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ODEH DEAN
PG/MA/08/48544
A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ISIDORE OKPEWHO’S THE LAST
DUTY AND HELON HABILA’S WAITING FOR AN ANGEL
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LITERARY STUDIES
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LITERARY
STUDIES,, FACULTY OF ARTS,, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA
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DECEMBER 2010
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A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ISIDORE
OKPEWHO’S THE LAST DUTY AND HELON
HABILA’S WAITING FOR AN ANGEL
BY
ODEH DEAN
PG/MA/08/48544
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LITERARY
STUDIES, FACULTY OF ARTS,
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA
DECEMBER, 2010.
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A STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF ISIDORE OKPEWHO’S THE
LAST DUTY AND HELON HABILA’S WAITING FOR AN
ANGEL
BY
ODEH DEAN
PG/MA/08/48544
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
AND LITERARY STUDIES, FACULTY OF ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIRMENTS FOR THE
AWARD OF A MASTER OF ARTS (M.A.) DEGREE IN ENGLISH.
DECEMBER 2010
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CERTIFICATION
This is to certify that this Thesis: “A Stylistic Analysis of Isidore Okpewho‟s
The Last Duty and Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel”, was personally
written by me, Odeh Dean, under the tutelage or supervision of Professor Sam
M. Onuigbo, and submitted to the Department of English and Literary Studies,
Faculty of Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the award of a Master of Arts (M.A.) Degree in English from
the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Prof. Sam M. Onuigbo ………………… Date………………
Project Supervisor
Professor A.N. Akwanya ………………… Date………………
Head of Department
Professor E.E. Okafor …………………. Date………………
Dean, Faculty of Arts
External Examiner ………………… Date……………….
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DEDICATION
This Master‟s Thesis is dedicated to God Almighty for making everything
possible, expressly paving the way and leading me through the path of a
Master‟s Degree. I say, may honour, adoration and glory be given to Him in
Jesus‟ name. Amen!
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My most profound gratitude goes to my lovely mother, Mrs. Court-ere
Odeh, for all the care and prayers. My gratitude also goes to my younger ones:
Barrister Odeh, Fidelis Odeh, Ebiseride and her husband, Vincent Kemebimor;
Esede Ojoto and Saturday Odeh for their show of total concern for my Master‟s
studies. A big thank you also goes to Mr. C.P. Sibebo, Aunty Deinere Akarah,
Daniel Eniyekedimene, French Akpowei, Demes Lawson Aniseri, Playman
Odeh and Jerry Odeh for their moral and financial assistance during my
Master‟s studies.
My profound gratitude also goes to my project supervisor, Professor Sam
M. Onuigbo, who bore with me and also squeezed out time to attend to my work
and brought my Master‟s Programme to a successful conclusion.
My sincere appreciation also goes to the Head of the Department of
English and Literary Studies, Reverend Father Professor Amechi Nicholas
Akwanya, and to other lecturers and non-teaching staff in the Department, for
giving me prime attentions whenever the need arose.
My heart-felt appreciation also goes to my understanding roommates:
Beal Dumo-opuye Amakiri, Boniface Ogumbe, and Ernest Ernest Ekpor for
their cooperation. A big thank you also goes to my God-send course-mates:
Nwaogwugwu Constance Ijeoma, Chief Sunday Joseph Okoli, Ucheoma
Uwhoeli, Judith Okoro, and Eze Chijioke Jude as well as my good friends:
Augustine Ebi, Commissioner Preye Ombeh, and Koremene Richard Miebo,
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and Victoria Akpan for affecting my life positively in one way or the other
during my Master‟s Programme.
Finally, I express my happiness to Lady Edith Okoso for her concern for
me and my typist and friend, Miss Chidiebere Charity Idoko, for doing a
thorough typing to bring my Master‟s Programme to its successful anchor point.
Thank you and God bless you all!
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ABSTRACT
The various attitudes and dispositions of linguistic and literary scholars
towards the study of literature can be partially attributed to the fact that some
scholars of linguistics see linguistics as a science and, therefore, cannot be
combined with literature which is a creative art. Over the years, this battle
between language and literature has been on and has hindered some literary
critics from analyzing a literary work using the linguistic science. Also, the
existence of a literary language is another bone of contention among linguists
and literary artists. This research is poised to examine the possibility of
analyzing literature using the resources of language in order to show the
existence of a literary language, and how literary or creative writers use
language. The work is divided into five chapters. Chapter one contains the
introduction with so many sub-headings. Chapter two dwells on the literature
review. Chapter three is the linguistic analysis of the individual, stylistic
features of Isidore Okpewho in The Last Duty and Helon Habila in Waiting for
an Angel. Chapter four is on a comparative study of the two novels. Finally,
chapter five is the conclusion.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page - - - - - - - - - i
Certification Page - - - - - - - - ii
Dedication - - - - - - - - - iii
Acknowledgment - - - - - - - - iv
Abstract - - - - - - - - - vi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background of Study - - -- - - - 1
1.1 A Stylistic Analysis - - - - - - 2
1.2 Statement of Problem - - - - - 4
1.3 Purpose of Study - - - - - - - 4
1.4 Scope of the Study - - - - - - - 6
1.5 Significance of the Study - - - - - - 7
1.6 Biographies of Authors - - - - - - 7
1.7 Isidore Okpewho - - - - - - - 7
1.8 Helon Habila - - - - - - - 8
1.9 Synopses of the Novels - - - - - 10
1.10 The Last Duty - - - - - - - 11
1.11 Waiting for an Angel - - - - - - 13
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 INTRODUCTION - - - - - - - 16
2.1 The Concept of Language - - - - - 16
2.2 The Concept of Style - - - - - - 19
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2.3 Domain of Style - - - - - - - 22
2.4 Style Theory - - - - - - - 23
2.5 The Concept of Stylistics - - - - - - 24
2.6 The Concept of Foregrounding - - - - - 26
2.7 Theoretical Framework - - - - - - 27
2.8 The Metafunctions of Language - - - - 28
CHAPTER THREE: LEVELS OF LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
3.0 INTRODUCTION - - - - - - - 30
3.1 Syntax - - - - - - - - 30
3.2 Selectional Rules Violation - - - - - 31
3.3 Parallelism - - - - - - - - 32
3.4 The use of Pidgin - - - - - - - 32
3.5 Disfigured sentences - - - - - - 34
3.6 Chiasmus - - - - - - - - 36
3.7 Non-simple Sentences - - - - - - - 37
3.8 Morphology - - - - - - - 40
3.9 Conversion - - - - - - - - 40
3.10 Borrowing - - - - - - - - 41
3.11 Neologism or Coinage - - - - - - 42
3.12 Reduplication - - - - - - - 42
3.13 Affixation - - - - - - - - - 42
3.14 Compounding - - - - - - - 43
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3.15 Graphology - - - - - - - - 44
3.16 Ellipsis - - - - - - - 45
CHAPTER FOUR: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE LAST
DUTY AND WAITING FOR AN ANGEL
4.0 Comparative analysis - - - - - - 47
4.1 The Theory of Marxism - - - - - - 47
4.2 Historicism - - - - - - - - 49
4.3 The Structure of the Novels - - - - - 51
4.4 Heroes of Low Mimetic Mode - - - - - 53
4.5 Humour - - - - - - - - 54
4.6 Proverbs - - - - - - - - 56
4.7 A Contrastive Analysis of The Last Duty and Waiting for an Angel 57
CHAPTER FIVE:
5.0 Conclusion - - - - - - - - 59
WORKS CITED - - - - - - - 61-67
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background of study
Language is the supreme tool or means of communication among humans
(Osundare 2003:36). Communication of whatever medium – verbal, written,
gesturing, facial expression or sign is language. Language is got from the Latin
word “lingua” through French langue – meaning “tongue” (Rob Pope 1998:49).
It is synonymous with tongue as the tongue is the main organ for speech
production and primarily spoken and heard (Quirk and Greenbaum 1990:21).
Language is a “species-specific to man and species-uniform” (Syal and Jindal
2008: 4). It is the quintessence of human existence, making us unique and
distinguishing us from other animals. According to Lewis Thomas in O‟Grady
and Archibald (2009:1), “the gift of language is the single human trait that
marks us all genetically, setting us apart from the rest of life”.
Language serves diverse roles in our society. It serves as a medium of
information, education, instruction, entertainment, and so on. It is used in
different aspects of our society and this is responsible for its varieties which
include: legalese, religionese, officialese, journalese, commercialese, and so on.
Language in its myriad functions, is also used in literary works and language
use in text is the concern of this research.
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Creative writers often use language in their own ways to achieve beauty
and meaning. They break the rules or norms of the language for a particular
stylistic effect, but in the canopy of the language. Literary writers express their
messages, feelings, attitudes, experiences and world-views by means of
language. According to Northrop Frye (1970:74), “literature is a specialized
form of language, as language is of communication”. Language is the tool or
pillar of literature and each literary writer employs a particular mode of
presentation to express himself.
Every literary artist, in his creative enterprise brings innovations to the
language. For instance, he uses structure or arrangement and specific choice of
words in a specific way for ornamentation and captivation of readers‟ attentions.
Language is open-ended in that it permits the generation of new meanings and
new forms (Leech and Short 2007:97). This creative use of language and the
specific patterns employed in creative works by creative writers bring about
style and stylistics in language studies.
1.1 Stylistic Analysis
A stylistic analysis of a text is a critical dissection of the text in order to
understand the linguistic arsenal of the writer. Style, according to The Chambers
Universal Learners‟ Dictionary, is “a manner or way of doing something, like
writing, speaking, painting, building”. Leech and Short (2007:9) define it as
“the way in which language is used in a given context, by a given person, for a
given purpose. Text is the natural starting point or place for the study of style
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and stylistics, and to have a mastery of them, a firm understanding of language
in all its dimensions is required. According to Robert Graves in David Crystal
(1997:71), a poet should “master the rules of grammar before he attempts to
bend or break them”.
Both style and stylistics are derived from the Latin word “stilus” meaning
“a writing instrument” (The Chambers Dictionary 1642). Style, therefore, refers
to the linguistic “signature”, “stamp” or “thumbprint” of a writer and signifies
the man – the writer (Luke Eyoh 2005:29). Every writer makes his own choices
on the language which he wants to use as well as the manner he will use them.
This choice and manner that constitute the style of the writer is the pre-
occupation of this research. Studying the linguistic choice and manner of a
writer or speaker is in the domain of stylistics.
