ABSTRACT
This research work addressed itself to the way people tend to see
fictional works. People see fictional works as being fictitious, but
they are over laid with fact. This long essay, using Akachi Adimora.
Ezeigbo’s works as guide, demonstrated the impact of the intermeddling
of fact with fiction in literary works. They do not always obstruct each
other and when harnessed depending on the ingenuity of the artist they
can serve multiple purposes. The sociological socialist realism theory
is used in this research work because real and factual events in
Ezeigbo’s life are contained in her works. Ezeigbo make use of the Igbo
setting. There are names proverbs, idioms and practices that epitomize
the Igbo culture and Igbo world view. Her works are linked between her
fiction and her lived experience. The major source of her stories is her
own direct experience through fiction. Oral Aesthetics is highly
portrayed in Ezeigbo’s works in her constant use of songs, proverbs,
lullabies and the Igbo cultural setting. This study has shown that
Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo, a fictional writer wrote about her own personal
experiences in her novels and short stories.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0 CHAPTER ONE
1.1 Introduction
1 .2 Definition of Terms
1.3 The Last of the Strong Ones : A Synopsis
1.4 The Relationship Between Facts and Fiction
1.5 Research Problem
1.6 Methodology
1.7 Scope of Study and Limitation
1.8 Justification
1.9 Purpose of Study
1.10 Structure of Thesis
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Literature Review
2.1 Issues Relating to Akachi Adimora — Ezeigbo’s Writings
2.2 Aesthetics in Akachi’s Works.
2.3 Adimora — Ezeigbo’s Formal Aesthetics Borrowings from the
Oral Narrative Tradition.
2.4 The Role of the Writer in Literature
CHAPTER THREE
3.1 Fact and Fiction in Akachi Adimora —Ezeigbo’s The Last of the
Strong Ones and Children of the Eagle
3.2 The Search for Self
3.3 The War’s Untold Story: The Challenging Years of Youth
3.4 Marriage and Family Life
CHAPTER FOUR
4.1 The Aesthetics Residues of Facts and Fiction: An Example of Akachi’s The Last of the Strong Ones and
Children of the Eagle .
4.2 The Igbo Nuaces in The Last of the Strong Ones and
Children of the Eagle
CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 Summary of Findings and Conclusion of the Research Work
5.2 Summary
5.3 Findings
5.4 Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Literature is studied for various reasons. It covers all aspects of
human life. It is all-embracing and encapsulating. It contains artistic
truth, which is better than historical truth. An artistic truth applies
to every situation of life while historical truth appeals to a specific
situation of life.
A quality of Akachi Ezeigbo which makes her fiction not just reading
matter is her ability to knit life experiences into art. There is an
effort to make the incidents as realistic as possible not just in
context but in form and style. Prominent among her choice of techniques
is foreshadowing and the use of the third person omniscient narrator.
A writer is a “righter” righting the societal “wrongs”. This is
another way of saying that a writer is a watchdog to the society. He
comments upon social happenings with the aim of improving them. This
argument can be used to nullify the “art-for-art-sake” philosophy of
literature. Art – for – art – sake perception opines that literature
should be on its own aesthetics and not be mixed up with politics. In
reality, literature cannot really be separated from human experience
from the political, social, religious and cultural realm.
Literature is essentially a creative art. Hence, originality and
creativity are the key words. Most of the ideas in 1 are either totally
imagined (fiction) or partially imagined. Partial imagination is
interplay of fact and art known as faction.
The generally accepted notion is that literature mirrors the society.
But literature, as can be deduced from the present ideological trends
does not stop at mirroring the society. It does more than mirror the
society. It does not just give us the picture of our lives alone but
goes further to suggest ways of improving ourselves. Literature is th
private and public awareness given to both the individual and the
society respectively through the exposure of the hidden or open truths
that people seem to be ignorant of. Literature aims at affecting a
change in the societal status quo.
