CLASH OF CULTURE IN WOLE SOYINKA’S THE LION AND THE JEWEL AND OLA ROTIMI’S OUR HUSBAND HAS GONE MAD AGAIN

ATTENTION:

BEFORE YOU READ THE ABSTRACT OR CHAPTER ONE OF THE PROJECT TOPIC BELOW, PLEASE READ THE INFORMATION BELOW.THANK YOU!

INFORMATION:

YOU CAN GET THE COMPLETE PROJECT OF THE TOPIC BELOW. THE FULL PROJECT COSTS N5,000 ONLY. THE FULL INFORMATION ON HOW TO PAY AND GET THE COMPLETE PROJECT IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE. OR YOU CAN CALL: 08068231953, 08168759420

WHATSAPP US ON 08137701720

CLASH OF CULTURE IN WOLE SOYINKA’S THE LION AND THE JEWEL AND OLA ROTIMI’S OUR HUSBAND HAS GONE MAD AGAIN

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

Culture is a leaned behaviour which each person acquires as a member of a group or society. Therefore, each character is a product of its unique history. Culture is an extensive feature of a group or society, also, it is a mark of identification and something that the individual or groups could easily get sentimental about. Though the Encarta English Dictionary (2009ed) has different definition of culture varying from “arts collectively”, “knowledge and sophistication”, “shared beliefs and practices” and so on, but the definition that best suite our course of study is that which says that culture:

Are the beliefs, customs, practices and social behaviour of a particular nation or people. (Also) it can be a group of people whose shared beliefs and practices identify the particular place, class, or time to which they belong. 1

Culture is a human characteristic in which man expresses the totality of his ways of life in a collective setting. It can also be referred to as the sum total of human activities shared by members of a group. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, culture is defined as: “… broad-based as it is all civilizations, social and material inventions, institutions, and literary achievements of a people”.2

Culture is a sentimental phenomenon which an individual not only cherishes, but also protects dearly. Thus, literature becomes the medium through which cultural sentiments are expressed and projected. Africans in particular; have, for a long time, been subjected to cultural imposition and displacement of foreign culture. This was due to the invasion by the Arabs in the African regions. This is not to say that Africans received these foreign cultures whole-heartedly. There was resistance and there has continued to be resistance through African arts, ethnics and culture. As result of this resistance, the conflict between the western world and Africans began to manifest. Today, plays that protestant in nature are being written to this effect.

On this note, we shall define conflict by adapting the definition of the Encarta 2009 dictionary which states

it is a disagreement or clash between ideas, principles, or people. It can also be a psychological state resulting from the often unconscious opposition between simultaneous but incompatible desires, needs, drives or impulse.3

The key words in the definition are “clash” and “disagreement”. This definition best suit our course of study because it is on this note that Wole Soyinka opposes in the two texts being understudied.

African literary writers are victims of cultural imperialism as a result of European colonial rule, therefore, at one time or the other they try to force themselves from colonial cultural imposition while projecting and glorifying traditional cultures. In the words of Adeyemi (1993) citing Olorunmoye (15)”culture supplies us our habits of life…”4

Ola Rotimi’s play, Our Husband has gone mad again, depicts some socio-political problems such as; the danger and problem of polygamy, wife inheritance, Khakistocracy, uneducated political leaders and selfishness of our leaders.

The serious intention of the play is powerfully depicted by the fact that the character of Lekoja-Brown and Liza undergoes a land of transformation. The farmer is content to be a humble farmer and the latter is prepared to practice medicine as a mere farmer’s wife. This may be a good solution to individual problems but one wonders if Sikira is the answer to Nigeria’s politics.

Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again is a play that one can’t but appreciate the play’s fine disregard for western realism. It carries a genuinely crazy West African Scenario.

The play is, satirical one. It centres on “Khakistocracy” that is, the act of in which military men vie for power again in the democratic system, but our major concern in the play is madness as a metaphor (as symbolized through major Lekoja-Brown) in the course of his political ambition.

It is necessary too examined the title to see whether it is strictly relevant to the play. The key words in the title are “husband” and “Mad”. The husband in this case is Lekoja-Brown who is the same man that goes mad frequently in the course of the play. It is also noticeable that it is the same Lekoja Brown who is the character around whom the whole play is woven. He appears in practically all the scenes unlike some character that appear only once or twice for example Alhaji Mustapha. It is doubtful if the play would exist without Lekoja Brown whose political and Marital activities constitute the play and are the subject of Ola Rotimi’s Satire.

