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Myth and Mythography in Contemporary African Drama

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Myth and Mythography in Contemporary African Drama MYTH AND MYTHOGRAPHY IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN DRAMA BY STEPHEN OLADELE SOLANKE BA.Ed (English), Adeyemi (O.A.U), M.Ed (Educ Mgt), Ilorin, M.A (English), Ibadan A thesis in the Department of ENGLISH, Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for The Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY of the UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN OCTOBER 2011 i CERTIFICATION I certify that this work was carried out by STEPHEN OLADELE SOLANKE in the Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. …………………………………........ Supervisor Prof. Ademola Omobewaji Dasylva B.A Hons, M.A (Ile-Ife), PhD (Ibadan) Department of English, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. ii DEDICATION What a God! - It that stands without, within - It that supports without relaxing - It that started it, saw it through, and continues with it. What a Love! - my dad – my broken but unblemished mirror - my mum – my torch bearer, unfathomable love - my siblings – my familial strongholds - my wife – love eternal: from eternity into It - my crowns – Tope, Omolade, Moradeke, Adeife, Adeoluwa: Stars of my Life. What a Course! - the mountains I climbed - the valleys I waded through - the depths I delved into - the years that crawled but flew - the initiatory ordeals I underwent the Shore!, the Shore!!, the Shore!!! Dream Reality I Become What Is iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To the Primal Spirit that created me: without It this work and I would not have been. I want to put on record the love and care that characterized my relationship with my erudite supervisor, Prof. Ademola Omobewaji Dasylva throughout the years I spent on this work and on my Masters of Arts (MA) in English Literature project. I must thank him for believing in me. It was tough but his tacit and very often open encouragements and corrections toughened the academic in me. May your thinking cap never get blown off and may you attain the heights you seek for also. I recognise the inestimable assistance given me by all the lecturers in the Department: Prof. Raji-Oyelade (the HOD), Prof. Oyeleye, Drs. Remy Oriaku, Fashina, Lamidi, Kehinde, Ogunsiji, Adeyanju, Oha, Jegede, Omobowale and Sunday. My family that stood by me: my late father, mummy and siblings: Folake, Funlola, Funke, Bunmi and Gbenga. When things were tough, they were my pillar. I could not have asked for a better set of people (and souls) to see me through the harsh periods of this academic journey. I acknowledge the love and care you sowed in me. If not for my Aya, „Teminikansoso‟ Rebecca Funmilade Aduke and my crowns, Tope (Iya Agba), Omolade (Olori-Ebi), Moradeke (Maama), Adeife (Paapa) and Adeoluwa (Oba) this work would certainly not have been completed. The nights and days you were abandoned are uncountable.You understood, following me in seeking for the Star. Your love, unstintingly given, is unquantifiable. For all I took from you; do accept this little appreciation and this work. To Mrs Bola Adebayo, Lere Akinola, H. Onyemelukwe, the Oyekans, my two Suliyats and Dr. Ibrahim Olaosun, „e se o‟. To all my well-wishers, „encouragers‟, colleagues, editors, students, „couriers‟ of this work to and from Oyo to Zamfara (many times), friends in both my private and public life at Federal Government Girls‟ College, Oyo, Oyo State and Federal Government College, Anka, Zamfara State and in general, I say, “„e se lopolopo, mo dupe‟, „nagode kwore kwore‟, „dalu rine‟, „sōsōnÖ eti eti‟ – „Thank you so much‟”. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page i. Certification ii. Dedication iii. Acknowledgments iv. Table of Contents v-vi. Abstract vii. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the Study 1-3 1.2 Historical Perspectives on Myth and Mythography (From Classical Period to Modern Age) 3-16 1.3 Purpose of the Study 16-19 1.4 Delimitations of the Study 19-20 1.5 Theoretical Framework 20-23 1.6 Working Definitions and Concepts 24-25 1.7 Working Textual Abbreviations 25-26 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF LITERATURE 2.1 Literary Perspectives 27-43 v CHAPTER THREE: IDEOLOGICAL RELEVANCES, INITIATIONS AND SYMBOLISMS IN AFRICAN DRAMA 3.1 The Texts and Ideological Relevances 44-85 3.2 Initiations and Symbolisms 85-147 CHAPTER FOUR: MYTHOTYPES IN AFRICAN DRAMA 4.1 Mythic Issues and Mythotypes in the Texts 148-218 CHAPTER FIVE: ARCHETYPAL MODELS, TOTEMS AND TECHNICAL APPLICATIONS IN AFRICAN DRAMA 5.1 Archetypes 219-231 5.2 Totems 231-237 5.3 The Mythic Hero 237-247 5.4 Technical Applications 247-272 5.5 Language 272-283 CHAPTER SIX: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 6.1 Summary of Findings 284-288 6.2 Conclusion 288-293 6.3 Recommendation 294 REFERENCES 295-306 vi ABSTRACT Most previous studies regarded myths as a plethora of concocted stories: they paid little attention to dramatic myth and mythography as productive and effective in African way of life. Modernism, sequestered from the past, created directionless and questioning societies. Solutions, pre-encoded