Omotayo Oloruntoba -Oju (1999) cited in Ibrahim B.F. & Akande F.F, States that;
The term. literature may be used to refer to any material in written
form or any other material whose features lend them to literary
appreciation or appraisal… the term in a specialized sense refers to
works of art in any of the established literary genres, prose, poetry
and drama..
One would have expected Oloruntoba – Oju to have recognized the
un-established and un-written genre (material as well in her definition
of literature in order to make such a definition comprehensive enough.
According to Terry Eagleton (1983) Cited in Akande and Ibrahim (1997),
Literature is a liberating force, freeing us from the inherent
shackles placed upon us by the society. Literary criticism is therefore
born out of it struggle against a loss of culture and its feature
becomes defined as struggle against the foreseen bourgeois stat and it’s
has no predetermined future.
All definitions of literature hang on essentially what literature
looks like, what it aims at doing or what it is for or why it is the way
it is or what it should be used for. Literature as a discipline is a
spoken or written medium which uses languages, plot, character and
setting to give us a picture of what our life looks like.
Literature draws its strength from actual life. It deals with human
life with all its complexities and difficulties. Literature deals with
the Joys, Sorrows, Poverty, Plenty and above all death to which man is
subjected and which is man’s enemy.
The Literature of a particular community can be defined as the sum
total of all works of imagination either in oral or written form, in
prose or in verse .which have helped to reflect and project the life and
culture of that community in the three important areas of narrative
fiction, drama and poetry. Literature, like all other art forms draws on
human experience and tries to reflect the same and communicate it back
to man in an ordered or artistic form. This is because the human
condition is the reality known to most men and women and it is this
reality that literary artists depend on for their writings.
Literature may deal with particular and contemporary events and
issues or with attitudes and behavior in contemporary and particular
situations. For example, Achebe’s A Man of the People (1966)
deals with politics and politicians in the early years of Nigerian
independence. A very remarkable way of showing the despicable, ruthless
and selfish politician of the period is found in the portraiture of
Chief Nanga. Also in Nigeria, the events of the civil war of 1967 — 1970
are made memorable in for example:
Akachi-Adimora’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle
(2002). These writing are varied accounts of the Nigerian civil war, a
contemporary event and through them unborn generations will be aware,
even if not of the full factual details of the war of at least the basic
perceptions of the war.
Literature enlarges ones experience. Some texts will lend themselves
to easy understanding simply because of the reader’s actual experience.
Hence, all definitions of literature boil down to and emphasize its
nature, form and utility. These days, unlike in the past when the
literature of a people is said to be the unwritten records of those set
of people, the word literature is used to refer to a collection of
historical, geographical and academic records such as personal essays,
speeches, biographies and letters.
Nigerian writers generally appear to be more interested in recreating
in the reader’s mind, a whole traditional way of life, bringing out
varying degrees a man’s realities, by making use of frequent allusions
to their people’s customs ‘and tradition. They bring on record communal
activities such as festivals, ceremonies, ritual practices, beliefs,
occupations and the co-existing nature typical of all Africans.
Hence, these writers have their foundations in the cultural heritage
of their respective ethnic groups. Ernest Emenyonu (1972) rightly puts
it thus:
In a multi-ethnic nation like Nigeria, it is imperative that the
culture and life-ways of the component units should be given full airing
so that national sentiments could be built upon the foundation of
understanding.
In the same vein, Emmanuel Obiechina (1975) reasserts that “it is
only by incorporating Nigerian tradition in our writings that make them
Nigerian”.
Finally, literature is a portrait of man and his environment held up
for him to see by the artist, so that he can have profound reflections
about his world view and general existence. Critics of literature must
understand it’s interdisciplinary nature for an intensive and extensive
comprehension. Literature should contain ideology and also reflect the
human mind. This is the meeting point between creativity and criticism.
