The Joys of Motherhood

Hello Friends! 

I am Chandani Pandya, a Student of the Department of English, MKBU. As a part of the syllabus, we are studying the paper on African Literature. This task is assigned by Yesha Ma’am as a part of the thinking activity. In this blog, I am going to write about the African novel The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta. Let's begin with the author’s introduction.

Buchi Emecheta :-

Buchi Emecheta is a Nigerian novelist. Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence, and freedom through education have won her considerable critical acclaim and honors, including an Order of the British Empire in 2005.

The Joys of Motherhood :- 

The Joys of Motherhood is a novel written by Buchi Emecheta. It was first published in London, UK, by Allison & Busby in 1979 and was reprinted in Heinemann's African Writers Series in 2008. The basis of the novel is the "necessity for a woman to be fertile, and above all to give birth to sons". It tells the tragic story of Nnu-Ego, the daughter of Nwokocha Agbadi and Ona, who had a bad fate with childbearing. This novel explores the life of a Nigerian woman, Nnu Ego. Nnu's life centers on her children and through them, she gains the respect of her community. Traditional tribal values and customs begin to shift with increasing colonial presence and influence, pushing Ego to challenge accepted notions of "mother", "wife", and "woman". Through Nnu Ego's journey, Emecheta forces her readers to consider the dilemmas associated with adopting new ideas and practices against the inclination to cleave to tradition. In this novel, Emecheta reveals and celebrates the pleasures derived from fulfilling responsibilities related to family matters in childbearing, mothering, and nurturing activities among women. However, the author additionally highlights how the 'joys of motherhood' also include anxiety, obligation, and pain.

Introduction:-

Florence Onye Buchi Emecheta finds a place among the eminent female writers of postcolonial Africa. She novelized the effects of colonization and the oppression faced by women in the African society. Her novels in general represent the changing scenario where women stand on their own terms for gender equality and oppression in contrast to the images of African women illustrated by African male writers. The Novel “The Joys of Motherhood” reveals not only how women exist and live their lives in the past and present but also the struggles women faced in post-colonial Africa and native Nigeria. The Novel cannot be simply read as a story of Nnu Ego’s the protagonist struggle in the African patriarchal society it should be read with its colonial context which was introduced by the colonizers to understand ‘How’ women are treated and to what extent they were given importance in the African society. As one reads “Joys of Motherhood”, one will understand that the protagonist Nnu Ego’s problems are not simply because of the native patriarchal society but because of the grudging colonial structure created by the colonizer rule, in which she lives. To understand the author’s perspective the reader must read the novel with certain degree of postcolonialism. The Novel uniquely examines the story of the woman who is caught between the traditional Ibo culture and colonization. Buchi addresses the issue of marriage and motherhood by concentrating on women discrimination in traditional Nigerian Ibo culture and society. According to Marie A. Umeh, “The Joys of Motherhood is a study of victimization and enslavement of traditional Ibo women to the dictates of traditional Ibo Culture.” [4]

 2. Motherhood in the Novel:- 

Buchi Emecheta establishes in The Joys of Motherhood that the love that binds a mother to her child is a form of bondage from which the mother cannot escape till her death and that bond shall keep her in a situation that excludes any freedom or self-development. Throughout the novel the reader will read dialogues where women discuss about “The Joys of Motherhood” and the word motherhood comes across very often in the novel as motherhood is seen as the most important thing in their social beliefs and customs. The reader while reading could surely construct an image about Women of Nigerian Ibo culture that in Nigeria, a woman without children is one way or another incomplete and the only available way a woman can claim her individuality is by begetting children and enjoying the “Motherhood”. Though the reader learns from the very opening of the novel that Nnu Ego the protagonist is severely dependent and determined, Emecheta tenderloins that opinion in the novel by conflicting it with her complete belief that in Africa woman without children is incomplete. Emecheta even strike at the foundations of the understanding of the protagonist by narrating us of her fights throughout her motherliness and her struggles in the city after marriage. The title stands ironic when the women’s ultimate signifier continues to remain to achieve “motherhood” rather than enjoying motherhood. In fact, the irony involved in the novel in narration is unequivocally essential for understanding the novel and the impression of “Joys of Motherhood”. The closing lines of the novel finally elucidates the irony that the title of the novel carries in it: “She died quietly there, with no child to hold her hand and no friend to talk to her. She had never really made many friends, so busy had she been building her joys as a mother. (224)”