Stylistics is the scientific study of the variations in language. It is “a
celebration of language in all its oddity, beauty, fun, astonishing complexity and
limitless variety” (Crystal 1997). Stylistics explores how readers interact with
the language of literary texts in order to explain how we understand, and are
affected by texts when we read them. It is a three -dimensional process of
communication between a reader, a text and a writer (Ofuani and Longe
1996:359).
It is understood that every writer has a style peculiar to him. This is also
true of Isidore Okpewho and Helon Habila. It is against this background that
this thesis analyses Okpewho‟s The last Duty and Habila‟s Waiting for an
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Angel, with a focus on their artistic manipulation of the resources of the English
Language.
1.2 Statement of problem
The problem which this research project intends to investigate is: “A
stylistic Analysis of Isidore Okpewho‟s The Last Duty and Helon Habila‟s
Waiting for an Angel”. Literary writers use language in a particular way for
aesthetic effect and meaning. This is also applicable to Okpewho and Habila.
The research will illuminate and explore what is peculiar or specific to their
language, how and why Okpewho and Habila have employed the resources or
tools of language in these aforementioned texts in special ways. Some works
have been done to explore the literary beauty of these works but much remains
to be done in the area of linguistic investigation. That is the gap which this
project intends to fill.
1.3 Purpose of Study
This research is intended to contribute to the literature on the existence of
literary language. Scholars like Brumfit and Carter (1986) (qtd. in Yeibo
2000:34) argue that there is nothing like literary language as we cannot isolate
or pinpoint what may be called a “literary register” as we have in law,
agriculture, medicine, engineering, commerce, and so on. But Sinclair (1981),
Stubbs (1983), Crystal (1997) believe in the existence of a literary language as
an estranged language different from the ordinary language. Werth (1976) and
Carter and Nash (1983) suggest that, instead of literary language, we should
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rather talk about “language and literariness” (qtd. in Yeibo 2000:34-35). Roman
Jakobson (1921) also believes in the existence of a literary language when he
says: “The object of study in literary science is not literature but “literariness”,
that is, what makes a given work a literary work” (qtd. in Abrams 1981:166 and
Ogum 2002:21). Frye also asserts that literature is an autonomous language in
reading a novel (1970:351).
Secondly, the research is intended to see whether or not linguistics as a
science can be carried out in literature, a pure art. Over the years there has been
a dispute between literary critics and linguists on the application of linguistic
methods to the study of literature, of which some linguists are of the opinion
that the activity is justified. But literary critics think otherwise. The argument is
that while linguistics is a science, literature is inaccessible to science and that
linguistic processing is only preliminary to literary response, so the linguist is
incapable of taking us far enough in an account of literary form and experience.
David Lodge (1966:357) (qtd. in Alabraba (2008:10-11) sheds light on the
difference between the linguistic science and the literary art thus:
One still feels obliged to assert that the discipline of linguistics will
never replace literary criticism, or radically change the bases of its
claims to be useful and meaningful form of human enquiry; it is
the essential characteristics of modern linguistics that it claims to
be a science. It is the essential characteristic of literature that it
concerns value. And values are not amenable to scientific method.
Emmanuel Ngara (1982:II) in Eyoh (2005:32) also refutes the possibility
or capability of analyzing literature with linguistics. According to him, “a
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purely scientific approach to the study of literature can only kill the writer‟s
creative effort”. But Roger Fowler (1996:197) claims that it is possible to
analyse literature with linguistics depending on the linguistic model or choice
employed by the critic and the purpose intended:
One model may have the purpose of accounting for the structure of
particular texts; another may focus on socio-linguistic variation;
another may be concerned to increase our knowledge about
linguistic universal and so on (qtd. in Alabraba 2008:11).
In a nutshell, the research aims at investigating the possibility of
analyzing literature with linguistics and the existence or otherwise of a literary
language.
1.4 Scope of the Study
This research attempts to make a stylistic analysis of Isidore Okpewho‟s
The Last Duty and Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel. The research focuses
on syntax, morphology and graphology. This delimitation is because stylistics is
not language study in all its entirety but saliency, peculiarity, habituality and
individuality. Leech (1969) in Onwukwe (2009:52) gives credence to this
assertion when he declares:
To talk of studying the “style” of an author does not usually
imply a study of everything in the language he has used, but
only an attempt to isolate, define, and discuss these
linguistic features which are felt to be peculiarly his, which
help to distinguish him from other authors.
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1.5 Significance of the Study
A research is expected to play a significant role in the society or
academia. It must be of benefit to humanity. According to Uzoagulu, “if there is
no benefit, then there should be no study. Why carry out the study if there are
no benefits” (1998:38). This research will contribute to scholarship or
knowledge. The goal of the research is to sharpen our awareness of how
language works in literary texts. It will be useful not only to the students but
also to teachers, lecturers and other researchers in the areas of language,
literature and stylistics.
Secondly, the study of language variation and language use is relevant for
the teaching and learning of languages, and for developing the learner‟s
communicative ability.
Finally, the paucity of stylistic materials in the study of Nigerian prose
fiction also necessitates this research.
1.6 Biographies of Authors
ISIDORE OKPEWHO
Isidore Okpewho was born in Abraka in present Delta State in the Niger
Delta area of Nigeria in 1941. Okpewho attended St. Patrick‟s College, Asaba
and the University of Ibadan, where he studied Classics and graduated in 1964
with a First Class Honours. He worked shortly with Longman, Nigeria before he
left for the University of Denver, Colorado, USA, where he had a Doctor of
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Philosophy (Ph.D) in Comparative Literature in 1975 and a Doctor of Literature
(D. Lit) in the Humanities from the University of London.
Okpewho is a prolific writer and a professor of English. He is an expert in
oral history and specializes in African and comparative literatures, with a
specialist emphasis on comparative oral traditions. He was named a
distinguished professor in 2004. Okpewho has taught in various universities
such as the University of Ibadan, the State University of New York at Buffalo,
Havard University, and the University of Binghamton in New York.
Okpewho is a novelist and a scholar who has produced a lot of works
such as The Epic in Africa; Toward a Poetics of the Oral Performance (1979),
Myth in Africa: A Study of its Aesthetic and Cultural Relevance (1983), African
Oral Literature: Backgrounds, Character, and Continuity (1992), The Victims
(1970), The Last Duty, winner of the African Arts Prize for Literature (1976),
Tides, winner of the Common-Wealth Writers Prize for Africa (1993), Call me
by my Rightful Name (2004). He is married with five children and a member of
so many national and international academic or scholarly associations.
1.7 HELON HABILA
Helon Habila was born in 1967 to a Christian Tangale family in
Kaltungo, Gombe State in northern Nigeria. His father, Habila Ngalabak, was a
preacher with white missionaries, and later became a civil servant with the
Ministry of Works. While his mother was a seamstress, Helon Habila was a
good story-teller when he was a little boy in the primary school. In fact, he was
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skillful in weaving stories, a voracious reader who had a flare for writing. He
did his primary and secondary education in Gombe State. He is the third of
seven siblings. Habila lost his parents in a car accident when he was twenty-
two.
Habila‟s father wanted him to become an engineer and enrolled him at the
Bauchi University of Technology and then the Bauchi College of Arts and
Sciences. But he had no interest in Engineering and came home directionless
and despondent. Habila might have been counseled by Jason Cowley and he
studied English and Literature at the University of Jos and graduated in 1995.
At the University of Jos, he met Toni Kan, a young man from Delta State, who
had a similar interest in literature and writing. The two young men entered into
a friendly rivalry that pushed them further in their literary pursuits.
Habila became an assistant lecturer, lecturing in English and Literature at
the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi from 1997 to 1999 and published the biography
Mai Kaltungo, the Chief of his home-town. He later went to Lagos in 1999 and
became the literary editor of the Vanguard Newspaper. He also became
involved with the Lagos chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors. Habila
has written many creative works and had received various prizes and awards.
For instance, his poem “Another Age” won first place in the Musical Society of
Nigeria (MUSON), Festival Poetry Competition in 2000, his short story “The
Butterfly and the Artist” won the Liberty Bank Prize, his collection of short
stories “Prison Stories” submitted as “Love Poems” for the Caine Prize for
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African Writing 2001. Habila published the collection of short stories as the
novel Waiting for an Angel. The novel, which came out in 2002, won the 2003
Common-Wealth Literature Prize for the best first novel by an African writer.
Habila has been at the University of East Anglia in Norwich England
since the publication of Waiting for an Angel. He was awarded a writing
fellowship for two years at the University of East Anglia where he is currently
doing his doctorate. Habila has also been a fellow at the University of Iowa
International Writing Programme, a Chinua Achebe fellow at Bard College in
2005-2006. He currently teaches in the MFA programme at George Mason
University. His other works are: “Birds in the Graveyard” and “After the
Obsession” published in the collection of poetry 25 New Nigerian Poets, edited
by Toyin Adewale and published by Ishmael Reed. His second novel
“Measuring Time” was published in 2007. He has a wife and a daughter.
1.8 SYNOPSES OF THE NOVELS
It is germane to give the synopses of the novels before embarking on their
linguistic or stylistic analysis. According to Onwukwe (2009:56),
The analysis of the style of a text should be preceded by a detailed
synopsis of the text before the analyst proceeds with the
organization of the stylistically significant features at the
phonological, morphemic, lexical and grammatical levels….
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1.9 THE LAST DUTY
Isidore Okpewho‟s The Last Duty is a recast of the Nigerian Civil War of
1967-1970. It was a war between the secessionist Biafran Republic of the
Eastern Nigeria and Nigeria itself. The Nigerian Civil War is fictionalized in
this novel – a fictive world. This fictiveness is seen in the imaginary setting,
events and characters.
The nation or country in this novel is the Federal Republic of Zonda,
while the secessionist tribe is Simba, perpetrating mayhem in Urukpe which is a
border town comprising the people of Igabo and Kweke clans. Urukpe is in the
Black Gold state in the Zonda Republic and it is the war zone or setting in the
novel. The secessionist Simbians occupy and over-power the people of Urukpe,
causing havoc in the town. So, federal military troops come to the town to
liberate them from the terrorists or rebels.
The federal troops occupy Urukpe for over three years, forcing the
secessionist Simbians to flee for their dear lives, although there have been
occasional reprisal attacks by the rebels. The federal troops station in Urukpe to
eradicate rebellion in the Republic. The people of Urukpe welcome the federal
troops, demonstrating their loyalty and solidarity by assisting the federal
soldiers to eliminate rebels and rebel collaborators in the town.
