SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS, METAPHYSICAL CONTENTS AND AESTHETICS IN SELECT ANGLOPHONE AFRICAN FACTIONS By Abidemi Olufemi ADEBAYO (Matric No.104957) 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 SEPTEMBER, 2014 CERTIFICATION I certify that this research was carried out by Abidemi Olufemi ADEBAYO in the Department of English, University of Ibadan, under my supervision. Professor Nelson O. Fashina Date Department of English University of Ibadan ii DEDICATION To all men of goodwill in Africa. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I acknowledge God for the gift of life. I thank my supervisor, Professor Nelson Fashina, for the sound tutelage I received from him all through the different stages of my academic career in the Department of English, University of Ibadan. He sowed the seed of thorough academic scholarship in me in my undergraduate days, nurtured it during my Master‘s degree programme and fortified same in the supervision of this research. I thank the professor profoundly. The impact of his mentoring on me is indelible. I also thank all the lecturers in the Department for constant encouragement and advice. Specific mention is made of Professor Lekan Oyeleye, Professor Remi Raji-Oyelade, Professor Tunde Omobowale, Professor Ayo Kehinde, Professor Obododinma Oha, Dr. Remy Oriaku, Dr. M. T. Lamidi, Dr. Toyin Jegede, Dr. Nike Akinjobi, Dr. Ayo Osisanwo, Dr. Ayo Ogunsiji and Dr. Adesina Sunday. I benefited from their wealth of knowledge. They guided me in the course of writing my thesis. It is important to me to appreciate the suggestion that Yinka Akintola made on how to procure books for the research. I also thank Mr Gbenga Laoye for explanation on administrative processes. I want to thank my typist, Mrs. R. B. Olatunji, for not disappointing me when I had deadlines to contend with. Thank you all for enabling me benefit from you. iv ABSTRACT Anglophone African factions, which are narratives containing a blend of African real-life socio-political events and fictive accounts, and which sometimes connect writers‘ metaphysical reference with their social consciousness and aesthetics, is central to literary expression in Africa. Yet, studies in African literature have focused on these philo-literary features only in fiction, neglecting their engagement in factions, thus barring a balance in African literary scholarship. This study, therefore, investigated the connection between social consciousness, metaphysical contents and aesthetics in African factions, with a view to establishing their role in the writers‘ creative vision. The research employed George Herbert Mead‘s theory of interactionism, the principle of mutual social relation, in investigating the writers‘ pursuit of social goals, aided by their metaphysical leaning in the selected texts. Four Anglophone African factions were purposively selected, for regional and gender balance. These included Nomad by Anyaan Hirsi Ali(East Africa), A Dream Fulfilled by Thandi Lujabe-Rankoe(Southern Africa), You must Set Forth at Dawn by Wole Soyinka(West Africa) and A Daughter of Isis by Nawal el Saadawi(North Africa). The texts were subjected to literary analysis. Four indexes of social consciousness were observed across the factions sampled: the Somali war, racial segregation in South Africa, military brutality in Nigeria and gender imbalance in Egypt. These were respectively fictionalised within the ambits of idealisation, infallibility, fairness and equality. The hostile socio-political environment in Africa informed the writers‘ references to metaphysical phenomena in advancing their goals. This manifested in atheist spirituality in Nomad, where Ali battles the spiritual aspect of the blood line and links human creative inspiration to atheist consciousness. It was also noted in references to African spirits such as Ngai in A Dream Fulfilled where Lujabe-Rankoe pursues folk liberation from apartheid and sees her reunion with folks after exile as divine and, so, makes supplications to Southern African spirits. It reflected in eulogy for deities such as Oro and Orunmila in You must Set Forth at Dawn where Soyinka describes the Oro festival he witnessed as ‗blissful‘ and this invigorated him on exile journey through Benin Republic, and seeks reunion with Pierre ‗under the canopy of ‗Orunmila‘ in the afterlife. This animist consciousness also reflects in A Daughter of Isis where Saadawi pursues the rights of women in Egypt through Isis. When in danger while advancing her social cause, Saadawi claims the spirits are with her and she is ‗no longer alone‘. References were also made to the Supreme Being by all the writers for inspiration. The writers express their social and metaphysical temper in the factions through aesthetic resources, such as goal-oriented code