INVERTED TRIUMPH A STYLISTIC STUDY OF ACHEBE’S THINGS FALL APART AND ADICHIE’S PURPLE HIBISCUS

Abstract

Stylistics hopes to study the conduits between language and literature. This study, in as much as it does this, also stretches further to give an aid to the study of the motif of double-self in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus; this, it makes its main study in these texts. This paper will study the two protagonists of the texts in the light of style and this motif through some aspects narrative theory and psychoanalysis as seen in chapter three. Chapter one introduces the paper, its objectives and the gap the paper intends to fill in knowledge. In chapter four, the styles inherent in the two texts are explored, and it also explores how these styles pave way to the opposing selves’ battle for triumph while the characters are kept, almost entirely in the dark. Chapter Five summaries and concludes the study. One will see how Kambili struggles to become herself, to live out her true self off the life Eugene expects of her; and how the cause of Okonkwo’s fall is intrinsic, how he is ill-fated to his doom with fear built as its paddle.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

The concept of style is an area of interest with so many tentacles spreading to countless aspects of life, and living. Style is what separates one genre of music from another. What makes jazz different from pop is style. In fashion, the uniqueness of a cloth compared to another is style. Merriam Webster Dictionary defines style as a particular way in which something is done, created, or performed.

The use of a non-restricting word ‘something’ above, agrees that style does not spare any segment of human interest. The only thing that is important here is the segment and medium of interest. In Aristotle’s idea, the medium of poetry (any literary piece) is language. This brings it to the main stay of this study, style as in language use, as in text, as in a given literary piece(s).

When a study is carried out on how language is used in a text, stylistics calls to the mind of the critics. Stylistics is a grandchild to rhetoric, it is considered to have grown to become independent. If ever the history of stylistics is going to be discussed, rhetoric cannot be overlooked. Not to delve into the fact that rhetoric has to do with the art of speech and poetry (literary pieces):

The art of speech are rhetoric and poetry. Rhetoric is the art of transacting a serious business of the understanding as if it were a free play of the imagination; poetry that of conducting  a  free  play  of  imagination  as  if  it  were  a  serious  business  of  the

understanding. Thus, the orator announces a serious business, and for the purpose of entertaining his audience, conducts it as if it were a mere play with ideas.  The poet promises merely an entertaining play with ideas, and yet for the understanding there inures as much as if the promotion of its business had been his one intention (Kant qtd in Ugwu 2)

The interest of rhetoric as seen above is also speech and literary speech, that is to say that what stylistics does is to explore the how and why that brings about this ‘play’. We see a further claim about stylistics and rhetoric:

Stylistics is rhetoric’s most direct heir, and it is certainly not by chance that it was elaborated at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. But if the idea of stylistics is new, the notion of style is not, and the immediate origin of stylistics must be sought in mediations in this latter concept. Two approached on particular are of interest as for stylistics is concerned. First, as early as the eighteenth century the critique of style, or the art of writing, was pursued in collections of practical indications on the ways of writing well, indications often supported by examples drawn from classical works; such treaties, normative and didactic, continue to exist today (General Stylistics 1)

Through the growth of stylistics in history, it passed through formalism, structuralism, and many other critical theories. The essay, ‘A Brief History of Stylistics’ gives a clear understanding into it:

Stylistics can trace its roots to the formalist tradition that developed in Russian literary criticism at the turn of the twentieth‐century, particularly in the work of the Moscow Linguistic Circle.  Its  most  famous  member  and  the  most  well‐known exponent  of Russian Formalism was Roman Jakobson (1896‐1982) whose work focused on defining the qualities of what he termed poetic language’. According to Jakobson, the poetic function of language is realized in those communicative acts where the focus is on the message  for  its  own  sake  (as  opposed,  say,  to  a  communicative  act  focused  on conveying the emotions of the speaker)

What Jakobson calls the focus on defining the quality of ‘poetic language.’ is a pointer to the how and why in stylistics. This poetic language is what Jan Mukarovskÿ calls a deviation from the ‘standard language’.

Therefore, stylistics is considered a linguistic study, as well as a literary study. It is saddled with the job of exploring how language is used to the manifestation of aesthetics, or better put, artness in a literary text. Since Aristotle in his Poetics opines that language is the primary medium of poetry, stylistics becomes inevitable. This is because; literature is guilty of picking up words and putting them in a new, artly home. Stylistics elucidates the tools that connects literariness and linguistics, it shows the conduits, and the ‘how’ involved.

