Volume 22, Issue 1 (September 2022)

Modern African literature since its inception explores several modernist tensions such as ambiguity, alienation, solitude, and estrangement, these foreground the uncanny and the defamiliarization experienced by Africans as a result of colonial conquest and political disillusionment. Consequently, it can be said that there is a detachment, whereby the people no longer recognize themselves from the existing coloniality that interferes with their indigenous way of life. Scholarship shows that this estrangement is mostly felt in the isolation that comes with migration and urban dwelling. However, it is observed that defamiliarization and estrangement do not necessarily involve migration as local dwellers have their immediate environment defamiliarized in postcolonial regions. From Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective, this essay examines the uncanny, which comes with the detachment of characters in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Tanre Ojaide’s The Activist, and Nawal El’ Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero. It is discovered that from the uncanny the characters are established as modernist question foregrounded in contradiction and the postcolonial modernism.

Jocasta's criticism of prophesy in the play is sometimes interpreted as either impiety or as the play's central argument that divine knowledge is superior to human reason. Both readings depend on a description of her argument that the Greek does not support. Instead of using the outdated vocabulary of empiricism, this article objectively reconstructs Jocasta's argument in those contemporary words and demonstrates how this alters the play's intended meaning. Applying the textual analytical approach of qualitative research methodology, the article argues that Jocasta’s argument loses not because observation is inferior to revelation but because an eikos argument is by its nature defeasible, and she treats a defeasible inference as a closed proof. It goes on to say that her second, more extreme stance - that chance reigns and nothing can be clearly predicted is a separate epistemology from her first, and that the true arc of her thinking is the shift from εκκň (eikos, "the likely") to εἰκῇ (eikē, "at random"). Findings reveal how the drama distributes evidence along gendered lines: Jocasta is given no opportunity to demand consent, that reinforces the assumption upon which the entire recognition hinges, and realizes the truth before Oedipus. The destruction of reason by prophecy is not her losing argument. It is Sophocles' demonstration that the only knowledge accessible to humans is inference from witness, which can be true, false, or valid.

A large share of scholarly discussion on Amma Darko's Faceless holds that the work casts men in a largely negative light. This view is supported by narratological, ethical, and onomastic perspectives, which note that even male characters who appear positive are marginalized or stripped of their dignity. This article, however, questions this established opinion. It deploys care-centered masculinity and Afro-feminist theories to study the novel beyond surface-level judgments of male characters as either villains or redeeming figures. It uses close reading to examine characterization, dialogue, narrative voice, and plot developments that reveal the motivations, actions, and relational dynamics of male characters. Through these critical and analytical approaches, the article contends that Faceless does not reject masculinity but rather reinterprets it through three characters: Adade (the domestic figure), Sylv Po (the public protector), and Maa Tsuru's two eldest sons (the tragic providers). Although these men are not portrayed as heroic, they are set apart from the novel's predatory male characters. Their inclusion indicates that Darko aims to transform, rather than eliminate, masculinity. The article concludes that acknowledging these different forms of masculinity should influence both how Faceless is taught and how it is interpreted. The novel, therefore, does not come across as a condemnation of men but as a call to reimagine masculinity.

Scholarship on the religion–politics nexus in Africa has shown that religious authority often extends into communal and political life, and that such authority can be appropriated for private advantage. Esiaba Irobi’s The Colour of Rusting Gold has, however, concentrated on the play’s Igbo cosmology, ritual aesthetics, language and tragic structure, leaving the political character of the diviner-healer’s power largely unexamined. This study investigates how the play represents the conversion of sacred authority into an instrument of personal and political interest. It is anchored on John Turner’s Analysis of Power, which sets the Standard Theory, in which power derives from the control of valued resources and the dependency this produces, against his three-process theory, in which power rests on group-based persuasion and authority, and coercion arises where such influence is lacking. Through qualitative textual analysis, the study examines relations of control, influence and dependency among the dibia Otagburuagu, the politician Nanimgaebi, the apprentice Ogidi and the community of healers. Findings reveal that Otagburuagu’s power rests on his control of healing, rain-making and the ritual oath, and on communal recognition of him as the conscience of the people; that Nanimgaebi treats this power as an electoral resource obtainable with money; that Otagburuagu’s retaliatory use of rain and the oath shifts his power from authority to coercion in defense of personal pride; and that his fall is completed when the community of healers withdraws recognition and dismantles the shrine through which his control was exercised. The study concludes that the play presents the politicization of religious office as a process that erodes the group-based authority on which religious power depends.

This study examines the representation of female leadership in John Kargbo Kolosa’s Let Me Die Alone, a drama that explores women’s leadership within a patriarchal society. Despite the play’s socio-political relevance, limited scholarly attention has been given to female leadership in the text. The study addresses this gap through Liberal Feminist Theory and qualitative close textual analysis, focusing on the leadership qualities embodied by the female protagonist. The findings reveal that female leadership is characterised by unity, peacebuilding, diligence, resilience, and responsibility. The study further demonstrates that effective leadership is associated with competence, vision, and commitment to societal welfare rather than gender. It concludes that the play challenges gender-based restrictions on women’s leadership and highlights the importance of equal opportunities for women in positions of authority.