mixing, creative sentence inversion, vivid imagery and sensational hyperbole, for attaining idealisation, infallibility, fairness and equity. Social consciousness, metaphysical contents and aesthetics in the factions by Hirsi Ali, Thandi Lujabe-Rankoe, Wole Soyinka and Nawal el Saadawi are connected through fictionalised socio-political realities, contextualised within experiential exigencies, and creative lingua- literary resources of the writers. Thus, their convergence is instrumental to projecting the writers‘ perspectives, and the metaphysical and socio-cultural pulses of African societies. Key words: African factions, Social consciousness, Metaphysics, Literary aesthetics, Word count: 499 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Title page i Certification ii Dedication iii Acknowledgements iv Abstract v Table of Contents vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 Background to the Study 1 The Research Texts as Factions 5 Linking the Conceptual Theories 7 The Choice of the Faction as Subgenre for the Research 8 Choosing Ali, Lujabe-Rankoe, Soyinka and Saadawi as Research Authors 10 Research Limitation 12 Research Objective 14 Thesis Statement 17 Analytical Procedure 17 Terms and Concepts Used in the Research 18 On Ayaan Hirsi Ali 19 On Thandi Lujabe-Rankoe 21 On Wole Soyinka 22 Genres of Soyinka‘s Writing 25 On Nawal el Saadawi 26 Genres of Saadawi‘s Writing 28 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW: AFRICAN SOCIAL SYSTEM, SPIRITUALITY AND LANGUAGE OF THE FACTIONAL TEXT 29 Preamble 29 Faction as a Literary Subgenre 30 vi Perspectives on Interactionism 32 The Subgenre of Autobiography as a Nonfiction Form 33 The Concept of Art for Art‘s Sake 35 Metaphysics: From Socrates to Smor and Boeree 38 Theism, Deism and Pantheism in African Religious Consciousness 41 The Potency of the Yoruba Pantheon 46 The Complexity of Ogun‘s Attributes in the Yoruba Pantheon 49 Isis: The Character of a Mother Goddess 53 African Literature and the Current Social Realities 56 Muses, Musing and the African Literature of Occidental-Arabian Religions 61 Beyond Style As Choice, The Man Or Deviation 63 CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 68 Preamble 68 The Qualitative Research Approach 68 Adoption of Literary Analysis 69 The Application of the Interactionist Theory 69 Subregional Consideration in Text Selection 70 Need for Generational Factor 71 Consideration for Metaphysical Inclination 71 Gender Factor in Text Selection 72 CHAPTER FOUR: SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS, METAPHYSICAL CONTENTS AND AESTHETICS IN NOMAD AND A DREAM FULFILLED 73 Preamble 73 Social Consciousness in Nomad 73 On Ali‘s Feminist Temper: The Radical Approach 80 Ali‘s Other Social Concern 82 Metaphysical Paradigm in Nomad 85 Aesthetic Approach to the Language of Nomad 92 The Nature of Lujabe-Rankoe‘s Social Consciousness in A Dream Fulfilled 97 vii Gender Reading of A Dream Fulfilled 102 Lujabe Rankoe‘s Metaphysical Consciousness in A Dream Fulfilled 105 Aesthetic Reading of A Dream Fulfilled 111 Comparative Approach to Investigating Social Consciousness, Metaphysics and Aesthetics in Nomad and A Dream Fulfilled 116 Comparing the Perspectives of the Apostates: Ali and Soyinka 118 CHAPTER FIVE: SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS, METAPHYSICAL CONTENTS AND AESTHETICS IN YOU MUST SET FORTH AT DAWN AND A DAUGHTER OF ISIS 120 Preamble 120 Social Consciousness in You must Set Forth at Dawn 120 The Nationalistic Social Consciousness 122 The International Ramification to Soyinka‘s Social Consciousness 135 Metaphysical Paradigm in You must Set Forth at Dawn 143 Sources and Significance of Metaphysics in You must Set Forth at Dawn 143 Deconstructing a Metaphysical Superstructure in You must Set Forth at Dawn 143 The Combative Metaphysics: Intratextual 145 The Combative Metaphysics: Extratextual 146 Soyinka‘s Metaphysics: The Communal 148 Monist and Pluralistic Metaphysics in You must Set Forth at Dawn 153 Soyinka‘s Pluralistic Metaphysics: The Metamorphosis 156 Soyinka‘s Pluralistic Metaphysical Metamorphosis in You must Set Forth at Dawn 157 Significance of Metaphysics to Social Consciousness in You must Set Forth at Dawn 163 Aesthetic Contents of You must Set Forth at Dawn 174 Resources and Communicative Essence of Aesthetics in You must Set Forth at Dawn 175 Social Consciousness, Metaphysical Contents and Aesthetics in A Daughter of Isis 201 A Daughter of Isis from Social Consciousness Perspective 202 Saadawi‘s Quest for a New Social Order – Feminist Cause 203 Saadawi‘s Gender Advocacy Approach in A Daughter of Isis 206 viii Saadawi‘s Quest for a New Social Order: Other Notable Concerns 209 Saadawi Laments Effects of World War II 209 The Condemnation of Religious Opportunism 210 On Poor Educational System in Egypt 211 Corruption