The assistance the indigenes give to the federal soldiers in Urukpe gives
the opportunity to Chief Toje Onovwakpo, a rubber magnate in Urukpe, to
fabricate lies against Mukoro Oshevire, a fellow rubber trader in Urukpe. Toje
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is a very rich, popular and influential rubber trader who gets connected to Major
Akuya Bello, the commandant or commanding military officer in Urukpe. Toje
labels Oshevire a rebel collaborator just to incriminate and get rid of him
because he (Toje) considers Oshevire a stumbling-block in the rubber business.
Oshevire is accused of collaborating with the rebels when he only saves
the life of a little Simbian boy asphyxiating, running away from a bomb blast
and chasing mobs out of pity. He is arrested and detained at the state capital city
of Iddu (33-34). Oshevire is imprisoned for over three years. Toje uses his
influence to make Aku, Oshevire‟s wife, also a Simba, a public enemy in
Urukpe. She is ostracized, kept miserable, hence she suffers hunger, lack,
deprivation and mental torture.
Toje capitalizes on this and takes advantage of the woman‟s predicament
and pretentiously offers to help her out only to seduce and mess her up sexually,
although he is impotent. Toje tactically convinces Major Ali, the new
commandant, who ignorantly offers protection to Aku by ensuring that only
Toje or Odibo, his nephew, visits her. Toje continues to give her and her only
son, Oghenovo, food, money and clothing. The relationship between Toje and
Aku, Oshevire‟s wife, is symbiotic or a fair exchange. Aku needs food, clothing,
maintenance and protection as she is suffering because of her husband‟s
detention. While Toje is in need of self-reassurance of potency to prove his
manhood (133).
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Being impotent, Toje only arouses her. The arrangement is that Toje stays
in Odibo‟s house to make love to Aku while Odibo stays in her house to look
after her son, Oghenovo. Odibo has the golden opportunity of spending a night
with her because it is too late for him to go back home. He satisfies her sexually
and a relationship ensues. According to Odibo, “God never does a job half-
way”. Toje suspects their relationship and attempts to attack Aku but Odibo
stops him and the two men fight each other, butchering each other into coma
and hospitalized.
Oshevire is finally released for want of evidence. Major Ali briefs him
what happened and he divorces his wife, Aku, and sets his house ablaze. Getting
out, he is killed by a gunshot.
1.10 WAITING FOR AN ANGEL
Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel is a novel which x-rays the advent
of the military in Nigerian politics. It shows military dictatorship and bad
governance manifested in wanton killing, illegal arrest, detention, wanton
destruction, oppression, poverty, violence, fear, lack of infrastructural
development, impoverishment, gagging the press, injustice, bribery and
corruption and fuel scarcity as witnessed in Nigeria in the era of the military
junta headed at different times by General Ibrahim Badamusi Babangida (1989
– 1993) and General Sani Abacha (1993 – 1998). Between these two dictorial
regimes was the interim civilian government of Ernest Shonekan who became
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the interim president of Nigeria after the annulment of the June 12, 1993
presidential election of M.K.O. Abiola and Bahir Tofa by IBB.
IBB is synonymous with bribery and corruption as he used them as
veritable tools of governance. He is nicknamed “Maradona” after the Argentine
soccer star, Diego Maradona, because of his ability to dribble the country about.
On the other hand, Abacha used terrorism – more killings, arrests, kidnapping
and so on in his five years‟ regime than in all the military years put together in
Nigeria. So, military years in Nigeria are referred to as Abacha years (227).
The novel is a historical fiction as it narrates historical facts and
happenings in Nigeria. It is a novel of reminiscences – prison notes written in a
diary and entries mostly headed with the days of the week as Lomba, the main
narrator, does to keep himself busy and forget his sorrows in prison and to
express his feelings: “Today I begin a diary, to say all the things I want to say,
to myself because here in prison, there is no one to listen. I express myself. It
stops me from standing in the … cell and screaming…(3).
Lomba, a young journalist in Lagos, under the brutal military regime of
Nigeria, is enthusiastic with soul music, girls and the novel he is writing. He is a
university student studying Theatre Arts but drops out in year two because of
the madness of Bola, his roommate who is beaten to a pulp by soldiers and
incessant riots and strikes. He meets Alice, the long awaited angel, in the
university and they become lovers (90-91).
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Military dictatorship and bad governance spur the masses to action
against IBB and Abacha. There is a strike action taken by students in all the
Federal Universities across the country led by Sankara, a demonstration by the
kerosene-starved housewives of Morgan Street which led to destroying
billboards and signboards for firewood, (113-114). There was the general
protest and epic match by the inhabitants of Morgan Street, now renamed
Poverty Street, to the Local Government Secretariat, headed by Joshua Amusu,
Ojikutu or Mao, and Brother to make their general demands written in an
address by Joshua (180).
At the Local Government Secretariat, some policemen come with tear-
gas, beat and arrest the protesters. Lomba, also at the scene to cover the
demonstration as a Journalist, is arrested. There was also a coup detat against
the Abacha government led by Gideon Orkar. Dele Giwa, the founding editor of
Newswatch Magazine, is killed in a letter bomb; the editors of the Concord and
the Sunday Magazines are arrested and the office building of The Dial, a weekly
magazine of Arts and Society was burnt down; Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, wife of
M.K.O Abiola, Ken Saro-Wiwa, General Yaradua were all assassinated and
other pro-democracy activists such as Olusegun Obasanjo, Abiola, and so on are
incarcerated. It is in fact, an anti-military protest and pro-democracy novel.
16
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 INTRODUCTION
According to Solomon in Ecclesiastes (1:9b) “there is nothing new under
the sun”. Lensmire and Beals (1994: 411) lend credence to this assertion thus:
“We are born and develop, learn to speak, read, and write, awash in the words
of others…. Our words are always someone else‟s words first; and these words
sound with the intonations and evaluations of others who have used them
before, and from whom we learned them (qtd. in Barbara Johnstone 2008: 166 –
167).
This is also applicable to stylistics. It is believed that some research has
been done on stylistics and this chapter intends to review some scholarly views
on language, style and stylistics.
2.1 Language
Language means different things to different people. It is used in this
parlance to mean human natural language in general, not any particular one as
linguistics is concerned with language in general. First, Edward Sapir (1921:8)
defines language as “a purely human and non-instinctive method of
communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of voluntarily produced
symbols” (qtd. in Okolo and Ezikeojiaku 1999:9). This definition implies that
language is basically a human property or endowment and the quintessence of it
is interaction and communication. Human language is non-institinctive as it is
17
not a direct transmission from parent to offspring. In other words, it is not a
biological or genetic inheritance but a cultural transmission as it is a part of
culture and acquired unconsciously at childhood from the environment.
Secondly, it is symbolic. A symbol is an object or a thing that represents
something. Words in language are symbols that represent objects or entities in
the real world. Meanings of words are a collective agreement of the native
speakers of the language. Hence Gamble and Gamble (2002:112) define
language as “a unified system of symbols that permits a sharing of meaning”.
According to them, meanings are in people, not in words and the word is not the
thing as it is the native speakers that give meaning to words.
Communication involves using words to create meaning and expectations
as words and sentences must mean. In fact, there is a twin relationship between
words and meanings. According to Akwanya (2009: 13), “words and sentences
must mean, that they cannot be empty sounds or haphazard marks on paper”.
Although meaning is a communal or cultural ownership – not individual it can
be contextualized, operationalized, or individualized as opined by Ludwig
Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations (1953: 43) in Akwanya (2007:
21). Humpty – Dumpty in Lewis Carrol‟s satiric: Through the Looking Glass
also individualizes meanings of words when he tells Alice:
“when I use a word”, Humpty Dumpty said in a rather
scornful tone, “it means what I choose it to mean – neither
more nor less”.
(Culled from Otagburuagu and Anyanwu 2002:291).
18
Sapir‟s definition is too myopic as language can do a lot more than only
communicating “ideas” “emotions “and “desires”.
Secondly, Wardhaugh (1972) defines language as “a system of arbitrary
vocal symbols used for human communication” (qtd. in Syal and Jindal 4).
Wardhaugh gives a wider coverage on the function of language as well as its
characteristics. He adds that human language is systematic because it is planned,
structured, ordered or organized. This means that the various parts or elements
work together in a definite pattern and not in a haphazard or amorphous manner.
It is rule-governed as sounds are patterned systematically to form words, words
too are joined to form larger structures or utterances.
Secondly, human language is arbitrary. This means that there is no one-
on-one relationship or correspondence between the words and the objects or
concepts they stand for or represent in the real world. The object, idea, concept
or thing represented by a word is just a matter of conventional or general
agreement by the members of the speech community and not an automatization.
Again, human language is vocalic. This means that it is spoken and heard.
According to Joy Uguru, man‟s vocal system was designed for speech
production and that of animals was not and that chimpanzees do not have the
appropriate voice box for speech production (2009: 19 – 20). So, humans are the
only talking animals hence we are described as homoloquens.
Thirdly, Bloch and Trager (1942:5) sees language as “a system of
arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group cooperates” (qtd in
19
Okolo and Ezikeojiaku 10). This definition centres on the unifying function
language performs in its speakers.
Fourthly, Noam Chomsky (1957:13) defines language as “a set (finite or
infinite of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of
elements”. This is a transformational-generative approach to language studies
and it is based on innateness as language is acquired subconsciously at
childhood as a child is born with all the mental facilities for language
acquisition (Universal Grammar). According to Wittgenstein (1953; 199), “to
understand a sentence means to understand a language, to understand a
language means to be master of a technique”. The array of definitions implies
that human language is productive, non-instinctive, symbolic, arbitrary, vocalic
and systematic.
2.2 The Concept of Style
Enkvist (1973:11) sees style as “a common and elusive” concept as it
appears to be simple but technical as it means different things to different
people (qtd. in Asher and Simpson 4375). For instance, the critics see it as
“individuality”, rhetoricians as “the speaker”, the philologists as “the latent”, the
linguists as “formal structures in function”, the psychologists as “a form of
behaviour” (Ogum 2002:22). The Latin word “stilus” meaning “a pointed
instrument used for writing”, is what the concept “style” meant 2000 years ago.
But nowadays, definitions of style do not point to the instrument used by the
writer but to characteristics of the writing itself. Enkvist further defines it as the
20
“sum of linguistic features which distinguish one text from another” (1973:11)
in Asher and Simpson. This implies that “style” is the whole gestalt or oeuvre of
a person‟s use of language which identifies him. Buffon gave a phrase to
describe style: “Style C‟est I homme meme” meaning the style is the man
(Asher and Simpson 4377). Plato also declares that the style “proclaims the
man” meaning that the style is the man himself (Eyoh 27) with the expression
“stilus virum arguit” (Leech and Short 10).
