Realism as Therapy 197 Magical Realism and Realism: Confounding Borders 208 Conclusion 210 CONCLUSION 211 WORKS CITED 217 http://etd.uwc.ac.za 1 INTRODUCTION The abuse of children in conflict zones around the globe has attracted numerous responses in different art forms such as music, films and novels, especially among African writers. These writers employ diverse narrative modes to portray the suffering and trauma of children affected by war as a way of bringing the plight of the postcolonial African child into the literary public sphere. These novels, albeit about childhood, do not follow the plot of the Bildungsroman as this genre has developed in African literature. The Bildungsroman in its African form has considered development not only into individual adulthood, but also development into the culture of colonial modernity. In African literature, the Bildungsroman focuses on the formation of young protagonists in an uncertain world (Amoko 200). One other characteristic of these “classical” African Bildungsromane, is that almost all their protagonists undergo traditional initiation before leaving home. Nevertheless, most protagonists of postcolonial war novels do not undergo initiation and their experience of war seems to be their form of initiation. This study explores selected West African novelists’ representation of disrupted childhoods as a result of war and how these disruptions shift their narratives into non-realist modes. This study is significant in the sense that while fictional child soldier narratives have become a subject of interest in literary criticism, the attention of most critics has not been drawn to narrative mode and matters of style consequent upon the various kinds of horrific experiences evoked as exemplified in the four texts in this study. The study argues that surrealism in Abani’s Song for Night; absurdism in Kourouma’s Allah is Not Obliged; the grotesque mode in Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation and magical realism in Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen and Me are narrative perspective effects which are “compelled” by the nature of the child soldier protagonists’ battlefield and wartime experiences depicted in these novels. The central thrust of this study is http://etd.uwc.ac.za 2 how it shows that unlike the “classic” European Bildungsroman or its African variant, the four texts that are explored in this study represent a form of “anti-Bildungsroman”. For, instead of showing the Bildung pattern of personality shaping and growth through experience resulting in the protagonists’ eventual social accommodation, the four protagonists’ experiences are a parody of initiation and its purpose of social inclusion.
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