Before recounting the episodes in which Lekoja Brown goes mad it is necessary to examine the epithet “mad”. The word is not used in the denotative but in the connotative sense, that is to express his fury, loss of temper, violent or unreasonable behaviour wherever something or someone disturbs his laid down plans. Lekoja Brown’s first show of madness is at the conference room of his party, the National Liberation party. The conference begins with Lekoja-Brown’s putting forth his election winning tactics which he describes as a pattern of military strategy known as “surprise and attack”. He elaborates it as a means of “catching the enemy off-guard and wiping out his power before he can mobilize enough forces to launch a counter-attack”. Intellectuals in his party like Mr. Osagie and Mallam Gaskiya bluntly disagree with him arguing that “Surprise and attack” can not work in a political campaign. Upon, this disagreement, Lekoja-Brown becomes furious and lashes out at his party men with “Alright, every jackass go home” and insists on using the “Surprise and Attack” strategy for his elections.

The same unreasonable fury is true of Lekoja-Brown’s brawl with his wives, Sikira and Liza. The American trained Liza on her return gives a dress which leaves some parts of her limbs uncovered.

This does not go well with Lekoja-Brown and he orders her to put it off. Sikira at first refuses to obey but when she realizes that Lekoja-Brown really means to order her out, she angrily goes into her room to pack her belongings. On her way out she shouts, “men and women are created equal”. On hearing this, thinking it was from Liza, Lekoja-Brown runs berserk and engages her in a fight that makes them run up and down the stage. As Sikira dashes out, she runs headlong into mama Rashida who ask what the matter is Sikira explains that she is going to her mother because “Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again.

One more incident of “insanity” intakes place at the world press Conference. Present are Lekoja-Brown, Mr. Osagie, Mallam Gaskiya, two Nigerian journalists and a B.B.C. correspondent. Before the commencement of the interview, Lekoja-Brown ordered Polycarp not to allow Liza in through the door that leads to the conference room in case she comes back while the interview is in progress. The conference is on when Polycarp suddenly shouts, “Major”. After vain attempts to make Liza go in through another door, major goes for his matchet’ and orders every blinking man on to the blinking floor to prevent them from seeing Liza returning in her swim-suit. He threatens with a rifle too. He orders Liza into her room and later asks the victims to stand up. What can he madder than this crude use of force on innocent civilians whose co-operation he needs to win an election? What of the disgrace too!.

The last incident of madness occurs towards the end of the play when he has been out-voted by his party and replaced by Sikira. He goes furious and says he will fight the government. He goes into army drills, forcing Liza to learn gun-handling positions such as “prone” cross ankle and the ‘fox hole”. Liza’s words echo his madness when she says, “But how can we fight the government what if we get killed”.

An after nature title “The Triumph of Sikira” will not be appropriate because it has left out the episodes of madness which is the real point of the play and which enables Sikir to win the party’s nomination eventually. Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again is therefore the most appropriate and justifiable title for the play.

OLA ROTIMI’S BIOGRAPHY

Rotimi was born to an Ijaw mother and a Yoruba father, and cultural diversity was a frequent theme in his work. Educated in Nigeria in Port Harcourt and Lagos, he traveled to the United States in 1959 to study at Boston University. After receiving a B.A. in fine arts in 1963, he attended the Yale School of Drama (M.A., 1966), concentrating on playwrighting. Upon returning to Nigeria in the 1960s, he taught at the Universities of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and Port Harcourt. Owing, in part, to political conditions in Nigeria, Rotimi spent much of the 1990s living in the Caribbean and the United States, where he taught at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 2000 he returned to Ile-Ife, joining the faculty of Obafemi Awolowo University.