Richard Ohmann (1964) regards style as “a way of doing it” and the
“alternative ways of expressing the same content” in language use (qtd. in Asher
and Simpson 1994: 4375). Ohmann means that “style” is a particular way in
which something is done or a patterned choice in language behaviour. Style is
also construed as “the stable mark of the writer himself” (Akwanya 2004:176).
This means that it is the linguistic fingerprint or thumbprint of the writer which
marks individuality.
Katie Wales refers to style as “the manner of expression in writing and
speaking; just as there is a manner of doing things” (435). So, a person can write
in an ornate style, or speak in a comic style, good, bad, turgid styles
respectively. In language behaviour, Wales defines it as “the set of features
peculiar to or characteristic of an author: his or her language habits or idiolect”
(346). So, we can have Miltonic style, Shakespearian style, the style of Achebe,
Soyinka, John Pepper Clark, Gabriel Okara and so on. She further opines that
stylistic features are basically features of linguistics or language. So, style is
21
synonymous with language and hence “the aggregate of contextual probabilities
of its linguistic items (Enkvist 1964:10) in Onwukwe (2009:9-10).
Crystal and Davy consider “style” as “a selection of language habits, the
occasional linguistic idiosyncrasies which characterize an individual‟s
uniqueness”. It is usually … those features in a person‟s expression which are
particularly unusual or original (1969:9-10). While Samuel Wesley sees it as
“the dress of thought” (qtd. in Crystal 1997: 66), Gustave Flaubert says: “style
is life! It is the very life blood of thought (qtd. in Nigel Watts 1996:105). Watts
himself sees it as “not something added to a piece of work, it is the work” (105).
He further adds: “Style is the expression of the writer…. Writing style is not
something magicked out of nowhere, unconnected to the author, it is
undetachable” (105). While Osundare considers it as “that set of propensities
that define an author‟s voice” (30).
This array of definitions of style implies that style is something that has
to do with individuality and personality. The style of an author is the image of
his mind. It is an emanation from his being. In other words, the definitions
suggest that the style is the man as it reveals the inner man, personality and
thought process of the writer and it is individualistic. Gorrel and Laird give
credence to this assertion when they state: “Style is the man. But a good style is
the wise man using words and sentences so that they reveal him faithfully…
(qtd in Otagburuagu et al, 2010:39).
22
Finally, Jonathan Swift defines style as “proper words in proper places”
(qtd. in Crystal 66). This simply means the linguistic choice or habit of an
individual writer and no two people or writers write or speak exactly the same
way as it is individualistic. It is a conscious and careful selection of words for
effective communication or stylistic effect. Literary style is characterized by
elegance, beauty in form and language. According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
prose is “words in their best order” and poetry is “the best word in the best
order” (Toolan 1996:162).
2.3 Domain of Style
Although style is a universal term cutting across all spheres of human life
and endeavour, it has been narrowed down to the study of literature. According
to Asher and Simpson, “Western culture has tended to study literary writing
more than any other form of language” (4377). Style refers to the whole gestalt
of a person‟s use of language, whether written or spoken, or whether the
language user is a literary figure or not. It is as individual as his fingerprints.
Although, style is individualistic or personal, it is sometimes grouped in
line with Hendricks (1976:101-172) (qtd.in Asher and Simpson 4377).
Hendricks maps out group style for a group of writers with the same world-view
or out look, or of the same era or period of time. So, we can talk of Elizabethan
style, Classical style, 18th century style, and so on.
23
2.4 Style Theory
Osundare (13) identifies three different but connected concepts to discuss
style. They are: choice, difference and iteration. The concept of choice is the
most author-oriented style as it is the linguistic thumbprint of the writer that
identifies or distinguishes him from others. In other words, style is the
alternative ways employed by the writer to express the same content. Osundare
further identifies two categories of the concept of choice in style-study:
preverbal choice and verbal choice.
The preverbal choice is an epistemic or a thought-oriented choice as it is
concerned with intuition or thinking made by the writer prior to verbal choice. It
is psychological, or cultural but the verbal choice is the alternative or option of
linguistic features made by the writer.
The concept of style as difference is the linguistic variation and deviation
a writer makes on the language to achieve his objectives. Style primarily comes
into being in literature.
Style as iteration, on the other hand, is concerned with repetition on
regularity of striking linguistic features or choices in the text for stylistic effects.
It is more or less a habitualization. According to Asher and Simpson (4376),
“for a style to exist, the same sort of linguistic choice must be repeated in a
reasonably consistent, iterative basis”. It is a statistical and mathematical
approach to the study of literature and often criticized by language and literary
analysts and students as being “unsuited to the humanist discussion of
24
literature”. This statistical and mathematical approach of identifying regular and
habitual linguistic features in texts gives birth to stylometry or stylostatistics in
style study.
2.5 The Concept of Stylistics
Stylistics is the science of style. In other words, it is the scientific study of
style. Michael Toolan defines it as “the study of the language in
literature”(1996:viii). It is basically concerned with the understanding of
technique or the craft of writing. A stylistician brings to the close examination
of the linguistic particularities of a literary work, an understanding of the
anatomy and functions of the language (Toolan ix). Ofuani and Longe see it as
“solely concerned with the investigation of the artistry of language usage in
literature” (1996:359). Ndimele (2001:15) defines stylistics as “a branch of
linguistics which studies the application of linguistics to the study of literature”.
Stylistics is part of applied linguistics and not a core branch. It is a
method of practical criticism to help explain intuitive reader responses to a work
of literature without any criticism of badness or goodness of the writing (Asher
and Simpson 4378). While Philip Anagbogu et al define stylistics as “the
application of the knowledge of linguistics to literary appreciation” (2010:33),
Leech (2008:1) defines it as “the linguistic study of literary texts”. Enkvist
(1973:11) regards it as discipline “concerned with the theory and analysis of
style”(qtd. in Asher and Simpson 4378).But these definitions are too eclectic.
Leech and Short (2007:11) see it as “the linguistic study of style” or “the study
25
of language as used in literary texts, with the aim of relating it to its artistic
functions” (13). Finally, Welleck and Warren (1977: 176) opine that “linguistic
study becomes literary only when it serves the study of literature, when it aims
at investigating the aesthetic effect of language” (Eyoh 2005:29).
Literary work is the field par excellence of stylistics. So, stylistics is a
bridge science, creating a bond between linguistics and literature (Akwanya
2004:163). In other words, it synergizes or sits athwart the boundary between
linguistics and literature; ensuring their interdependence. This is because “a
linguist deaf to the poetic function of language and a literary scholar indifferent
to linguistic problems and unconversant with linguistic method are equally
flagrant anachronisms” as opined by Jakobson in Onwukwe (2009: i).
Onwukwe (2009: I) further condemns the separation of literature from
language and vice versa as students are made to specialize in either of them.
According to her, it is impossible for one to specialize in literature without
being competent in the language in which the literature is written. Conversely,
the mastery of the various levels of linguistics – phonetics/phonology, syntax,
semantics and morphology would be unnecessary if the person cannot make a
resourceful or creative use of the levels of linguistics mastered. Hence stylistics
comes to create a symbiotic relation between language and literature so as to be
competent in both of them.
26
2.6 The Concept of Foregrounding
According to Roman Jakobson in Terry Eagleton (2), literature is “a kind
of writing which… represents an organized violence committed on ordinary
speech. Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates
systematically from every day speech”. This deliberate deviation or violation of
the norms of the language for prominence is called foregrounding. It is a key
term in stylistics translated by Garvin (1964) from the Czech term “actualisace”
meaning “actualization” coined by Jan Mukarovsky (Wales 1989:181-2 and
Leech 18).
Literature is a de-automatization of language, while language is an
automatization. In other words, language is the background, while literature is
the foreground as literature thrives in deviation which “brings the message to
the forecourt of the reader‟s attention” (Yankson 3). It is the creative use of
language and the creativity is equated with the use of unorthodox or deviant
forms of language for stylistic effects and meaning (Leech 12). Linguistic
deviation is a key feature or characteristic of literary language as literature
always wrestles with words, breaks or bends language, making it to obey a will
(Ogum 41).
Foregrounding makes linguistic features stand out for a second look. This
makes Cyril Connoly to define literature as “the art of writing something that
will be read twice” (qtd. in Ndimele 2009: xxv). Literature is a fine or beautiful
writing derived from the French expression “belles lettres” meaning fine or
27
beautiful writing (Eagleton 2008: 9). Hence it is the beautiful rendition of
imagination in word and action (Ogum 2002: 15). Foregrounding cuts across
every level of linguistics – syntax, phonology, semantics, morphology as well as
graphology and the style of a literary text is a totality of all foregrounded
elements (Syal and Jindal 62).
2.7 Theoretical framework
There are various linguistic theories, models or approaches for the
analysis of human language. For instance, we have the Transformational-
Generative Grammar, Phrase Structure Grammar, Systemic Functional
Grammar, and so on. The approach taken for this research is Michael Halliday‟s
Systemic Functional Grammar. The Hallidayan grammatical model is
considered more appropriate for this work because the research is on language
analysis in texts. According to Halliday, “text is the form of data used for
linguistic analysis; all description of grammar is based on text” (2004:33).
Systemic Functional Grammar is a semogenic or semanticky or meaning-
making grammar. This meaning-making cuts across the three areas of form,
content and context and anchored on a text. The text acts as an object and
instrument to create meaning – the why, how and what of the text. In other
words, the way the architecture or constituency of language in its organized
form is employed to create and express meaning.
Systemic Functional Grammar sees Language as a network of systems
and interrelated sets of meaningful options, alternatives or choices for making
28
meaning. It is “systemic” because it is an “organic whole” as its various strata:
semantics, lexico-grammar and phonetics/phonology are all bound up together;
and functional because it is meaning-centred as language is intended to play a
specific function, purpose or role in human communication (Halliday, 31).
2.8 The Metafunctions of Language
Halliday takes a “trinocular perspective” on the function of human
language. In other words, language is a multifunctional construct consisting of
three metafunctional lines of meaning. They are: the ideational metafunction,
interpersonal metafunction and the textual metafunction, respectively (Halliday
29-30).
Language is of the mind. It is a habit or representation of thought or
intellection (Akwanya 2005), and gives us the impetus to ideate or imagine.