According to the belief Nnu Ego’s motherhood should have brought her happiness but then in reality her motherhood that was intended to give her “Joy” did not ripe and only at the end in her death the protagonist receive some ‘recognition’, “She [was given] the noisiest and most costly second burial”, (224). As Semenya says “In Joys of Motherhood Emecheta strives to sensitise the readers to the exploitation of mothers. With increased mastery of structure and irony, she describes the humiliation and small joys of a poor, unappreciated Ibo mother. Emecheta analyses the state of mind of women valued for biology rather than their individuality.” [6] 

Nnu Ego while living with her parents she at least “enjoyed” and had some affiliation to her ancestral patronage. She was literally protected by her culture and she had the protection of her family and was given right to her father’s protection and patronage. The term “brothers” is common in the traditional rural life where everyone shall sense the feeling of being protected by the patriarchal system, though the traditional patriarchy enslaves women in one form or the other it also provides protection and privilege. After the marriage, Nnu Ego’s shift to the city breaks these connections and patronage, the marriage and move to the city had extracted her entire existence instead of joining her to a democratic public sphere. Until marriage the protagonist had not come into contact with any men who worked for the “White” this made her to change her perceptions toward her husband worked for “white people”. Her husband, Nnaife, seems less than a man to her when she comes to know that her husband works to a ‘White’. The native people’s hatred attitude towards the colonizer and for the people who work for them is clearly evident from the text: “If you had dared come to my father’s compound to ask for me, my brothers would have thrown you out. My people only let me come to you here because they thought you were like your brother [a man], not like this.... I would have not left the house of Amatokwu to come and live with a man who washes women’s underwear” (49). This statement is very important in understanding the substantial impact of colonization and the creation of colonized identities in the whole of the Ibo culture. According to Raja, “Nnu Ego realizes that all these men working in the white man’s city were not really men anymore, but rather something different, something deformed by their subjugation”. [8] From the novel one shall understand that the colonizers place in not safe to any worker. The masters don’t have any ethics to care for the servants and their family. The workers can not expect any obligation from their masters in order to raise their family. The protagonist Nnu Ego, had to work hard to survive and educate her children as her husband’s income is insufficient, she managed the expenses through her trading business. Its only her activities that made possible to raise her children and send them to school. 

The novel is definitely a critique of the colonial and native Ibo culture. It clearly picturizes the life of women in both native and colonial spheres. The women never sense the freedom neither in African patriarchal society nor in the “democratic” colonial society. The novel which shows the affiliation of a woman to her ancestral patronage denies her affiliation after her marriage. Buchi has mastered in narrating the pathetic situation of African women who neither have access to their native community nor the “safety” of the colonizer. 

Though the women work hard and come across many hardships to raise their children, the success of the children doesn’t bring any accomplishment to them. In Nnu Ego’s case, even though two of her children have successful life after settling in abroad they are confronting her during her last days by not giving any comfort her. In native communities it is believed that the mother would receive some kind of comfort during their last for raising her children but after invasion of colonizers the tradition of taking care of the aged parents has been weakened. In the novel “Joys of Motherhood” the protagonist Nnu Ego’s children fails to give back the love and care which she expects in her lonely world. The story of Nnu Egos can be seen as representation of the native people’s life. In fact, the native people don’t realize that when the woman doesn’t receive the comfort during the last days the deceased spirit cannot be considered as a happy spirit.

Work Cited :-

- Katherine Frank (1982) The death of the slave girl: African womanhood in the novels of Buchi Emecheta, World Literature

- Motherhood.” The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 23, no. 1, Mar. 1988, pp. 130–141, doi:10.1177/002198948802300112.

- Umeh, Marie A. “A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE IDEA OF MOTHERHOOD IN TWO THIRD WORLD

Buchie Emecheta

Emecheta is concerned with social change in all aspects of life. In her works, she

laments and protests against oppression and powerlessness and the myriad ways in which they

are manifested in the lives of women, the poor and the Blacks.

Buchie Emecheta

Emecheta is concerned with social change in all aspects of life. In her works, she

laments and protests against oppression and powerlessness and the myriad ways in which they

are manifested in the lives of women, the poor and the Blacks. Buchie Emecheta

Emecheta is concerned with social change in all aspects of life. In her works, she

laments and protests against oppression and powerlessness and the myriad ways in which they

are manifested in the lives of women, the poor and the Blacks.

Buchie Emecheta

Emecheta is concerned with social change in all aspects of life. In her works, she

laments and protests against oppression and powerlessness and the myriad ways in which they

are manifested in the lives of women, the poor and the Blacks. Buchie Emecheta

Emecheta is concerned with social change in all aspects of life. In her works, she

laments and protests against oppression and powerlessness and the myriad ways in which they

are manifested in the lives of women, the poor and the Blacks.

Dystopian past – present - future - A Dance of the Forests

Hello Friends! 