in mythologies and transmitted through generations, were jettisoned. This study, therefore, situates dramatic mythic tendencies, depictions and effects in present African way of lives with a view to highlighting the connectivity of their socio- religious, political, economic and general implications to individual and national lives of the African people. The study employs Carl Jung‟s archetypal model which deals with holistic and universal symbols of human experiences. The collective unconscious is the pooling source of human experiences which manifests different but related forms, while a unit of symbol (the primordial original) is the derivative mold from which others emanate. Nine African dramatic texts, Tewfik al-Hakim‟s Fate of a Cockroach (FOC), Athol Fugard‟s Sizwe Bansi is Dead (SBD), Brett Bradley‟s Ipi Zombi? (IPZ), Ebrahim Hussein‟s Kinjeketile (KIN), Ngugi wa Thiong‟o and Micere Mugo‟s The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (TDK), Femi Osofisan‟s Morountodun (MOR), Efua Sutherland‟s The Marriage of Anansewa (MOA), ‟Zulu Sofola‟s Wedlock of the Gods (WOG) (for feminist related issues) and Wole Soyinka‟s Death and the King‟s Horseman (DKH), were purposively selected because they portray African consciousness in authorship, topicalities and environmental issues. The texts are subjected to content analysis. Mythic encryptions represent, for all levels of life, the people‟s accrued mythic experiences. Myth and mythography become everyday creations that are unlimited to the past as ordinary records and stories. They represent present realities with codifications that impact on life and the future. The texts contain mythic tendencies which reveal mythographic meanings and idiosyncrasies relevant to ongoing national and individual situations. Within the African socio-religious life, rites and rituals, marriages and initiations, births and deaths are models of codification. They are symbolic and mythographic representations to entering next level of physical or spiritual life. This is represented in FOC, KIN and DKH. Adil, Kinjeketile and Olunde respectively become heroes through the death of the self. Human reliance on spiritual forces is curtailed at individual and national stages. The powers and presence of gods in human affairs become demystified: man must fight for political and economic independence as depicted in MOR, MOA and TDK as the characters fight the establishment by creating new mythic stories. Textual mythic findings encourage the discarding of anachronistic socio-religious based mythological ideas: rites, beliefs, patrilineal, racial and ethnic discriminations as portrayed in SBD, WOG and IPZ. Solutions to secular and spiritual developmental problems are pre-embedded in African dramatic textual myths. African life is affected by mythographical codifications that can prevent social eruptions, help maintain social balance and instill peaceful co-existence. Therefore, African myths and mythography should be refined and preserved. Key words: Dramatic mythography, Archetype, African drama, Mythic encryption, Demystification Word count: 464 vii CHAPTER ONE Introduction 1.1 Background of the Study The generic development of a people necessitates the concoction of facts and fictions in respect of their socio-economic, religious and physical experiences. Over time, these become shrouded in mysteries and are rendered either sacredly or secularly. From them stories, folklores and myths are created. After different generations of their transmission, lots of changes either to the themes, context, style (of delivery, of form) occur though their essences remain. Some of these stories are considered mythical. They are rendered imaginatively and symbolically. Most of the time, the culture and traditions of a society exist on this structure. Antecedently, myth and its study were not accorded much academic respect. Myths were considered as collections of make-shift stories that portended the child- like attitude and age of man‟s development. They were regarded as a plethora of stories filled with falsities and with no iota of truth and facts. Myths, therefore, became synonymous with falsehood. This situation even gave birth to a word like „mythomania‟ (human tendency to over-exaggerate or to indulge in overt and covert lying) in a field of study as sublime as Psychology (Ngumoha 1988, Lang 1998). Supporting this, though with a variation, Aristotle, in his Poetics consigns myth to the world of ordinary words, stories and fables. In consonance with this, Chase (1946: 539) opines: „„myth is . an aesthetic creation of the human imagination”. This statement foregrounds that myth emanates from humans with very active imaginative powers. The notion that myth lacks truth and reality can also be rooted in the Romantic movement and its evaluation of primitive and non-Christian religions. With Welleck and Warren (1978:191), an improvement in the study and definition of myth regards it as „„any anonymously composed story telling of origins and destinies: the explanations a society offers to its young on why the world is and why we do as we do”. With this, seriousness crept into the understanding and study of myth.
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