1.2 DEFINITION OF TERMS:
a)
Facts can be defined as concrete reality or actual reality or actual
presentation of events that have historical record. The reality could be
social, economics or politics. The rise of facts in the novel was
necessitated when there came the need for the actual documentation of
events that occurred in the life of the people in a society or the
society itself. Example are autobiographies, Biographies, documentary.
All these give the actual events as they occurred and are recorded down
through an element of creative imagination.
A writer like Adimora-Ezeigbo has shown in her trilogy an attempt to
understand her society and relate with it in the context of a global
historiography that shaped the works of pioneer writers and which as has
been stated, is still unfolding. In simple terms then, the span of
Nigerian literary history is still too short to evaluate the performance
of writers on the basis of ‘generation’. The task of periodizing, and
indeed, of writing a comprehensive and reliable account of Nigerian
literature is rightly that of a future generation of critics for whom
compilations of the nature attempted here would function as data. Facts
are real issues discussed in Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo’s works like:
feminism/gender issues, The Orature of the Igbo’s and the Aesthetics of
facts and fiction. Akachi Adimora. — Ezeigbo in her The Last of the Strong Ones (1996)
emphasized on the issue of feminism. In The Last of the Strong
Ones(1996) Adimora — Ezeigbo continues what Chinua Achebe had begun more
than forty years (40) before with his novel Things Fall Apart (1958).
He wanted to show;
That African people did not hear of culture for the first time from
Europeans; … their societies were not mindless but frequently had a
philosophy of great depth and value and beauty. They had poetry and;
above all, they had dignity …. The worst thing that can happen to any
people is the loss of their dignity and self-respect. The writer’s duty
is to help them regain it by showing them in human terms what happened
to them, what they lost. There is a saying in Igbo that a man who can’t
tell where the rain began to beat him cannot know where he dried his
body. The writer can tell the people where the rain began to beat them.
Achebe’s literary portrait of the history and culture of the Igbo was
limited to the extent that he marginalized women and neglected their
voice. While Achebe thematizes the curse of colonialism with a view to
men alone, and without a deeper examination of gender relations, Adimora
— Ezeigbo is interested not only in colonialism, but also in gender
relations on the eve of colonization. Unlike in Things fall Apart
(1958), existing gender relations are not merely portrayed, but
institutions such as polygamy and violence against women are put in a
critical light. This double — tracked thematic orientation of the novel
is also manifested in the narrator, who is commissioned by the
inhabitants of the village “to preserve our tradition and guide our
people back to our way of life before ‘Kosiri’ infested us with their
presence” (p.82). In very concrete terms, she has the task of recording
the life stories of the four Oluada, the “top women representatives” of
.Umuga, who are also the main figures in the Umuada, the association of
the daughters of Umuga. Later she is appointed chronicler of the
colonial destruction of Umuga. The first person narrator lives up .to
both tasks in the novels. By using the medium of literature for
remembrance, she puts herself in the oral narrative tradition, to which
the first-person narrator herself refers when she names “the family
historian, the storyteller and the custodian of tradition” in one breath
(p.83). This goes along with the fact that the narrator tells the story
in an oral narrative style. Ezeigbo manages to imitate conventions of
spoken language, so that when reading one has the impression that one is
hearing the novel rather than reading it.
b) FICTION
Fiction is an abiding social beauty, the expression of human
activities in written words; the expression and the impression of the
people who have created it; it is the production of what purports to be
an authentic account of the actual experience of individuals.
The novel reflects actual human experience narrated in a straight
forward manner. While reading any novel, the reader might feel that he
is reading about his own character or about his neighbors. This kind of
reading is purely for enjoyment, leisure and probably to while away
time, Besides, since prose is a narrative form, it becomes more
accessible to the reader than other genres of literature especially in
the African setting where the culture involves storytelling techniques.
Here, the literary artist is able to use very effectively, l for
communicative purposes through imagination and creativity. And
basically, the novel can be classified into fiction and non — fiction.
Fiction in opposition to non — fiction is the prose from which the
element are based on mere creative imagination of the artist rather than
the real life situations presented by the non — fictional writers who
are the novelists.