Language construes human experience. It names things; classifying things into
groups, and it gives us the power of recognition. This is the ideational function
of human language. The ideational function is divided into two: experiential and
logical functions. The experiential function organizes our experience and
understanding of the world. It is the potential of the language to construe or
interpret figures with elements. The logical function works beyond the
experiential and organizes our reasoning on the basis of our experience. It is the
potential of the language to construe logical links between figures; for example,
“this happened after that happened” or, with more experience, “this happens
every time that happens”.
29
The second function of language is the interpersonal one. Language
enacts our personal and social relationships with other people around us because
man is a gregarious and social animal. This function is both interactive and
personal as it is a communication event between people and within a person
who uses language to express personal feelings of doubt, approval, to instruct,
greet, command, and so.
Lastly, language plays a textual function. This textual function refers to
the ways in which constituent structures of the language relate to one another in
a text and to the situations or context in which they are used.
The Hallidayan model, from what we have discussed so far, is
appropriate for this work because it is based on linguistic analysis of discourse
or text; making choices on the vast resources of language, to create and express
meaning as well as spotlighting the different contexts and functions language
perform. We shall see the effectiveness of this theory in the analysis of
Okpewho‟s The Last Duty and Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel.
30
CHAPTER THREE
LEVELS OF LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS
3.0 INTRODUCTION
This chapter investigates language use in Okpewho‟s The Last Duty and
Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel – how they have made choices, variations and
iterations on the architecture of language to create and express shades of
meaning in their works. We shall deal with syntax, morphology, and graphology
in this work. But we shall also indirectly bring in semantics as “language
without meaning is meaningless” as opined by Roman Jakobson (qtd in
Fromkin et al 2007:173).
3.1 Syntax
Syntax is the level of linguistics concerned with the structuring of
sentences (Andrew Carnie 2007:3). Language has structure and it is not a hotch-
potch of randomly distributed elements. Instead, the linguistic ingredients in
language are arranged in accordance with a set of rules. Sequences of words are
ordered into phrases, clauses and sentences following the conventional rules of
grammar. For instance, English is an SVO- language with SVOCA as its clause
structure (Quirk and Greenbaum 1973). There are various forms of syntactic
foregrounding such as selectional violation, parallelism, chiasmus, pidginzation,
disfigured sentences, stringing of clauses, and so on.
31
3.2 Selectional Rule Violation
This is the violation or breach of collocational rule (Yankson 1987:2). It
is a semantic constraint on the co-occurrence of words in sentences. Selectional
restriction rules, which became prominent through Chomky‟s Transformational
Generative Grammar (TGG), have become an area of concern in stylistics
because of their violations. Selectional restrictions pose the problem of
grammaticality and acceptability. A sentence may be syntactically well-formed
but semantically ill-formed because of the mismatch of the words in the
sentence. Metaphor and personification are good examples of regular violation
of selectional rules (Katie Wales 1989:414). Okpewho and Habila employ a
mismatch of words in sentences for stylistic effects as in:
1. Lomba flows with the flowing bodies (Habila 218).
2. She flew into Bola‟s arms (Habila 53).
3. The water knows (Habila 38).
4. The uncompleted novel would strangle me to death (Habila 106)
5. Hunger ate us up (Okpewho 133).
6. Anger now knew no verbal language (Okpewho 17).
There is a clear mismatch or collocational violation of words in the above
sentences. The sentences are not acceptable in spite of their grammaticality
because of the incompatibility or incongruity of their syntactic elements.
According to Akwanya (2007:99), “selectional restriction can only apply if it is
based on meaning rather than on syntactic rules alone”. For instance, “Lomba
32
flows with the flowing bodies”. This sentence is semantically faulty because of
the incongruity between the subject “Lomba” and the verb “flows‟. This is
because Lomba is an animate subject and not a mass noun and, therefore, should
take or select a different type of verb than the flow-type. This is also applicable
to other examples in the sentences above where the incompatible NPs and VPs
each group are underlined. For the purpose of acceptability, sentences should be
both syntactically and semantically well-formed.
3.3 Parallelism
This is a pattern repetition. It is the repetition of identical linguistic
structures for stylistic effects (Yankson 14). Both Okpewho and Habila employ
parallel linguistic structures in their works for the purpose of foregrounding.
The following parallel syntactic structures are chosen for exemplification:
7A. My manhood flawed – SV (Okpewho 5)
7b My potency questioned – SV (Okpewho 5)
8A This is power – SVC (Okpewho 26)
8b This is happiness – SVC (Okpewho 26)
9A The audience is calm. – SVC (Okpewho 40)
9b The lawyer is distressed – SVC (Okpewho 40)
10. Conscientious doctor, dutiful father, loving husband, a perfect role model
(Habila 63) – all NPs
11A When I smiled my smile was shaky – ASVC (Habila 82)
11B When I spoke, my words were strangled – ASVC (Habila 82)
12A Boys washed their parents‟ cars outside the houses – SVOA (Habila 67).
12b Dogs stretched their stiff limbs before the front doors– SVOA (Habila 67).
33
3.4 The Use of Pidgin
Both Okpewho and Habila employ the use of the Pidgin and it also marks
their style. This is as a result of less formal education of some of the characters
in the works. Okpewho uses pidgin and other informal expressions such as “Oga
money for the drink” spoken by a bar steward at Iddu (125); “Oga” (225),
“whence” (3), malapropism “conceive” in stead of “convince” (101), backyache
(101), “shege” (94 and 107), and so on.
Habila, on the other hand, makes an elaborate use of the Pidgin. It is used
by Brother, Gladys, soldiers, prison inmates, prison warders, drivers, passengers
and so on. Brother uses it to x-ray general poverty in the country, the
dehumanization and corrupt practices as well as bad governance witnessed in
Nigeria during General Ibrahim Babangida‟s and General Sani Abacha‟s
regimes respectively. According to Akwanya (2004: 13), “language is
something chosen for its effectiveness or acuity for the task at hand …The
pidgin… is to show the masses how they are being exploited and dehumanized
by the ruling class”. Brother‟s protest Pidgin is indented thus:
„No! Sharrap!...No. No try deny am. You can‟t. You de laugh at
me because I bravely sacrifice my leg for this country, and now I
am poor because I no fit work with one leg. You laugh at my
friends here because dem no get brothers in the army to thief and
send dem money…‟ But make I tell you something – you de
laugh at the wrong people. Make you go laugh at all the big big
34
Generals who de steal our country money everyday de send am to
foreign banks while their country de die of poverty and disease.
Dem de drive long long motor cars with escort while I no even
get two legs to walk on. I, a hero. I fight...(133-4).
According to Joseph Gibaldi, “the key to successful communication is
using the right language for the audience you are addressing” (2009:49).
Brother has used Pidgin as it best “expresses his thoughts and ideas more
precisely and appears more interesting” to his audience. Pidgin is a common
language that can carry all the oppressed and exploited along.
3.5 Disfigured Sentences
Habila uses fragmented or disfigured sentences which he refers to as “a
tortuous parody of correct grammar in English”. For example, Muftau the prison
superintendent uses disfigured, fragmented or disjointed sentences of English
because of his emotional or psychological disfigurement. This is because of
military dictatorship and bad governance of Abacha and IBB. According to
Henry David Thoreau, “under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the
true place for a just man is also a prison”. Bola, a character in the novel, further
affirms this psychological imprisonment when he says: “The military have
turned the country into one huge barracks, into a prison” (50). Some of those
staccato sentences of the prison superintendent are:
13 These. Are the. Your papers… I read. All (14).
35
14 So. You wont. Talk. You think you are. Tough (9).
15 I will ask. Once. Who gave you. Papers? (8)
16 You are. Wrong.(9)
17 Until. He is willing to. Talk (9).
18 There is nothing I cannot do, if I want. So write. The poem. For me. (18).
Nkem also deviates from conventional grammar thus:
19 Rumour-monging and gossipers full our compound (112).
20 Soon I‟ll be marry her and she‟ll be come to live here. Then you believe
(112)
21 Are you student? (111).
22 One day I must return schooling (111) and so on.
The prison superintendent and Nkem construct unconventional or
ungrammatical sentences to show their emotional derangement. Habila
deliberately employs ungrammatical sentences for individuality, peculiarity and
prominence. According to Leech and Short, “to be truly creative, an artist must
be destructive: destructive of rules, conventions and expectations” (24).
Creative writers seem to be covered with “language immunity” or they have the
“licence” to manipulate language at will to create their unique visions of life.
According to Gustave Flaubert, “one arrives at style only with atrocious effort,
with fanatical and devoted stubbornness”. Taban Io Liyong also gives credence
to this assertion when he says in “The Last Word:
36
So what? Isn‟t each writer an arbitrary maker, ordering or
reordering the world?...if I were on my way to a wedding
feast, and were offered a mariner‟s tale, I would forgo the
feast (qtd in Ken Goodwin 1982:80).
The sentences of the prison superintendent and Nkem are ungrammatical.
In fact, they are sentences produced by a cured deaf-mute testing his or her
voice for the first time, or an aphasic – one who has a language dysfunction as a
result of brain damage – damage of the Broca‟s area which contains the
Language Acquisition Device (LAD) Fromkin et al ( 35,38). The brain is the
source of human language and cognition. It is the centre of understanding,
knowledge and wisdom. Language is localized in the Broca‟s area specifically
in the left frontal lobe or hemisphere of the brain – named after Paul Broca, a
French surgeon who proposed it in 1861.
The damage of the Broca‟s area leads to agrammatism which is “a form
of aphasia in which grammatical elements are lost and the resulting speech of
such a person becomes “telegraphic” consisting mainly of lexical items and
fixed expressions; also slow and hesitant (Peter Matthews 1997:12). In other
words, the person‟s syntax will be impaired and his sentences become
agrammatic as they lack articles, inflections, prepositions and auxiliary verbs.
The prison superintendent and Nkem do not have any physical brain
damage yet they become aphasic emotionally because of military dictatorship,
brutality and dehumanization. Habila confirms this through Lomba, his
authorial voice thus: “I write of my state in words of derision ... to rediscover
37
my nullified individuality”; “loss of self”(3); “you accept the inescapability of
your fate” (4); “our heads bowed, our hearts quaking”(5); “his prison –fevered
mind”(6); “now I realized that I really had no “self” to express; that self had
flown away from me”(23); “this leftover self”(24) and so on.
