ABSTRACT
Camus’s The Plague has been read variously as an allegory
of Nazi terror in France as well as a depiction of Camus's absurdist
philosophy. Many critics of Soyinka’s Season of Anomy strangely
also have interpreted the text as an allegory of the Nigerian civil war
inwhich terror is seen as a political weapon. Although these modes of
reading explore the resistance to terror, critical reading of a work
cannot be achieved through allegory which searches for meaning outside
the text. The present reading, therefore, while distancing itself from
the above perspectives, undertakes a comparative examination of the two
novels in order to demonstrate that terror and tragic optimism are their
sustaining constructs. The study examines tragic optimism following
Nietzsche’s notion of the universal instinct. In his theory of the Ubermensch, Nietzsche presents the figure of the
Overman who is able to shatter the rules of rationality
that are often built on mediocrity,and set up new ones out of his own
superabundant life and power. This figure views life as evolving to
higher forms with the human instinct as the spear-point of this
evolution. In tragedy, the Overman resembles the “titanically
striving” individual wh o struggles because he must. Tragic optimism as a
Nietzschean notion that runs in opposition to Schopenhauerean
pessimism, is thus about “saying ye s” to life in all its tragic
realities, an
idea that runs through The Plague and Season of Anomy. Using formalist-oriented critical
approach, this research shows that in the heroes’ confrontation
with the “more than man”, the universal instinct and cheerfulness which
they possess as heroic beings enable them to face up to what had to be
done. In the paradox underlying tragic suffering in the texts, not only
does the research suggest that collective suffering creates the
necessity for solidarity, it also concludes that for the tragic
optimist, defiant struggle is uplifting.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of Study
Nietzsche’s theory of the Ubermensch (the Overman) shows
that the superior individual, propelled by tragic optimism, struggles
relentlessly and cheerfully in the face of terror, a notion that is also
applicable to characters in literature. In Camus’s The Plague and Soyinka’s Season of Anomy, tragic
optimism shows the hero’s defiant will to struggle in the face of
terrible circumstances. Literary studies in general and tragedy in
particular, grapple with this question of the impulse that propels the
hero’s defiant will to struggle in the face of terror. To be sure,
Aristotle in his theory of tragedy, provides the background for
apprehending the hero as one who must show great courage in the face of
adversity. This individual must be accounted to be “more than man” ( Oedipus the King, lines
29) in as much as the experience facing him is more than man. In a way,
he connects to the figure that Nietzsche identifies as “a titanically
striving individual who struggles because he must” ( The Birth of Tragedy 72)
and who must affirm the invincibility of the human spirit in the midst
of terrible circumstances. According to Akwanya and Anohu, Nietzsche’s
Superman “resembles the Aristotelian he ro in so far as he stands above
mediocrity but differs from him in that the latter is already realized”
(44). Thus in his theory of the Ubermench (the Overman or Superman ), Nietzsche proposes that the superior individual fights defiantly and cheerfully in the face of suffering (Human All Too Human 340). Nietzsche indicates that the universal instinct, which the Overman possessesenables
him find freedom in struggle, and for this fact, he cannot refuse to
struggle no matter the degree of terror that faces him. His striving
therefore has more to do with tragic optimism than with the outcome, an
idea that is also applicable to the heroic characters in Camus’s The Plague and Soyinka’s Season of Anomy.