1.3 THE LAST OF THE STRONG ONES (1996) A SYNOPSIS
The novel is an imaginative reconstruction of the history of Uga, a
town in South Eastern Nigeria. Woven around the lives of four
influential women who flourish alongside their male counterparts in the
leadership of their town, the story relates the struggle of a people to
free their community from the clutches of meddlesome British
colonialists, chronicling their experience as they resist a disruptive
order that threatens their tradition and their humanity. Amidst the
dramatic build up to an inevitable collision between tradition and
change, the author embarks on a journey of role re- evaluation and
redefinition of womanhood within the context of the Igbo culture.
Following the footsteps of Nigeria’s first female novelist, Flora
Nwapa, who protested the relegation of the Igbo whom in a patriarchal
society in her works Efuru (1966) and Idu (1968), Ezeigbo’s work is a
reaction to the unacceptable socioeconomic situation of Igbo women in
particular and Nigerian women in general, under colonial rule.
Like other Novelists in the womanist genre, Ezeigbo is preoccupied
with the struggle for change, consciously expressed in the different
forms of protest. In the case of The Last of the StrongOnes
(1996) however, the author chooses to’ reconstruct the social realities
of the Umuga community by entrenching women in active leadership roles
alongside their male counterparts. This can be seen as a deliberate
insistence on positive Igbo Heroines as a means of drawing attention to
the importance and relevance of the woman’s voice, despite tradition.
Thus, by tracing the history of the Umuga community through the
voices of women and reconstructing the transition process via women’s
experiences, pains and emotions, t author protests the one sided
presentation of gender roles in the writings of men which overlooked the
militant role of women in the struggle against Colonialism (C.F. Nina
Mba 1997).
Adimora Ezeigbo, through her fictional novels enlightens her readers
on issues concerning her society. Social realities are entailed in her
works, these issues are facts.
1.4 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FACTS AND FICTION.
Literature teaches moral lessons to man. A lot of lessons can be
learnt from various works of literature. This is what we mean by
didacticism. At the same time, literature is a source of entertainment.
It is a known fact that man is always facing one problem or the other,
because of the complexity and multiplicity of human problems. Human mind
is most of the time being troubled. Literature can be used to heal the
mind. This is what we mean by psycho-therapeutic function of literature.
One should not forget to mention the fact that literature can be used
to promote culture. Through it, we are exposed to the norms and values
of various human societies.
Recently, I asked my sisters to make their biodata available to me as
soon as possible, to write down facts about their lives that I might
include in the family book. I belie
e I should also put together facts
about my life that can go into the book. What is fact? And what is
fiction? Can a line be really drawn between the two? I often think that
the line between fact and fiction is blurred. What about the myths that
society surrounds itself with? Is myth fact or fiction? People create
myths to explain the unexplainable, the unknowable. In my family, we
have our myths, just as Umuga has her myths (p.368).
The above excerpt by the author, explains that facts are real events
and happenings in her life. Through her short stories and novels, the
author tells us about her family background and childhood in ‘The Blind
Man of Ekwulu’. She also tells us ‘The War’s Untold Unstory’: The
challenging years of youth and also through her short story ‘Agarachaa’,
She writes on the fact of the memories of her youth. However, ‘The life
out there’ tells us the single and searching days of the author. In
‘The life out there’, the author writes on the strict, stern and
constraining background in which she grew:
My parents were strict with us… I was a subdued child and quick in
obeying whatever rules my parents laid down. One of those rules was that
we were never to have boyfriends. I remember the day a boy posted a
letter to our house without my knowledge and it got into my father’s
hand. He read it and threatened to give the letter to the principal of
my school and even to stop my education. You can imagine how I lost my
patience with the boy upon my return to school. I warned him never to
write such letters to me again… (Wov: 18).
Ezeigbo also wrote about her marriage and family life in ‘A Day to
Remember’ (Rituals and Departures).It tells us about the author’s early
marriage while in school and her first pregnancy.