3.6 Chiasmus
This is a figure of speech or technique used in writing or speech in which
the sequential order of words, ideas or elements in one clause or sentence is
repeated in a reversed form in another which follows. It is used for the purpose
of expansion. For example,
23 I greeted nobody. Nobody greeted me (Okpewho 66).
24 Here comes Odibo. Here he comes (Okpewho 132).
The second example here is a syntactic deviation because it is a
disorganization of the clause structure of English. It ought to have been
“Odibo comes here”, or “he comes here” to give us the normal clause
structure “SVA” and not “AVS” as the writer presents it. It is used in this
form for the purpose of foregrounding.
We also see the following example in Waiting for an Angel:
25 To say exactly what he means, to mean exactly what he says (Habila
193).
3.7 Non-simple Sentences
Bolaji Aremo (2004: 1 and 374) identifies two categories of English
sentences: simple sentences and non-simple sentences respectively. It is simple
38
if it contains only a single idea and non-simple if it contains at least two
separate ideas joined together. The non-simple sentences are always formed by
stringing or combining two or more simple sentences together in different ways
– different ways because the combination is contingent on the conjunction used.
Non-simple sentences are called “compound” or “double” if two separate
simple sentences of equal grammatical status or rank are joined together by a
coordinating conjunction such as “but” “or” and “and”. Each clause in a
compound sentence is an independent or main one as it can stand on its own to
make a complete meaning without appending or attaching itself to any other
clause or element in the sentence to complete its meaning.
A non-simple sentence is a multiple one if three independent simple
sentences are joined together by such coordinators and complex if two sentences
of unequal grammatical status are combined. We have one main clause which
makes the main idea and a subordinate clause which is introduced by a
subordinator and which makes the subordinate idea; or compound complex if
we have one main clause and two or more subordinate clauses or two main
clauses and one or more subordinate ones. The simple sentence is a kernel or
basic one which is acted upon by transformational rules such as the “Tnot” for
negativisation, “Tp” for passivisation, “Tq” for interrogation and “T and” for
compounding of clauses and “Taf” for derivation of the correct forms of verbs
in sentences ( Tomori 1977: 69- 75) to make them non- kernel or non -basic.
39
Writers employ the normal clauses and sentences –simple, compound,
complex and so on, and vary them to avoid monotony of sentences in their
works. This is also applicable to Okpewho and Habila. But what is remarkable
in Okpewho and Habila and their novels is the continuous coordination or
linking of clauses and sentences and the fronting of subordinate clauses to delay
the main statement or idea contained in the sentences. This implies that
Okpewho and Habila make an elaborate use of periodic sentences – a complex
sentence situation whereby subordinate clauses come before the main ones as a
way of delaying the main idea till the end of the sentence (Wales 442). In
linguistics, fronting a subordinate clause is regarded as a left-branching
structure which is different from right-branching structure where the main
clause normally appears at the sentence-initial position. In Okpewho‟s The Last
Duty, we have the following sentences for illustration:
26 After all, this is my house, I built this home, I own it, I married a wife and
got these children and, if I cannot exercise my right of question as much
as of positive control, who else is there to be called to account when any
crisis comes to this home? (24) This is a very long and complex
interrogative sentence showing complex ideas and products of Toje‟s
private thoughts and emotional state.
27 When I pay a man good money I expect good service … And when a man
pays me for any service he gets his money‟s worth (165).
40
28 When he was certain the Landrover was on its way, he picked up his
loaded S.M.G (Okpewho 17).
29 When he arrived, the vehicle was there alright (Okpewho 17).
30 After a quick look around he made for the bedroom (Okpewho 17).
31 When the big soldier started to talk to my mother in his big voice and told
her to shut up and stop crying, and mother was crying and crying and
crying, and the big soldier was talking more and more in his big voice
and asking my mother to shut up, i began to cry and cry because i was
afraid of the big soldier and i thought … (219-220).
Okpewho uses language to reflect or portray the dormant
psychological disposition of characters. Oghenovo‟s language matches
with his psychological state as his thoughts are captured, unedited most
of the time, in one continuous stream linked loosely by coordinating
conjunctions ( Nwahunanya 296). In other words, his style is rambling
and his sentences are a piling up of repetitive phrases and clauses linked
together by simple conjunctions, each sentence consisting of a whole
incident and sometimes more than one. We also see this stringing of
clauses in Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel.
32 And when you looked and hoped and waited and finally realized that I
was never going to come, that you had just made a finally irrevocable
choice…(79).
41
33 When I smiled my smile was shaky, when I spoke my words were
strangled (82).
34 They picked up my mattress and shook and sniffed and poked (7).
35 On the last day Lomba went to the hospital, the women were not there
(Habila 96 – 97).
36 In the two weeks since he first saw Alice outside the hospital, Lomba had
watched her mother… (Habila 97).
37 When she spoke, there was deep melancholy in her voice (Habila 97).
38 When she spoke, her voice was stronger (Habila 97).
39 Bell- ringing commodity hawkers offering a bargain, or a miracle healer
plying his trade, or a fight, or a robber being lynched, or a preacher
…(67) and so on.
3.8 Morphology
This is the “branch of linguistics that deals with words, their internal
structure and how they are formed” (Aronoff and Fudeman 2005: 1 – 2).
Okpewho and Habila employ different word formation processes such as
conversion, borrowing, affixation, compounding, neologism, reduplication and
so on in their works.
3.9 Conversion
This is the derivation of a word from another without any affixation. It is
a mere change of lexical category which leads to a category rule violation in
stylistics (Syal and Jindal 91). We see this in the following from the texts:
42
40 People here… used me “to police” their prejudices (Okpewho 59).
41 His wife had been “prostituting” herself to somebody else (Okpewho 72).
42 Tears started “streaming” down her face (Okpewho 98).
43 The whole twenty-five of its detainees – leaving this prison in one “go”
(Okpewho 148).
44 They were trying “to humour” this fanciful child (Habila 182).
45 The Amnesty International… came… “to pressure” the government
(Habila 30).
46 James says, pointing to the “verandahed” doorway of a bar (Habila 208).
47 He raised his hands to “silence” the calls (Habila 169).
48 He “leafed” through it (Habila 129) and so on.
All the words or expressions in inverted commas in numbers 40 – 48
above are shifted from their original word classes or grammatical categories to
another. It is a functional shift and a violation of the category rule in grammar.
3.10 Borrowing
This is the act of taking and using a word from another language.
Borrowing is brought about by contact and used to enlarge the vocabulary of a
language (Syal and Jindal 94). Okpewho and Habila write in English but borrow
words from their native languages and other foreign languages in their texts. In
The Last Duty Okpewho uses words like agbada (39), garri (53), eba (64),
ukodo, a mouth-watering delicacy cooked with fish or meat and plantain or yam
43
without oil in Urhobo and Ijaw languages (76), migwo „genuflecting‟ (68), vren,
doh „get up, thank you‟, kai (99), baba (142), Allah (203) and so on.
We also see the following lexical borrowing in Habila‟s Waiting for an
Angel: ole (40), molue (114), oga (42), ka chi foo (Ibo), oda ro (Yoruba), sai
gobe (Hausa) – all meaning good night. (128), meigad „gate-keeper‟ in Hausa
language (67), ogogoro (110), aso-ebi (127), igbo „Indian hemp‟ (127) and so
on. Lexical borrowing from our native languages shows the Africanness of the
work as well as the plurality of languages in our country. Habila also employs
words from foreign languages such as devaju (114), dues ex machine (228),
papier-mache (15), tsunamis (187), aluta continua Victoria acerta (49) and so
on.
3.11 Neologism or Coinage
This is a new and strange word coined which was not observed in the
language before (Haspelmath 2002:39). It is an intentional creation. Habila
freely coins words in Waiting for an Angel to capture particular phenomena
such as squandermania (224), Khakistocracy, militocracy, Kleptocracy (68), and
anti-Abacha (143), face-me-I-face-you (110) and so on.
3.12 Reduplication
Reduplication simply means doubling. It is a word formation process
whereby part of the base or the whole base is copied or repeated to create a new
word with a different meaning or different word class (Edward Finegan 47).
This reduplication is either partial or full and before the word (prereduplication)
44
or after the base ( postreduplication) (Haspelmath 24). Habila employs
reduplication which also marks his style such as glassy-glossy (14), boy-boy
(70), gewgaw (75).
3.13 Affixation
This is the process of attaching or appending an affix which is a bound
morpheme to a root or free morpheme (Ofuani and Longe (88-89). In English
this appendage is either prefixal or suffixal to the root. An affixation is either
inflectional or derivational. It is inflectional if it does not form a new word but
only forms a grammatical function of plurality or number, tense, and
comparative and superlative degrees. It is derivational if a new word is derived
or formed by the affixation (aronoff and Fudeman 45).
Our concern here is the derivational morphology. Okpewho and Habila
use the derivational morphology to form new words in their works. For
instance, Okpewho derives the adjectives “untalking” “unsmiling” from the
verbs “talk and smile” (117). Habila uses wrong affixations and wrong
segementations of words such as: Prison. Misprison. Dis. Un. Prisoner – words
of derision or scorn as a result of emotional torture as a prisoner (93). He also
freely uses derivational affixes to form words like de-professionalism,
politicization, polarization (226), uncrossed, uncurling (26), non-deliberate (28),
unfeeling (30), unmade (122), unwell (136) and so on.
45
3.14 Compounding
This is the combination of two separate words or bases to form a single
word. Habila freely compounds or joins words in Waiting for an Angel which
also marks his style. For example fetch-water, half-blocking (71), mud-caked
(71), fast-disappearing (70), baton-carrying, prison-fevered, table-banging
(142), letter-bombed, housedress (202) flowerpots (202), doorbell (202), low-
flying (201), chicken-hearted (198), rain-patterned (7), rain-washed (42) bar-
room (110), brief-case-carrying (167), barbed-wire-topped (167), anaemic-
looking (169), placard-waving (166), and so on.
It is pertinent to say that all the above word formation forms, and few
others not discussed in this work are distinct stylistic features of the two texts.
According to Jonathan Culler in Eyoh (16), “it does not matter whether a word
is a coinage and archaism, or a dialectal term, they all work to engage us in a
proliferation of particularities”.
3.15 Graphology
This is also known as orthography. It refers to the study of the writing
system of a language (Syal and Jindal 21). Every language has its own alphabet,
spelling system, punctuation marks, spacing, paragraphing, capitalization,
italicization, underlining, bold print and so on, and are generally used according
to the norms of the language. For the purpose of foregrounding, Okpewho and
Habila flout or deviate from the norms of these graphological devices in their
works. For instance, Oghenovo in The Last Duty employs small letters to start
46
proper nouns and first person pronoun “I”, small letters to begin paragraphs and
after full-stops, and so on. For instance, Odibo is written odibo, onome,
oghenovo, god, iddu, mukoro, “i”, toje, and so on.
