Myth and history in the West African novel

Abstract

The study of African literatures necessitates a clean break from European and Western assumptions about the function of art and about the role of the artist in the community. The West African writer is deeply involved in the moulding of identity in a situation that is complex and, at times, paradoxical. National consciousness has to evolve within arbitrary boundaries left by colonialism and the African novelist has to create an authentic sense of identity through the English language and a Western genre. These conditions are particular to Africa and their manifestation in the African novel cannot be accounted for in European terms only. This thesis examines myth and history as manifested in the novels of Chinua Achebe, Ayi Kwei Armah and Wole Soyinka. The starting point was an exploration of myth and history in West African novels. This showed that the traditional opposition between mythological thought and historic vision was untenable vis d vis the writer’s practice in Africa. Chinua Achebe, Ayi Kwei Armah and Wole Soyinka all show a mythopoeic sensibility as well as an ethical consciousness. Their recourse to myth rarely leads outside a time referent but is always grounded in the authors’ commitment to their society's actual situation. The novels of Achebe, Armah and Soyinka are explored through the theories of Edward Said, Frantz Fanon and Homi Bhabha. The practice of the writers themselves in the novels, as well as comments about art and the artist in their essays, pointed towards the work of these theorists. The writers’ own development and their response to the political situations in which they have been, at times, personally involved is also brought to bear on the discussion of the novels. A sincere desire to bring about a fuller understanding of the native element of the novels led to an exploration of historical, religious and sociological material about the Igbo, the Akan and the Yoruba of West Africa. The focus on the indigenous aspect of the novels follows from the rejection of the attitude that privileges ‘universal’-over local elements. This has been done in the consciousness that this process neuters and devitalises an art whose very heart is socio-political commitment.