POETIC METAPHOR IN CHINUA ACHEBE’S NO LONGER AT EASE AND A MAN OF THE PEOPLE

ABSTRACT

Criticism of Achebe’s novels, No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People have either followed a humanistic and sociological orientation whereby the novels are analysed as having correspondences with realities outside the text or formalistic with focus on the structures and no reference to anything outside the texts. The implication of this dual analysis is that the reference and the structure of the works are viewed as being exclusive. This leaves a gap of a type of analysis so integrative as to account for both the reference and structure of the works. To provide such kind of integrated analysis is what is embarked on in this research using Paul Ricoeur’s theory of depth semantics, which uses poetic metaphor as its analytical tool to explain the structure of the work as well as interpret the kind of world the text projects.  By hinging the analysis on poetic metaphor, which is an integral element of language, the study was able to prove that through the explanation of the poetic metaphors, the structure of the text can be explained and that by interpreting that which is explained, the possible world of the work can be projected. In this way, the study unveils the fact that it is possible to integrate the analysis of the structure with the reference in totality using depth semantics theory and methodology and that it is possible to analyse the text without drawing inferences from the world outside the text by concentrating on the poetic metaphor of the language.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Numerous studies have been carried out on Achebe’s No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People but a great majority of them follow the humanistic and sociological orientations and view the works as purely instruments of communication about the post-independence sociopolitical and cultural realities of the author’s society. This manner of reading can be attributed to the antecedent of the birth of African literature which many of the earlier writers, including Achebe, believe was the reaction to the bad image portrayed of Africa and Africans by European writers and explorers. The novel is then used as an instrument of refutation and redress of the bad image and to educate the Africans to understand that ‘their past with all its imperfections – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans, acting on God’s behalf, delivered them’ (Achebe, ‘The Novelist as a Teacher’ Morning yet on Creation Day 44). The presupposition, then, is that the realities Achebe is writing about are the realities of his experiences and that of his country, Nigeria, as at the time of the texts’ publications. Along this line, humanists and sociologists garner the meaning of the texts from Achebe’s background and messages and from other external variables associated with the texts. The two novels are, thus, consistently reviewed as having shared contents of political constructs and moral decadence, bribery and corruption, all corresponding to the realities in Nigeria as at the time of their production even though no mention is made of the country in the second novel.

Viewed in this way, the novels become like mirrors held up to society, through which the reader can look at societal issues to discover how Achebe succeeded or failed in his presentation of these issues. This could plausibly be the explanation for the poor attention and review given to No Longer at Ease after its production, as Achebe and the novel were attacked

for not satisfying the readers’ expectations pertaining the promotion of African culture as did

his first novel, Things Fall Apart.

But by analyzing the novels in this relativist manner and by judging the novels out of bias and prejudice, scholars given to Formalist and Poststructuralist orientation argue that the texts are not treated as art, by which they mean that as art, the works dwell on probability and not on realism and thus, analysis of the work should be based on the explication of the structure of the literary text as a weave work without an identity and no correspondence to anything outside the text. These scholars study No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People as creative works of the written form  with their analysis  centered  on the ways the elements of the work interconnect with one another to create sense. In this way, analyses of the works are based on the idea of the text as ‘a verbal structure existing for its own sake’ (Akwanya, Verbal Structure

22). Thus is identified a binary criticism to the works of Achebe.

However, these two methods of criticism of the works call for further inquiry. What problem do these methods of analysis pose to a proper understanding of No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People? Are these two popular ways the only ways of looking at a literary text or does there exist any other method capable of integrating the above methods and dissolving the conflict of interpretations of the works for their adequate understanding?

Depth semantics theory claims that the text’s structure and reference and the text in its entirety can be explained and interpreted through the explanation and interpretation of the poetic metaphor it contains, hence its use of poetic metaphor as an analytic tool. But in spite of the existence of this significant way of analyzing the text it is discovered, through a tour of the existing studies on the two texts, that the poetic metaphors in the texts have not been analysed as a way of analyzing the entire text according to the methodology offered by depth semantics hermeneutics theory, to unveil the texts’ structure and reference. The thrust of this research, therefore, is to explore the poetic metaphors of the texts, through the methodology offered by

depth semantics to unveil the structure and reference of the texts for a unitary and adequate understanding.

Statement of the Problem

The conflict of interpretation arising from the divergent approaches to No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People by humanists and sociologist on the one hand, and formalism and structuralism on the other, creates a problem for scholars who consider both structure and reference of the work important for adequate understanding of the literary text and would not be satisfied with an analysis which concentrates on the structure of the work and excludes the reference or focuses exclusively on the reference of the works without care about the structure. What is lacking, then, is a type of analysis that can integrate the structure and reference of the works and thereby dissolve the conflict of interpretation rendering it unnecessary. Such kind of inclusive analysis is the approach this research hopes to open up using Paul Ricoeur’s depth semantics theory and methodology, which purports to integrate the structure and reference of the work through the analysis of poetic metaphor and also account for the reason for plural signification in literary texts.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The general purpose of this research is to reread Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People using Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics theory of depth semantics, as a way of introducing a middle course of analysis that will integrate the structure and reference of the work for adequate understanding.

1.4. Specific Objectives

Specifically the study aims to:

i.          Find out whether Achebe’s No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People are analyzable using depth semantics.

ii.        Ascertain if the two texts have instances of poetic metaphors.

iii.        Examine the possible connections between the poetic metaphors and the texts as a whole.

iv.        Track the movements of the poetic metaphors within the texts and show how the texts can be analyzed following these movements.

1.5 Significance of the Study

By being predicated on Paul Ricoeur’s poetics of depth semantics with its critical rigor, methodology and emphasis on the text, the study will introduce a fresh dimension to the study of No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People, for no work currently known to the researcher has utilized the theory and methodology to analyse the two novels.

By adopting Ricoeur’s practice of depth semantics and analyzing the poetic metaphors therein, the two texts are grasped at their level of articulation of sense which aligns with the axis of explanation in depth semantics theory. This way, the practice of depth semantics accounts for the structure and sequence of the work.

By following the ‘arrows’ of meaning of the metaphors at various segments of the text, the study interprets the possible world projected by the poetic metaphor and the text, and thus accounts for the reference of the work.

Based on Ricoeur’s understanding of metaphor as any shift in meaning, the study demonstrates that poetic metaphor belongs to poetry in all its three forms; narrative, poem and drama and not just to poems alone. In these ways, the study will contribute significantly to the wealth of research on Achebe’s novels, add to literary and language theories and methodology, as well as bring fresh dimensions to textual studies in metaphor and the hermeneutics of the text.

1.6 Scope of the Study

The study is limited to Achebe’s No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People with Paul

Ricoeur’s depth semantics as the guiding theory. It focuses on the investigation of poetic

metaphor, which is its analytical tool, to explain the structure and reference of the texts. Poetic metaphor is understood in this work as any metaphor that is creative, symbolic and semantically plural. Analysis concentrates on the explanation of the poetic metaphor and its interconnectedness  to  other metaphors  at  various  segments  of the narratives  in  order to determine the structure and world opened up or projected in the two texts. The investigation acknowledges other works related to the objects of the study and draws associative or comparative echoes where occasion calls for cross-references.

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