The use of small letters for proper nouns shows the psychological
childishness of Oghenovo (Victoria Alabi 1999:183). According to
Nwahunanya (296), alluding to Okpewho‟s African Fiction (423), “the author is
abusing language not simply as an index of linguistic proficiency but also as a
vehicle of consciousness and vision”. This excerpt from the text also practically
shows this deviation: “i want to be like the big soldier, so that i can give onome
a good beating. calling my father a thief saying the soldiers took away my
father…” (114). According to Leech, “to be stylistically distinctive, a feature of
language must deviate from some norm” (55). Okpewho has deliberately flouted
the rule of capitalization and the full-stop or period for the purpose of
foregrounding.
Other graphological devices such as italicization (118, 136, 30, 239-240,
136, 116, 177 10-11, 46, 86-7, 60, 64 etc); capitalization (30), dashes (84, 106,
71, 59, 98, 51, 34); indentations, hyphenations and so on are used for the
purpose of clarity and emphasis and to captivate the attention of the reader.
Habila also makes a prominent use of graphological devices in Waiting
for an Angel. First he flouts the use of the full-stop or period in English. The
full-stop is only used at the end of complete statements, but he uses it even
when there is no complete statement as in: these. Are the. Your papers. (14);
47
papers. And pencil. In prison. (8). This is a blatant abuse of the full-stop in
English.
Besides the period, Habila also employs the italics in pages (13,14, 79),
indentation (81-82,85-86, 92, 100), capitalization (16,52,30), hyphenation (48),
dash (197) – all for prominence.
3.16 Ellipsis
This refers to the deliberate act of omitting a word or words from a
sentence without distorting the meaning because of the surrounding words and
sentences. It is used to avoid repetition and redundancy and for the purpose of
compression. The omission is indicated by the use of three dots (…) or a dash (–
). Ellipses are used as a result of brain lapses or memory failure, lack of words
or digression or shift of thought. Okpewho and Habila employ it for
compression. In Okpewho‟s The Last Duty, we have: I swear… it wasn‟t easy…
it wasn‟t (124); I… you…I … believe me Toje, it wasn‟t easy. I tri – (124);
oh… em… I have a pain in my neck (150); you come to accuse me of – (25);
my father stole something and…for that reason…the soldiers…shut up (118)
and so on.
Habila also uses ellipses for compression: I thought you were … (31); I
am glad you two are in love. Don‟t play…(97) and so on.
48
CHAPTER FOUR
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE LAST DUTY AND
WAITING FOR AN ANGEL
4.0 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
This chapter is aimed at making a comparative analysis of Okpewho‟s
The Last Duty and Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel to bring to the limelight their
similarities and differences. These two novels are indisputably related or similar
in many respects and dissimilar in some other minor perspectives. In the first
place, they are similar because they are of the same ideological stance of
Marxism, historicism, structure, heroes of low mimetic mode, humour, multiple
narration and so on. These shall be discussed and illustrated from the text.
4.1 The Theory of Marxism
This is the socio-political, economic and reactionary ideology of the
German Karl Marx (1818 – 1883). According to Marx, “the history of all
hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle” (qtd. in David
Mclellan 1980: 177). Marx makes a social stratification of the people in the
society into two main classes: the bourgeois capitalisists and the proletariats.
The bourgeois capitalists are the owners of the means of production, the
employers of wage labour, the rich at the corridors of power who often use their
socio-economic and political prowess to oppress, exploit, and marginalize the
proletariat. On the other hand, the proletariats are the poor labourers in the
49
capitalist society being down-trodden by the bourgeois capitalists (Mclellan
178).
The proletariats become conscious of their oppression and exploitation
and gather themselves up to fight against and overcome the bourgeoisie to bring
about an egalitarian society. As Abrams puts it, “the struggle between classes is
the essential dynamic of society” (154). Georg Lukacs, an Hungarian
philosopher, asserts that literature and art should be a “reflection of reality”
(Abrams 179). Okpewho and Habila, aware of the capitalist oppression and
exploitation in Nigeria, reflect it in their novels. This ideological stance of
Marxism makes them employ or adopt this particular style of writing.
Paraphrasing the words of Udenta O. Udenta, Chibuzo Asomugha defines style
as “a consequence of ideology” (2008: 220). According to Udenta (1993: 15) in
Asomugha (220),
That when class stratification becomes acute and social relations
of production glaringly unequal and oppressive, the only viable
approach in balancing the equation is a class approach – an
approach that affords one historical perspective and correctness of
vision.
Cliff slaughter (1980) argues that literature should be deployed for
human emancipation (qtd in Asomugha (220) while Achebe in Ohaeto (2003)
(qtd in Asomugha (221) opines that “good literature will do a little bit of
crusading for a cause”.
We see the manifestation of the Marxist ideology in Okpewho‟s The Last
Duty in the Civil War between the secessionist Simbian rebels of the Kweke
50
clan in the Black Gold State versus the Federal Republic of Zonda (3 – 4, 20) as
a whole. Marxism is also seen in the cutlass fight between Odibo and Chief
Toje Onovwakpo butchering each other into coma (217) as the former gains
consciousness and attempts to get freedom, egoism and respect from the latter
who treats him as a non-human.
We also see Marxism in Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel in various
episodes such as the kerosene-starved women of Morgan street‟s demonstration
(113 – 114), the students riot (68 – 73), the street name changing demonstration
at the Local Government Secretariat headed by Joshua Amusu, Brother and
Mao which leads to the death of Hagar, Michael and Eniola, a pregnant
asthmatic, the beating and incarceration of Lomba and sustenance of injuries by
so many (166 – 179), the Gideon Orka led coup, the first putsch in Nigeria on
the 15th
of January, 1966, led by Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu (224), the Civil
War between the Republic of Biafra and Nigeria in 1967 – 1970 (133 – 134)
and so on.
4.2 Historicism
Both Okpewho‟s The Last Duty and Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel are
historical novels or works. Okpewho and Habila have adopted a style of
blending history and literature, thereby emphasizing that a work of literature is
not autotelic and does not end in itself but goes out to the outer world.
According to Derrida in Akwanya (2007:249), “the world is in the text”. This
51
admixture of literature and history is what Paul Ricoeur (1981: 183 – 184) terms
historicism Ricoeur opines:
The general tendency of literary and Biblical criticism since the
mid-nineteenth century has been to link the contents of literary
works, and in general of cultural documents, to the social
conditions of the community in which these works were produced
or to which they were directed. To explain a text was essentially
to consider it as the expression of certain socio-cultural needs and
as a response to certain perplexies localized in space and
time….[a] trend, which was subsequently called historicism
(Ricoeur 1981: 183 – 184) in Akwanya (2007: 248).
Okpewho and Habila have put some historical and socio-cultural
phenomena into their works. For instance, both novels are historical ones as
they all refer to the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 – 1970.
Habila does not only make reference to the Nigerian Civil War, but also
other socio-historical and political phenomena such as the annulment of the
1993 June 12 Abiola-Tofa presidential election in Nigeria, coups detat in this
country, Abacha‟s, IBB‟s and Ernest Shoenekan‟s regimes, the death of
Abacha, the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the killing of Dele Giwa in a letter
bomb, Diego Maradona of Argentina, assassination of Kudirat Abiola, the
imprisonment of M.K.O Abiola, Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, General
Muhammadu Buhari, Wole Soyinka, the detention of Olusegun Obasanjo,
General Yaradua, the use of names of actual places like Lagos, Warri, Ibadan,
Port-Harcourt, Jos and so on – all live happenings, people, events and places
(Nwahunanya 2007: 279 – 280).
52
In addition, both texts are literary works of the third epoch or period – a
post colonial period or era of political disillusionment in Nigeria and Africa at
large. It is an era of political disillusionment as all the hopes and aspirations of
Africans for independence become futile or abortive. Africans hoped that things
would be better for us all when we gain independence from the colonialists. But
the reverse is the case as our own indigenous leaders are worse than the colonial
masters. According to Augustus Adebayo (1993), our indigenous African
leaders are Whitemen in black skin. In other words, they are Whites in the
disguise of black. This is simply because our African leaders have a similar trait
of oppression and exploitation with the Whites.
African leaders of the post colonial era are oppressive, exploitative,
brutal, corrupt, lawless and power-drunk. In fact, they regard themselves as
daemons, demigods or lords and rule tyrannically. This is referred to as
“internal colonization” where the dominant part of a country treats a group or
region as it might a foreign colony (Anne McClintock 2007:631). Oppression
and exploitation in the third era of African literature always ends in
nonconformity as the oppressed and exploited often fight for freedom or
equality as we can see in Okpewho‟s The Last Duty and Habila‟s Waiting for an
Angel.
4.3 The Structure of the Novels
Both The Last Duty and Waiting for an Angel are similar in structure or
physical outlay. In other words, they have the same visual or physical
53
appearance. In the first place, they are all prose fictions – prose because they are
written in a free-flowing or discursive manner without being patternened into
any metrical or rhythmic unit and written with the everyday language (Abrams
148 and Akwnaya 2006: 121).
Secondly, both of them are chapterless and non-sequential as the stories
are told in form of reminiscences and presentations from the consciousness of
different characters who tell the stories from different perspectives and in no
definite causal relationship. In fact, the plots of both novels are episodic. This
episodicity is as a result of the disillusionment caused by the military
dictatorship and war (Asomugha 223). This chapterless narrative technique is
for the purpose of foregrounding and individuality. In addition, the multiple
narration is for authenticity as it is the participants or horses‟ mouths or eye-
witnesses that are telling the stories. Again, it is a style the novelists employ to
distance themselves from the narrators never to share with their views but to
make or have a direct intimacy with the readers. The readers, after getting the
subjective accounts of characters can now make their objective interpretation
(Ofuani and Longe 361 – 362).
Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel is even a reversed form of narration as the
first episode which begins the novel is supposed to be at the end of it and vice
versa.
Thirdly, both works employ poetry as a narrative style. Okpewho uses
poetry pastiches at the beginning of each part of the three part-divided novel. He
54
uses poems of Salvatore Quasimodo, John Pepper Clark (1), Christopher
Okigbo (91), and Soyinka (171). Quasimodo‟s is the first poem and it is an
admonition to mankind to repent:
But from the deeps of your blood with no
pain, in the just human time
we shall be born again.