I am Chandani Pandya, Student of the Department of English, MKBU.As a part of syllabus we are studying the paper on African Literature. This task is assigned by Yesha Ma’am as a part of thinking activity. In this blog I am going to write about the African play ‘A Dance of the Forests’ by Wole Soyinka. Let's begin with author’s introduction.

Wole Soyinka :- 

Nigerian playwright and political activist Wole Soyinka received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. He was born in 1934 in Abeokuta, near Ibadan, into a Yoruba family and studied at University College in Ibadan, Nigeria, and the University of Leeds, England. Soyinka, who writes in English, is the author of five memoirs, including Aké: the Years of Childhood (1981) and You Must Set Forth at Dawn: A Memoir (2006), the novels The Interpreters (1965) and Season of Anomy (1973), and 19 plays shaped by a diverse range of influences, including avant-garde traditions, politics, and African myth.

Soyinka’s poetry similarly draws on Yoruba myths, his life as an exile and in prison, and politics. His collections of poetry include Idanre and Other Poems (1967), Poems from Prison (1969, republished as A Shuttle in the Crypt in 1972), Ogun Abibiman (1976), Mandela’s Earth and Other Poems (1988), and Selected Poems (2001).

A Dance of the Forests

A Dance of the Forests is one of the most recognized of Wole Soyinka's plays. The play "was presented at the Nigerian Independence celebrations in 1960, it... denigrated the glorious African past and warned Nigerians and all Africans that their energies henceforth should be spent trying to avoid repeating the mistakes that have already been made." At the time of its release, it was an iconoclastic work that angered many of the elite in Soyinka's native Nigeria. Politicians were particularly incensed at his prescient portrayal of post-colonial Nigerian politics as aimless and corrupt. Despite the deluge of criticism, the play remains an influential work. In it, Soyinka espouses a unique vision for a new Africa, one that is able to forge a new identity free from the influence of European imperialism.

A Dance of the Forests is regarded as Soyinka's theatrical debut and has been considered the most complex and difficult to understand of his plays. In it, Soyinka unveils the rotten aspects of society and demonstrates that the past is no better than the present when it comes to the seamy side of life. He lays bare the fabric of the Nigerian society and warns people as they are on the brink of a new stage in their history: independence.(Wikipedia)

Wole Soyinka's dystopian/utopian vision in A Dance of the Forests

The structure of a play is an important ingredient in the determination of the artistic vision of a playwright. But the structure to which I refer in this paper is not the conventional dramatic structure of exposition, complication, climax, anti-climax, and denouement that is the paraphernalia of plays in general; but the plot structure that is distinctive to individual plays or artistic visions. Booker identifies this distinctive plot structure, especially as it pertains to dystopian/utopian artistic vision, when he avers that "Utopia and dystopia are very much part of the same project in that both describe an other world, spatially and/or temporally removed from that of the author and/or intended readership" (qtd in Richard Phillips 190). Therefore, using faraway imagined places is a feature of utopic and dystopic imagination. The only difference perhaps is that whereas in a dystopian landscape the faraway imagined place is in the past, in a utopian poetic space it is in the past as well as in the future. Michella Erica Green describes Butler's works as "dystopian because she (Butler) insists on confronting problems that have occurred so often in human communities" (qtd in Jim Miller 339). That dystopian works confronts "problems that have occurred so often in human communities" implies that it is a work that is not just concerned with human atrocities in the present but also in the past. It is this that figures in Soyinka's play under consideration. The play takes its readers to "an other world" that is far removed and unfamiliar. Arguably, among Soyinka's plays, it is A Dance of the Forests that takes its readers/or audience to a distant past to the Court of Mata Kharibu about eight centuries earlier (Dance 51). While Biodun Jeyifo sees the structure of the play as being "formalistically extravagant" and as not being controlled as well as polished (122), the point to be noted is that the geographical elusiveness of Soyinka's setting of a distant past in this play hints at its vision of utopianism or dystopianism.

