THE ORAL IN THE WRITTEN
THE ORAL IN THE WRITTEN
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Date
1996
Authors
HAMID, EL-DOOD MAHDI ABDO EL-RAHMAN
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Abstract
THE ORAL IN THE WRITTEN: A STUDY OF ORALITY IN SELECTED
WEST AFRICAN SHORT STORIES.
There has been no sustained study of the fusion of the
techniques of African oral narratives and of modern
literature. The short story genre has been the chief victim of
this neglect. Occasionally, one sees a critic who, in studying
the African novel, points out what it borrows from traditional
oral narratives but this is hardly extended to cover the form
of the short story .
The modern African writer's background as a "cultural
hybrid", means that he is a man of two worlds. Born and
reared in an inherited oral culture and through formal
education, imbibed the cultural apparatus of the West. In
attempting to write, he realizes that he could fuse narrative
traditions from the two cultures and thus come up with a
uniquely blended art form. It is this processs of fusion as
it obtains in the West African short story that concerns us
here. In other words, we are examining how selected West
African short story writers have fused their indigenous oral
narrative techniques into the fabric of an inherited Western
narrative form for the purpose of expressing peculiar African
experiences.
The presupposition is that the West African writer of
short stories relies on elements from two literary traditions.
Precisely the nature and degree of this welding and how it
produced new short stories in West Africa is also the concern
of this study.
The study consists of five chapters. The first chapter
surveys the short story and its origins in both the worlds of
Europe and of Africa. The history of writing in Africa which
is closely related to the advent of colonialism and
missionaries is also examined.
Chapter two looks into the definitions of folklore,
significance of orature, the impact of the missionaries and
how the oral finds itself in the world of the print.
Chapter three is a textual analysis of five oral based
short stories - 'the complete Gentleman; 'Sarzan'; 'A child in
the Bush of Ghost'; 'The Pot of Gold; and finally 'the Eyes of
The Statue', written by Amos Tutuola (Nigeria), Birago Diop
(Senegal), Olympe Bhely - Quenun (Benin Republic), Mohammedul
Nuktarl (Muritania) and Camara Laye, (Guinea) respectively. A
textual analysis is then carried out for the four Western
based short stories in chapter Four, namely 'Black Girl1 and
'Tribal Marks' by Sembene Ousmane (Senegal), 'Two sisters' by
Ama Ata Aido (Ghana) and 'The Truly Married Woman1 by Abioseh
Nicol, (Sirra-leone).
The final chapter is the conclusion of the study.
Description
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE POST-GRADUATE SCHOOL, AHMADU
BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS (M.A) IN
LITERATURE
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA.
1996
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Keywords
ORAL,, WRITTEN,, ORALITY,, WEST AFRICAN,, SHORT STORIES.