Besides Quasimodo‟s, each of the rest poems in the novel is used to sum
up each part of the novel. For instance, Okigbo‟s poem is used to sum up the
intrigue Toje plays on Oshevire and that it is only a critical investigation that
this intrigue can be unravelled:
Except by rooting,
Who could pluck yam tubers from their base? (91).
On the other hand, Lomba writes Love and Prayer poems in Waiting for
an Angel. Lomba‟s poems are personal creations or a slight change of poems of
Donne John, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Graves and so on.
Okpewho and Habila may have used poetry because of the psychological
disfigurement of the characters in the novels and because of the war and
military dictatorship. Poetry, according to Plato in his Meno (1956:156) (qtd in
Akwanya 2004:31), is created out of divine madness. According to Plato, it is a
muse which is a god or goddess that inspires one to write poetry. So, a poet does
have any knowledge of what he is saying because it is the god that speaks
through him. Akwanya likens a poet to a pen that does not know what it is
55
writing. It is after writing that the poet regains consciousness when the god
leaves him. As Paul Coates (1986:1) in Akwanya (2004:31) opines:
Once the trance of composition has passed, the poet finds
himself in the position of a literary critic attempting to
comprehend a work that appears to have been conceived by
another person.
William Wordsworth defines poetry as “the spontaneous over flow of
powerful feelings recollected in tranquility” in Ihiegbunam (2006:143). Or they
may have used poetry for picturesqueness or embroidery as, according to
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poetry is the best words in their best order”
(Ihiegbunam: 143).
4.4 Heroes of Low Mimetic Mode
Aristotle identified five categories of heroes: the divine hero, romantic
hero, the hero of the high mimetic mode, the hero of the low mimetic mode and
the ironic mode (Frye 33 – 34). Okpewho and Habila employ the low mimetic
hero in their works. The low mimetic hero is one who is neither superior to
others nor to his environment. This implies that the hero is just one of us (Frye
34) and we jubilate, empathise or sympathise with him in any situation he may
find himself.
Mukoro Oshevire in Okpewho‟s The Last Duty and Lomba in Habila‟s
Waiting for an Angel as well as their fellow sufferers are all characters among
the hoipolloi or plebeians and their arrest, imprisonment, suffering and so on
instill in us fear, pity and purgation of emotions. Both novels are works of
56
interpretive literature – literature “written to broaden and deepen and sharpen
our awareness of life” (Laurence Perrine 1974:3). According to Eustace Palmer,
…all great literature, whether English, African, American or
European, has the capacity to enrich our understanding of life,
extend the range of our sympathies, develop our minds, satisfy
our curiosities and even deepen our knowledge of the social,
political and historical issues that African countries and
universities seem to be so pre-occupied with…(1986:1).
4.5 Humour
This refers to the identification or appearance of funny sayings, events
and actions in literature. Both novelists create humorous episodes or events to
ease tension in the novels. Habila uses it in the episode where Muftau, the
Prison Superintendent, punishes Lomba for writing poems but later gives the
same poems written by Lomba to his girlfriend, Janice, claiming to have
personally written them and further asking him to write more for him as he
(Muftau), being the Prison Superintendent, can make life easy for him as there
would be nothing he cannot do if he wants to. Again, the Prison Superintendent
writes some personal love poems to Janice, his girlfriend, but he copies
Lomba‟s poems and Lomba makes a sarcasm or caricature of him thus:
Sir, your poem is both original and interesting, but the part
that is interesting is not original, and the part that is original
is not interesting (17).
Lomba further satirises him thus:
57
There is nothing I cannot do. You can get me cigarettes, I am
sure, and food. You can remove me from solitary. But can
you stand me outside these walls, free under the stars? Can
you connect the tips of my upraised arms to the stars so that
the surge of liberty passes down my body to the soft downy
grass beneath my feet? (18).
We also see these humorous, sarcastic and satiric episodes in The Last Duty in
the character of Toje Onovwakpo. Toje claims to be a respected celebrity of
Urukpe (133), a big man and rubber magnate and, one of the few names that
lend respect, recognition, credit and catapults or brings the community to the
limelight, yet he indulges in the devilish acts of intrigue, maligning, character
assassination, and adultery and gets venereal infection and loses his potency or
erection. Again, Toje often claims and brags of being an illustrious and
prominent son and at the top echelon of Urukpe and its environs. Yet he is not
enlisted in the Igabo Progressive Union and subtitled Great Sons and Daughters
of Igaboland Almanac (105) – all to make a caricature of him.
4.6 Proverbs
Proverbs are short sentences or statements that express wisdom, and
universal truth. Ruth Finnegan ( 1970:393) defines it as “ a saying in more or
less fixed form marked by shortness, sense and salt and distinguished by the
popular acceptance of the truth tersely expressed in it” (qtd in Dumbi Osani
2008:96). Proverbs are an African cultural practice and African oral literature
58
elements. They embellish or spice up oral conversations in Africa. According to
Achebe in Things Fall Apart (1958:6), “among the Ibo, the arts of conversation
is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are
eaten”. African literary writers use them to show the African flavour. In other
words, to show the Africaness of the work. Okpewho and Habila, being
Africans, employ them in their works to show the local colour. In The Last Duty
we have:
49 A little ache can spoil a good head (48).
50 Only a foolish traveler starves his camel of water (48).
51 If you spare your scabies the harsh scrub of the sponge, merely because it
will hurt your skin, you may later be faced with a malignant boil (109).
52 A man does not suddenly reject his brother simply because he has
contacted yaws (188).
We also have the following proverbs in Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel:
53 The drunkard‟s handshake had gone past the elbow (147).
54 Lightning only strikes the tallest tree (183).
All these examples show the African culture and orality.
4.7 A Contrastive Analysis of The Last Duty and Waiting for an Angel.
In spite of their similarities, The Last Duty and Waiting for an Angel are
dissimilar in some other perspectives. First is on the area of syntax. Although
they all employ parallelisms, chiasmi, pidgin, simple and non-simple sentences,
Habila employs staccato, disfigured, jerky, truncated and disjointed sentences
59
of agrammatic aphasics which are not employed by Okpewho in The Last Duty.
In addition, Habila uses Pidgin and other varieties of non-standard English more
elaborately than Okpewho. In fact, Okpewho uses a highly standard variety of
English more than Habila.
Secondly, on the aspect of morphology, Habila employs compounding,
derivational morphology, and borrowing more elaborately and more freely than
Okpewho. In fact, Okpewho uses such word-formation processes very
sparingly.
On the graphological level, both novelists use graphological devices
such as the period, dash, hyphenation, capitalization, italicization, poetry,
ellipsis and so on. But Habila uses them more elaborately than Okpewho. More
so, Habila uses indentations but Okpewho does not. Again, Okpewho abuses the
use of the capital as we can see in the sentences of Oghenovo who uses lower
case letters to begin the first person singular pronoun “I”, proper nouns and
beginnings of paragraphs and after periods. But Habila does not employ this
graphological deviance.
Habila alludes to other scholars in diverse fields of study, directly quoting
their works and statements in Waiting for an Angel. For instance, he quotes
Wole Soyinka‟s The Man Died and the quotation: “the man dies in him who
stands silent in the face of tyranny (48 and 68); Amilcar Cabral: “every
onlooker is either a coward or a traitor” (48); Martin Luther King: “It is the duty
of every citizen to oppose unjust authority” (49); Franz Fanon: “Violence can
60
only be overcome by greater violence” ( 158) and so. He also alludes to
Shakespeare‟s Macbeth, (153), Charles Dickens‟s Oliver Twist (151), Karl
Marx‟s Das Kapital (123), Kafka‟s Great World of China (96) and so on.
The reference to all these texts implies that there are prior texts and prior
discourses to any text or discourse. In other words, there is an intertextuality and
interdiscursivity in every text and discourse as opined by the Russian linguist
Mikhail Bakhtin in the 1920s and 1940s which was introduced by Julia Kristeva
a French scholar in 1986 (Johnstone 2008:164 ). The reference to all the
aforementioned works is a vertical intertextuality as it is not intratext or within
but intertext or between. It is intertexual or vertical because it is a paradigmatic
reference.
The quotations and allusions to scholars in other fields of study are shown
by Habila in Waiting for an Angel which are not employed by Okpewho.
61
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 CONCLUSION
Stylistics aims at investigating a writer‟s gestalt or oeuvre of language
use in a literary text. It describes and interprets how the writer has made
particular, peculiar or individual choices on the language to aesthetically
express his message and how his chosen or selected or regular choices reveal his
personality as the style is the man. This analysis is text-based as the text is the
data-base or raw material with which linguistic analysis or description is carried
out. This necessitates the Hallidayan model employed for this work.
Foregrounding is the cornerstone term in stylistics. Literary writers
individualize the common property of language by deviating from the norms of
the language for embroidery and thus make features of the language stand out to
captivate the attentions of readers for a second look. This deviation for
prominence cuts across all the levels of linguistic descriptions, ranging from
phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax to semantics.
Okpewho and Habila, as creative writers, make an aesthetic or a cosmetic
use of the language to drive home their points and feelings in The Last Duty and
Waiting for an Angel respectively. They make choices, deviations and iterations
on the architecture of language for specific stylistic effects and meanings. These
cut across all the levels of linguistics. But this work concentrates on and treats
foregrounded features of syntax, morphology and graphology as well as the
socio-historical background or influence of the novels.
62
We have also seen that there is a literary language which is a conscious
and special language distinct from the everyday language. This, therefore,
settles the long-driven battle of supremacy between linguistics and literature as
well as the existence or otherwise of a literary language. Stylistics acts as a
bridge as it sits at the boundary between linguistics and literature, merging them
together.
It is also possible to analyse literature with linguistics in spite of the tense
debate on the impossibility of this. This analysis can be on form, content or
context as Michael Halliday opines in his Systemic Functional Grammar.
This work has given us the awareness on how language works on the
parlance of literature. The work will be of immense benefit to its readers as they
appreciate the language application of any work of literature as well as being
able to use language ornamentally.
Finally, the work, being a work on stylistics, synergises or merges
linguistics and literature ensures that literary students should understand the
various levels of linguistic analysis before they bend or break the conventional
rules of language as literature always thrives on deviation for foregrounding.
Equally, students of linguistics should not only master the rules at the various
levels of linguistic analysis but also apply the resources of language in their
analysis of literature.
63
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