However, while a utopian past and dystopian present is often enacted as a narrative gesture that concomitantly leads to a futurity that is utopian (Paul F. Starrs and John B. Wright 98), the reverse is the case in this play. What Wole Soyinka depicts is a dystopian past as well as a dystopian present and future. In this way, Soyinka rejects négritude's glorification and idealization of the African past. Based on this negative reconstruction of the African past, which is antithetical to its glorification in the works of négritude writers, Soyinka insists, to borrow the words of Wendy Brown, that there is no "lost way of life and a lost course of pursuits" (qtd. in Robyn Wiegman 806). That Soyinka rejects négritude's idealization of the African past is significant within the aesthetics of utopianism. This is so because in a work that quest for a utopian future, the past must be reconstructed in such a way that the living seek to recapture the past in the future. But as Anyokwu observes "Soyinka" in this play "dramatizes man's proclivity to selectively 'edit' his past, turn a blind eye to the warts and welts of his ignoble past and choose to highlight the halcyon days instead" (121). Likewise, according to Glenn A. Odom, what is revealed in this play of Soyinka is that the future will continue to repeat the present" (207), and one might add "and the past." So while the "Jews thirsted for the lost kingdom of Isreal; the English, for the Saxon Golden Age; and the Chinese, for the Taoist Age of Perfect Virtue" (Starrs and Wright 98), what Soyinka posits with his poetic ruminations is that there is nothing glorious in the African past, and nothing euphoric about the present. For instance, the atrocities committed by the actors in the Court of Mata Kharibu eight centuries earlier are repeated by their reincarnated self under different circumstances in the present world.

Adenebi in his prior existence, eight hundred years ago, was the Court Historian to Mata Kharibu, and he argues that "War is the only consistency that past ages afford us" (57), thereby facilitating the death of many soldiers in a "senseless war" that he encouraged; and at present he is the corrupt Council Orator responsible for the death of 65 passengers on a lorry he had licensed to carry passengers beyond its stipulated capacity. Another major character is Rola/Madam Tortoise who in her previous world was a whore, and Mata Kharibu's wife responsible for the death of Dead Man and Dead Woman. She is in fact likened to Helen of Troy since it is her prostitution that caused the war, which Adenebi (Kharibu's Court Historian) described as "divine carnage" (Dance 57). And in her present world, she is still a prostitute responsible for the demise of her two lovers. Also, there is Demoke, the carver who at present killed his apprentice out of envy; and who in his former existence as Court poet to Mata Kharibu tacitly supported bloodshed by not speaking against the waging of a senseless war.

Michella Erica Green in her analysis of Octavia Butler's XENOGENESIS trilogy maintains that Butler's works "border on the dystopian because she insists on confronting problems that have occurred so often in human communities that they seem almost an unavoidable part of human nature" (qtd in Jim Miller 339). Likewise, Wiegman sees the apocalyptic or dystopic as a work "which writes the present as the failure of the future" (807). This is what obtains in A Dance of the Forests in which Soyinka stretches Wiegman's explanation/or observation by writing the past and the present as the failure of the future. This is evident, as already noted, from the past and present violent actions of Soyinka's major characters. This is a play therefore in which the past and the present conflate in a metonymic reenactment of violence and bloodshed. Soyinka traces the history of a hopeless past, and compares it with a defective present to forecast a bleak future. It is exactly as noted by Jane Wilkinson that the play invites its audience "to face (the) past and future without any romantic illusions" (qtd in Gibbs 156). In this regard, my argument in this paper is that more than being a work of post-independence disillusionment, Soyinka's A Dance of the Forests enacts a dystopian vision of humanity in general, and the African continent in particular. Sunday O. Anozie says as much when he observes that as much as the play is African, "it is also universal in its application" (84).

According to R. Elwood, "derived from the Greek dys (bad, diseased, inverted) and topos (place), dystopia is conceived as a bad, diseased or inverted place" (qtd in Phillips 190). And commenting on this definition, Phillips rightly observes that dystopia "is all that utopia is not." He then adds that while utopias "are characterized by positive attributes such as natural abundance and beauty, sensual gratification, moral order, and social harmony; dystopias (are characterized) by the absence or opposite of these things" (190). The latter is unmistakable in Soyinka's A Dance of the Forests, which is typified in all ramifications by a negative landscape. Jeyifo, for instance, has described the play as "the most pessimistic in Soyinka's dramatic corpus" (120). He also views the play as being among Soyinka's "dark brooding plays" (120).

The dystopian landscape of the play is further made definite and unambiguous by the story line in which there is a "gathering of the tribes" in a festivity in which the living asks their gods to invite some of their illustrious ancestors. These illustrious ancestors are supposed to be reminders of a magnificent past, which concomitantly is a telescoping of a glorious future. But instead of legendary ancestors, Forest Father/ Head-the supreme divinity in Soyinka's fictionalized world, sends the living "two spirits of the restless dead" referred to in the play as Dead Man and Dead Woman (Dance 11). As an all-knowing god in Soyinka's aesthetic universe, it is significant that Forest Father chooses to send lackeys instead of great forebears. A logical interpretation then is that there are no great ancestors of this community of humans. As hinted in the play, the supposed glory of the empires of Mali, Songhai, Lisabi, and Zimbabwe is all a mirage (Dance 33). For instance, the historical Mata Kharibu who Obi Maduakor describes as a "great African warlord" (176) is anything but great as portrayed in this play.