Rotimi often examined Nigeria’s history and ethnic traditions in his works. His first plays To Stir the God of Iron (produced 1963) and Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again (produced 1966; published 1977) were staged at the drama schools of Boston University and Yale, respectively. His later dramas include The Gods Are Not to Blame (produced 1968; published 1971), a retelling of the Oedipus myth in imagistic blank verse; Kurunmi and the Prodigal (produced 1969; published as Kurunmi, 1971), written for the second Ife Festival of Arts; Ovonramwen Nogbaisi (produced 1971; published 1974), about the last ruler of the Benin empire; and Holding Talks (1979). Later plays, such as If: A Tragedy of the Ruled (1983) and Hopes of the Living Dead (1988), premiered at the University of Port Harcourt. The radio play Everyone His/Her Own Problem was broadcast in 1987. His book African Dramatic Literature: To Be or to Become? was published in 1991.

WOLE SOYINKA’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Born Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka in the western part of Nigeria called Ogun State, Wole Soyinka was born on the 13th of July, 1934, at Isara, Ijebu Remo near Abeokuta to Mr. Ayodele and Mrs. Eniola Soyinka. His father was a school supervisor and his mother was a trader. Wole Soyinka, as he is popularly called, grew up in a time of transition when the technologically more advanced colonist, Britain, was destroying the very foundation of the indigenous Nigeria civilisation. Wole Soyinka is seen as a writer who partly writes to explain the social dilemma of the group to which he belongs and partly to a way of life which has survived to some extent, and might have more fully survived, if certain historical events had not so drastically affected Africa and the attitudes of Africans not only to people of other race but also to their own selves. This is what playwright portrayed in his plays which we have for this study. The fact that Wole Soyinka has lived to write so much about the African experience is a miracle. His upbringing reflected both African and western influences, and the conflict and interaction between these two forces occupies most of his writings, particularly in the plays; The Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman, which we will be understudying in this research work.

Some critics of the playwright agree that he is an African writer with stronger African than western theatrical bias, and his style is mid-way between African and European tradition. In short, his drama is a perfect synthesis of both traditions.5 Finally, most of his plays, including the texts being understudied; the themes, plots and settings are mainly African.

STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM

This research acknowledges that the concept of culture has been overflowed but we are focusing our attention on the conflicts between the traditional and western culture by drawing examples from Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman and Ola Rotimi’s our husband has gone mad again

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

What this research is setting out to do is to use the texts; The Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman, by Wole Soyinka to reveal the conflicting point between the traditional and western culture. Ola Rotimi in his book also shows dominating and sometimes domineering nature coupled with somewhat extreme authority of men over women, especially in marital relationships. In doing this, we shall focus on what these conflicts are how they have been expressed by the playwright. We shall also examine the reserved norms, nature, values and cultural practice of the Africans by looking at the plays which are set in the post-world war II Nigeria.

SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

This work aims at finding the conflict between the traditional and western culture and how Wole Soyinka and Ola Rotimi has been able to use both texts; The Lion and the Jewel and our husband has gone mad again, to explore this. The research shall be limited to a critical analysis of the conflict between these two cultures mentioned by comparing the two texts and showing how they have been portrayed because both texts best capture the existence of the conflicts of the two cultures.

JUSTIFICATION

Today, Africans have neglected some of the rich cultural heritage and adopted the “white-man’s” culture. Some of which has prompted the clash between the African and western culture. Writers, poets and even dramatists have been using their works to sensitize these issues. Likewise, it is the belief of that the conclusion of this research work will make a significant impact on the development of African literature and add to the existing work of prominent researchers in exposing the conflict between African tradition and westernization.

METHODOLOGY

For a clear and competent analysis of the texts set aside for this research we have adopted the sociological theory because it best suits the study. Under the sociological theory, we shall be looking at societal norms and belief system, psychological conflict and generation gap conflict. In the analysis of these elements, some of the dialogue of the characters in the texts shall be looked at, the characters and some events/ incidents as well.

Consequently, we have been able to give a brief introduction of conflict and culture. Also, we have been able to state our problem and purpose to which the research is being embarked upon. We pointed out our limitation and went ahead to give the theory in which the researcher aims to adopt. Therefore, at this point, we shall move on to our chapter two, which is the literature review.

HOW TO RECEIVE PROJECT MATERIAL(S)

After paying the appropriate amount (#5,000) into our bank Account below, send the following information to

08068231953 or 08168759420

(1) Your project topics

(2) Email Address

(3) Payment Name

(4) Teller Number

We will send your material(s) after we receive bank alert

BANK ACCOUNTS

Account Name: AMUTAH DANIEL CHUKWUDI

Account Number: 0046579864

Bank: GTBank.