Sundare sees the study of style as the study of the manner of the matter:

Style study is essentially an interpretative exercise whose thrust is the elucidation. of the manner of the matter (qtd in Bakuuro et al 3)

The matter here is the language, while the manner is the special characteristics of the language used in a particular text. He goes further on thoughts on stylistics today:

Today, the focus of stylistics is the investigation of the linguistic resources deployed in the construction of texts (literary and non-literary). Style study, thus, concerns the analysis of the linguistic features employed consciously or otherwise in textual production with the aim of adducing communicative reasons for such features. Basically, stylistics sets to answer the question of how a text is configured in relation to why it is thus structured. The how concerns ‘the form, the architectonics’, while the

why is the ‘axis of interpretation and speculation’ (Bakuuro et al 2)

The how and why in language use in a text is the major issues in stylistics, the two complement one another. This does not mean that ‘the what’ is given no care at all, only that the study of style treads more on how and why, than it does ‘what’. Short et al, in their thoughts in Style in Fiction on stylistics do not think otherwise:

Stylistics, simply defined as the (linguistic) study of style, is rarely undertaken for its own sake, simply as an exercise in describing what use i made of language. We normally study style because we want to explain something, and in general, literary stylistics has, implicitly or explicitly, the goal of explaining the relation between language and artistic function. The motivating questions are not so much what as why and how. From the linguists angle, it is ‘Why does the author here choose this form of expression? From the literary  critics’  viewpoint,  it  is  how  is  such-and-such an  aesthetic  effect  achieved through language? (Short, et al 11)

Aside the how and why principal elements of stylistics, the issue of style being bothered about the peculiar style of an author can be problematic. The style of an author can be particularly based on an exact text of the author, because all texts by the same author may likely not contain exactly the same style. As regards this paper, the study on Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus is not the style of the author, neither is it about coming up with a definite style of writing of the two authors; instead, it is about the style in the texts, and the consequent implications it has on the artness of the text.

As put above, stylistics does not embark on a task for its own sake. Stylistics becomes more of a means, a path to a destination. Richard Nordquist puts it even more direct:

According to Katie Wales in ” A Dictionary of Stylistics ,” the goal of “most stylistics is not simply to describe the formal features of texts for their own sake, but in order to show their functional significance for the interpretation of the text; or in order to relate literary effects to linguistic ’causes’ where these are felt to be relevant.” Basically, studying a text closely helps to unearth layers of meaning that runs deeper than just the basic plot, which happens on the surface level (Wales ”A Dictionary of Stylistics”).

Richard’s thought on stylistics has a major influence on this paper. In discussing style in these texts, style, in as much as it is important in itself, is seen as a means to an end. It is considered a torch with which clarity towards unearthing ‘layers of meaning that run deeper’ than what lays bare on the surface is achieved.

This is a pointer to the other side of this paper. Through the tools of stylistics, the issue of double–self in the two texts is one of the main aspects of this paper. Double-self motif in literature is almost as old as literature itself. Jean Paul Richter, at the beginning of the

Romantic Movement, coined the word ‘doppelganger’ after the topic of double self in literature. Piu Marie Eatwell writes:

The theme of the double in modern fiction (or doppelgänger, as it is often termed) is an enormous and seductive one. As a  projected figure –  a  shade, a  ghost, a  mirage, a reflection, or mirror image – the double generally acts as a foil or complement to the principal character, reflecting the idea of unity and division at the same time. The motif of the doppelgänger is in fact a very old one, finding expression in myths and legends going back to ancient times. There are primitive archetypes of mythical doubles, magical twins, firstborn parents, rival brothers, lovers and soul-mates, in fairy tales and sagas from around the world. However, since Victorian times, the double in Western literature has tended to symbolize an internal, Freudian psycho-drama taking place within the principal character, as opposed to a confrontation between external forces. (web)

This paper, with the help of the study of style in the texts, studies the internal conflicts between the interests of the opposing double selves, and the resultant triumphs, especially as regards the two major characters.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Things fall Apart and Purple Hibiscus, no doubt, have garnered so many literary analysis from  various  angles  of  literature. However, the  possibility  that  the  two  texts  will  be completely exhausted when it comes to literary criticism is not within the confines of literary reality. Therefore, this paper studies the two major characters in the texts through stylistics and the motif of double-self, or the ‘other’ self. This deals the duality of selves in Okonkwo and in Kambili, through this, bring out the deep rooted internal conflict. This

aspect of these texts is one that has not been undertaken by any other critic, or researcher in the manner this paper does it.

1.3 Aims and Objectives of the Study

This study aims to:

• Analyze the two texts with some stylistic tools.

• Analyze the motif of double self in the two texts.

• Elucidate and analyze the internal characters’ opposing conflicts, and their contest for triumph.

• Consider points of connection and contrast of the two texts in these regards.

1.4 Significance of the Study

This paper contributes largely to the many critical studies on the two texts. It provides a study of double-self in the texts through the eye of stylistic analysis, not to mention that it adds to the bank of literary criticism and analytical pieces that researchers in the future, very much likely are going to take recourse in.

1.5 Scope of the Study

This study concerns itself with the two texts, Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Adichie’s

Purple Hibiscus. It also gleams some elements from other texts.

In his ‘Stylistics and Elements of Style in Literature’ Richard Nordquist lists the elements of stylistics as thus:

• Character Development and Dialogue

• Foreshadowing

• Form

• Imagery

• Juxtaposition

• Point of View

• Structure

• Symbolism, theme, tone and more

This study, among other aspects, focuses mainly on character development, especially as it concerns the major characters of the two texts, as well as dialogue and point of view. All these are channeled towards the double-self motif in the texts. This is done within the framework of narrative theory, and a necessary leaning on psychoanalysis.

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