Moreover, for this feast of the Human Community, their Council resolved to carve a totem as a symbol of the great re-union between the living and their dead ancestors (Dance 2). But rather than uniting the community, the totem generated rancour. Demoke who was appointed to carve it, chose unwisely to carve araba-Oro's sacred tree which is the abode of Eshuoro (Dance 2). Eshu in Yoruba means the Devil himself, while araba is believed to be the highest tree in the forest. Thus, Demoke's action of carving araba is not just a sacrilege against the sacred tree, but also an affront against Eshu (the Devil himself) who lives in the tree. In the prologue to the play, Aroni (Lieutenant to Forest Father) states:

Even this might have passed unnoticed by Oro if Demoke had left araba's height undiminished. But Demoke is a victim of giddiness and cannot gain araba's heights. He would shorten the tree, but apprentice to him is one OREMOLE, a follower of Oro who fought against this sacrilege to his god. And Oremole won support with his mockery of the carver who was tied to earth. The apprentice began to work above his master's head; Demoke reached a hand and plucked him down. (2)

By creating a situation in which Demoke strikes down his apprentice out of spite and jealousy, Soyinka parodies the festivity of this human community. The supposed symbol of unity of this human community is in fact a symbol of conflict and rancour. Moreover, although the totem was meant to reach the sky (Dance 32), Demoke diminishes its height. This is nothing, but dystopian. That the symbol of this community that is supposed to reach the sky is diminished is a metaphorical manifestation that this community of humans cannot grow beyond their imperfection, neither can they escape it.

It is also significant that the Dead Man and Dead Woman have come not to celebrate with the living, but to judge them. Their repeated imploration "Will you take my case?" (3), which is also the opening statement of the play is an indication that they have come to right the wrong against them in their previous existence, eight centuries ago. Accordingly, instead of the festivity being characterized by social harmony, what is witnessed is acrimony between citizens, between the living and the dead, and between the divinities of the tribe. For instance, the Dead Man and the Dead Woman have come in judgment against the living, whilst the living tries to get rid of them. In this respect, Soyinka insists that the atrocities that have so often characterized human interactions are unavoidable. Yet, the depiction of the unavoidability of these human atrocities is implicitly a desire for a better world. In other words, the dystopian images in Soyinka's play are strongly tied to his utopian vision. Jeyifo says as much with his observation that Soyinka's most ambitious plays, among which is A Dance of the Forests are "appropriate responses to the human and social crises and dilemmas of post-independence, postcolonial Africa and beyond these, the crises and malaise of the modern world" (127). This appropriate dramatic response takes the form of a corrective through condemnation in Soyinka's artistic vision.

The manner in which this is so can be further seen in Jim Miller's observation regarding Octavia Butler's dystopian worldview in her XENOGENESIS trilogy. According to him, "Butler does not offer a full-blown utopian 'blueprint' in her work, but rather a post-apocalyptic hoping informed by the lessons of the past" (336). It is within this frame of reference that Soyinka's dystopian setting of the past, present, and future is concomitantly a desire for a utopian future. G. G. Darah notes that "the satirist (artist) discerns beneath the world of vice, wickedness and failure, a kind of ideal world attainable only if people heed the satirist's prescription for uprightness implied in his condemnation of individuals" (qtd in Christopher Anyokwu's "Hope Eghagha as a Poet" 4). Similarly, James T. Presley sees utopias as works "which satirize [...] the manners, customs, pursuits, and follies of the age or nation in which the writer lives" (qtd in Peter Fitting 123). Even though Soyinka's work is not categorically a satire, yet it condemns the past and present follies of his characters. Giving this context, the Dead Woman's observation that "A hundred generations has made no difference" (Dance 26) is in itself a wish or desire for a better future. Also, the play's criticism of Adenebi, the corrupt Council Orator responsible for the death of 65 passengers on a lorry he (Adenebi) had licensed to carry passengers beyond its stipulated capacity can be read as a warning that such should not repeat itself in the future. In effect, Soyinka uses his play to warn his readers about the essence of learning from the lessons of the past.

As Miller rightly observes, "dystopias [are] motivated out of a utopian pessimism in that they force us to confront the dystopian elements... so that we can work through them and begin again" (337). In this sense, Dead Woman's observation that nothing has changed after eight centuries is in itself a call for a new beginning that would guarantee a promising future. The past is gone, the present is here, but the future is yet to come. By painting a dystopian past and present, and forecasting a gloomy future, Soyinka warns that the mistakes of the past and the present should be avoided for a better future. It is perhaps in this vein that Sunday O. Anozie remarks that "A Dance of the Forests gave warning of disaster in 1960" (83). Soyinka's wish, therefore, is not so much that the disaster or doom he predicts would come to pass, but that it should be avoided.

