RE-ENGAGING ALTERITY AND DISILLUSIONMENT IN SELECTED NIGERIAN NOVELS

Abstract

Since its inception, modern African literature explores several topical social issues such as those bordering on alterity, which suggests the social classification of being different in the society, and disillusionment experienced by Africans due to failed leadership in Africa. These have, consequently, created a huge gap between the privileged – ‘Self’ and the underprivileged – ‘Other’. Studies show how alterity has engendered disillusionment among members of the lower class. However, it is observed that disillusionment is not peculiar only to those in the lower class, but also experienced by a subclass of the ruling or upper class. This study thus examines the disillusionment of subjugated members of the new crop of leaders in Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People and Tanure Ojaide’s The Activist. It adopts the postcolonial theory which interrogates the binary of the Self and the Other in the literature of former colonies. It is discovered that the selected writers have engaged their creative art to portray alterity and disillusionment as recurrent themes especially as it occurs among members of the elite class. While Ojaide’s characters fight the military and use democracy to achieve the change they want, Achebe’s characters find their relief in the uprising of the military.