Ezeigbo in her trilogy puts all these short stories together to
produce a bigger novel. The writer is seen in the character Nnenne. She
is a lecturer and a writer.
‘…She was happy; she was free from lectures, from supervision of projects and dissertations’ (COE: 343).
Ezeigbo in her literary works tells her readers the story of her
life, family and children. She makes use of the novel because it gives
her an avenue to depict fictional characters that represent her in her
works. These events in her works are real but told as stories to
entertain her readers and show her skill in writing.
1.5 RESEARCH PROBLEM
This research study will address itself to the way people tend to see
fictional works. People see fictional works as being fictitious but
they are over laid with fact. This study using Akachi Adimora –
Ezeigbo’s works as guide, will demonstrate the impact of the
intermeddling of fact with fiction in literary works.
1.6 METHODOLOGY
This research work will make use of the sociological theory. This theory is adopted for this study because Ezeigbo’s two works; The Last of the Strong Ones (1996)
and Children c the Eagle (2002) are centered on literature and the
society. Sociological theory relates arts to the society. This is
virtually important because literature cannot exist without the society.
This study will also make use of the Socialist realism theory as a
branch of sociological theory.
1.7 SCOPE OF STUDY AND LIMITATION
This research work titled Facts and fiction in Akachi Adimora — Ezeigbo’s The Last of the• strong Ones(1996 and Children of the
Eagle (2002), will begin with facts and fiction in literatuTe. The
researcher will limit this study to areas of Orature, Feminism /Gender
issues and Aesthetics concerning Ezeigbo’s works. This study is supposed
to contain, broader aspects of facts and fiction. But due to time and
space, this study will limit itself to the study of facts and fiction in
Ezeigbo’s two works The researcher’s inability to interview Akachi ,
personally due to distance of learning is a limitation. Ezeigbo is a new
writer. This fact led to difficulties in getting materials for the
research work. This research work will pioneer criticism on the
novelist.
1.8 JUSTIFICATION
This research work is carried out on Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo’s works
because she ranks among the most out — spoken and prolific writers of
modern times who use their literary works to challenge colonialist
literatures and also African men’s literature. Akachi’s two works, The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle
(2002) are used for this study because the author infuses oral
narratives of Igbo land. By adapting oral narrative devices, Adimora
Ezeigbo decolonizes or, to be more precise, appropriates the Western’
based and determined novel and short story genre. This topic was chosen
by the researcher because little has been done on Facts and Fiction in
Ezeigbo’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle
(2002). The research will find out the realities in Ezeigbo’s fictional
works. This research is carried out on Akachi because her novels have
won awards and also because she is an award winning writer. She has won
four major literary awards. She has also won several academic awards.
1.9 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This research will exhibit that literature contains fact and fiction.
They do not always obstruct each other and when harnessed depending on
the ingenuity of the artist they can serve multiple purposes This study
will show how Ezeigbo through her works reenacts the evolution of modern
Nigeria from the era of colonial incursion to the present. Ezeigbo’s
works show with priority the role of women in the making of national
history. Ezeigbo’s maturation in her literary writing will be exhibited
in this research work.
1.10 STRUCTURE OF THESIS
Chapter one of this work covers the introduction to literature. It
explains the definition of terms and it’s relationship. It also shows
the research problem, purpose of the study, scope of the study and
limitation, justification and methodology.
Chapter two of this research work contains the literature review. It
entails the role of the Nigerian writer, issues related to Ezeigbo’s
works and the use of oral literature in Ezeigbo’s fiction.
Chapter three of this study titled “Facts and Fiction in Akachi’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002)”, looks at the realities in Ezeigbo’s fiction.
Chapter four of this study covers the “Aesthetics residues of facts and fiction; An example of Akachi’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) and Children of the Eagle (2002)”.
Chapter Five is the summary of findings and conclusion of the research work.