In an essay entitled "Feminism's Apocalyptic Futures" in which Robyn Wiegman interrogates the question "Is There Life After Identity Politics?" (805), she seems to suggest that the import of the question lies not in its predictive element, but in its warning about the need for social transformation in the field of feminist studies. Therefore, the anxiety implicated in the question is not so much that the future of feministic studies is doomed, but the need to revive and re-engineer it. In this wise, artistic predictions are uttered not so much for them to be fulfilled as to avert their fulfillment. This is pointedly the case with Soyinka's play. Abiola Irele concurs with this argument when he states that "For all the gloom that traverses (Soyinka's) work, and which is a reflection of our objective condition [...] (it) is in its primary nature a call to an active process of regeneration" (168). The interpretative burden of Anozie's and Irele's remarks as well as Wiegman's argument is that Soyinka's play is more of a warning rather than a prophecy.

Despite the dystopian images that populate Soyinka's play, he still hints at the regeneration of the human world. For instance, the plot which is in itself dystopian, still has a utopian element implicated in it. As already stated, the plot of this play is one in which there is a "gathering of the tribes" in a festivity in which the living asks their gods to invite some of their illustrious ancestors. These illustrious ancestors are supposed to be reminders of a magnificent past. But instead of legendary ancestors, Forest Father/Head-the supreme divinity of the play, sends the living "two spirits of the restless dead" (Dance 11). It is this action of Forest Father that sets in motion the conflict of the play between the dead and the living, and between humans and the gods. But beyond these conflicts is the new world envisaged by Soyinka: a world in which, to borrow the words of Miller, all that is presently separated are united (Miller 338).

In his comment of Butler's fictitious world in which humans and aliens inhabit the same space, Miller states that what is explored is "the possibilities for alternative and non-hierarchical definitions of gender and identity within which the difference of aliens and others can be accommodated rather than repressed" (337). He then adds that "any form of literature that seeks to help us see things anew is driven by a utopian impulse even if the work in question is dystopian" (337). Similarly, Ulrich Bach in his "Sacher-Masoch's Utopian Peripheries" maintains that a work with a utopian vision must "transcend the status quo"(204). Also, Karl Mannheim remarks that utopias "evoke images transcending those of the present reality" (qtd in Bach 204). This is exactly what obtains in Soyinka's poetic universe, despite its dystopic and apocalyptic elements. By creating an aesthetic universe in which the living and the dead, and humans and divinities interact freely with one another, Soyinka transcends the status quo and helps his audience to see things anew.

Michelle Erica Green notes that "utopia is a Greek pun that can be read as 'nowhere' (utopia) or 'good place' (eutopia) (qtd in Miller 339). And commenting on this, Miller opines that "Utopian thinking forces us to engage the discrepancy between what is and what could be" (339). Similarly, latching on Lyman Tower Sargents' 1994 work, Lucy Sargisson sees utopianism as "social dreaming" (1). According to her, "Utopianism [.] is an umbrella term referring to a way of seeing and approaching the world and to subsequent ways of representing what is perceived of the world" (1). Soyinka's play under consideration is not an enactment of "what is" but "what could be." It is not the way the world is, but his perception of how the world should be configured. It is noteworthy that this play is entitled A Dance of the Forests and not Forest. Taking into cognizance the major characters of this play, it can be extrapolated that there are three forests in the play: the forest of the gods, the forest of the dead, and that of the living; and as portrayed in the play, the three forests are in close proximity to one another. The Dirge-Man in this play, for instance, tells the living to "Leave the dead some room to dance" (iv). It then means that in this play Soyinka breaks down the boundaries between life and death, and between humans and the divinities as a way of enacting a new world that is different from the present world. Thus, in contrast to Odom's argument that the ending envisaged by Soyinka in this play "remains obscure" (205), it can be seen that he envisages a future utopian world in which all stratificational privileges, divisions and boundaries would be eradicated.

But what difference does it make if divisions and boundaries are eradicated and there are still conflicts as depicted in Soyinka's imaginative universe? It is worthy to note that a utopian world is not a perfect world. It is as Green rightly maintains that "a utopia does not have to be a 'perfect' society" (qtd in Miller 339). And commenting on this, Miller argues that "if this is the case, then utopian fiction has more to do with social/cultural/economic critique than with imagining perfection" (339). The argument of Green and Miller is that in a dystopian/utopian work; the socioeconomic, sociopolitical, and socio-cultural dynamics are critiqued not so much with the aim of achieving a perfect society, as that of achieving a better community. What is, therefore, significant in a utopian vision is not so much a perfect world as it is a better world or new beginnings in which there is a change in the status quo: what Jim Miller describes as "a post-apocalyptic hoping informed by the lessons of the past" (336).

This is implied in the statement of Forest Head/Father, the creator and supreme deity in Soyinka's aesthetic universe:

Trouble me no further. The fooleries of beings whom I have fashioned close to me weary and distress me. Yet I must persist, nothing is ever altered. My secret is my eternal burden-to pierce the encrustations of soul-deadening habit, and bare the mirror of original nakedness-knowing full well it is all futility. Yet I must do this alone, and no more, since to intervene is to be guilty of contradiction, and yet to remain altogether unfelt is to make my long-rumoured ineffectuality complete; hoping that when I have tortured awareness from their souls, that perhaps, only perhaps, in new beginnings... (88).

The ellipsis in the above quotation is as rendered in the play; and linguistic scholars have noted the aesthetic function of ellipsis. For example, Keith Grant-Davie in an essay, "Functional Redundancy and Ellipsis as Strategies in Reading and Writing" observes that when a text is elliptical in its intent, it relies on the readers to fill the missing gap (461). He then adds:

Ellipsis in language seems to have two main functions: first it allows efficient reading if the reader has enough background knowledge to allow ready inferences of what has been omitted; and second, by requiring readers to make inferences, it makes the writing more engaging, more intellectually or aesthetically stimulating. [... ] Elliptical uses of language can be suggestive, denying full disclosure, inviting the reader to participate in the making of meaning. (461)

This is what Soyinka expects of his readers/audience. More than participating in the making of meaning, he wants his readers/audience, in the same dramatic strategy of Bertolt Brecht in The Good Woman of Setzuan, to write the end to Forest Father's statement. In the epilogue to Brecht's play, the playwright acknowledges that the ending is not satisfactory, and he implores the readers/audience to write their own ending. However, in contrast to Brecht's dramatic strategy of alienation or distancing effect, which impresses on the audience that what they are watching on stage is not real life, Soyinka's ellipsis forces his readers to be engaged in the consequences of their action based on the play's warning. Therefore, the end Soyinka's audience is going to write would be predicated on whether they have heeded his artistic warning or not. Accordingly, despite the acknowledgement of his ineffectuality in the affairs of the human community, Forest Father still hints at a "post-apocalyptic hoping" that is informed by the lessons of the past. As he himself suggests, his fundamental reason of wanting to torture awareness from the souls of the living is that, perhaps, in new beginnings they are going to have a change of heart, which obviously will lead to a better community. Thus, while Darko Suvin sees Utopian fiction as "the verbal construction of a particular quasi-human community where sociopolitical institutions, norms, and individual relationships are organized according to a more perfect principle than in the author's community"(qtd in Fitting 125), what Soyinka enacts is a reversal of such "quasi-human community" in which the inhabitants have reached perfection.

Work Cited :-

-Irele, Abiola. "The Significance of Wole Soyinka". Perspectives on Nigerian Literature 1700 to the Present 1. (1988).

- Phillips, Richard. "Dystopian Space in Colonial Representations and Interventions: Sierra Leone as 'The White Man's Grave'". Geografiska Annaler 84.3/4 (2002): 189-200.  

- Sargisson, Lucy. Contemporary Feminist Utopianism. New York: Routledge, 1996.

- Starrs, Paul F. and John B. Wright. "Utopia, Dystopia, and Sublime Apocalypse in Motana's Church Universal and Triumphant". Geographical Review 95.1 (Jan. 2005): 97-121.

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The Only Story

Hello Friends 

I'm Chandani Pandya and I'm a student of the English Department mkbu. We have a paper on Contemporary Literature. In which we have four novels. Today in this blog I'm going to discuss "The Only Story" by Julian Barnes. This thinking activity is assigned by Dilip Barad sir. This novel is very complex to read. You can't read it in one sitting. Click here to visit Dilip Barad sir's blog.

Julian Barnes is the author of several books of stories, essays, a translation of Alphonse Daudet's In the Land of Pain, and numerous novels, including the 2011 Man Booker Prize winning novel The Sense of an Ending and the acclaimed The Noise of Time. His other recent publications include Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art and The Only Story. His book The Man in the Red Coat was published in the UK in 2019 and in the US in 2020. He also selected and introduced a collection of John Cheever stories titled A Vision of the World  (Vintage Classics, 2021). His new novel Elizabeth Finch will be published in 2022.     

Barnes has received numerous awards and honours for his writing, most recently the David Cohen Prize for Literature in 2011, the 2011 Man Booker Prize, the 2021 Jerusalem Prize, and the 2021 Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award. Also in 2021, he was awarded the Jean Bernard Prize, so named in memory of the great specialist in hematology who was a member of the French Academy and chaired the Academy of Medicine. Now let us throw some light on the novel The Only Story. 

The Only Story 

‘The only Story’ is a thirteen novel by Julian Barnes. It was published on 1 February 2018. The story is about nineteen years Paul Roberts and forty-eight-year-old Susan Machold. The story is mostly based on memory. This novel is divided into three parts. It is divided into first, second and, third-person narration. A story begins with the narration of Paul Roberts. It has a tragic end. The story has an unreliable narrator.

2) Postmodern Novel 

Julian Barnes, an outstanding English contemporary postmodern writer, a highly acknowledged novelist and the author of ten novels, two volumes of short stories, three collections of essays, and four detective novels was born in the family of teachers specialized in French who probably ignited his initial interest in French literature. Although he had studied law and qualified as a barrister he found much more pleasure in reviewing the books than defending a criminal. He might have rejected to stand for the rights of the criminals, but he decided to defend the rights of every living creature on earth or else to oppose them at all with his literary works which help us to recognize him as a postmodern humanist. Fundamentally, postmodernism stands for neither this point nor that one, it is both.  When he said in one of his interviews:  “I  don’t feel roots there,  I  don’t feel roots anywhere” [1, p. 9] might make us apprehend it as a territorial root on the surface but those who have read his works infer that he freed himself from any type of root that might relate him somewhere he doesn’t belong to with his heart. 

Memory Novel - Structurally as well as thematically

Every man has a past of his own. A lot of new stories can come out of that by remembering the past. Its past is contained within its memory and it comes out at certain times. The same thing is shown in this 'the only story' novel. We can say that this novel 'The only Story' is a memory novel. Because it is based on the memory of Paul Roberts. He tells his own story so we can say that he himself is narrative. So the question here is whether they themselves are narrative. And we can see many points related to memory which are shown below.

1)History is collective memory; memory is personal history 

2)Trauma in memory

3)Memory and morality

4)Memory prioritizes

The love affair in Pual's life is depicted in this novel. So clearly we find that his own personal point of view has shown the whole novel. But we don't know if this novel is a first person narrative. The structure of the whole novel seems to us to be connected with one memory. The storyline of the whole novel runs in the same way as the thing that comes in the memory. One thing ends, another thing begins. Once again the same thing has started and another thing is done. The structure of the whole novel is going on as the thoughts in the memory come from one thing to another and from one thing to another.

3) Theme of Love (Passion + Suffering)

Would you rather love the more, and suffer the more; or love the less, and suffer the less? That is, I think, finally, the only real question."

This sentence, which introduced this most recent book of Julian Barnes to his potential readers, was pretty much my Achilles heel from Page 1. I don’t quite understand how you can adjust the levels of love, like making marks on a burette and letting the content drip as per your desire of color and consistency of the final emotion. Quantifying love is beyond my comprehension.

And yet, there is a certain granular tenderness in this story of a young man and his (almost) thirty-year senior lover that prevents this love story from becoming a chore.

Seen in the rearview mirror during his twilight years, Paul reminisces the first time his 19-years old self fell for the 48-years old married Susan at a Tennis Court when the two were brought, fortuitously, together to team up for a mixed doubles match, and that his feelings were near immediately reciprocated. Ignited by this act that was both adventurous and liberating, Paul and Susan built walls around them, barricading their respective families with a dangerous, and often confounding, indifference and pushing this affair out of their current state, both literally and geographically. But at their new abode, which stripped them of their familial clutches, love gets suddenly exposed to the calamities of habituation, expectations, and aging. As a result, a whole new world sprouts between the two – one where they commence playing from different sides.

Barnes’ signature prodding into the delicate gossamer of human dilemmas and questionable foibles as much on display here although the narrative veered to the unpleasant edge of excess a good many times. Of the three sections the novel is divided into, the first was a watertight bag that didn’t allow for any of my emotions to blossom. The characters appeared like a bunch left unanchored on a theatre stage, waiting for the director to give them a cue. But beyond those 80 odd pages, Barnes plays his magic trick, and all of a sudden, the palette of love bursts open and renders an immersive experience. The turning points when love turns into duty, the duty into a burden, the burden into a gash, and the gash into a permanent scar, are the crevices where Barnes resonated the most with me.

”Love was by its very nature disruptive, cataclysmic; and if it was not, then it was not love.”