Internal Dialectical Contradictions in Soyinka's Novel: Acquisitive Physical Appetites and the Quest for Spiritual Values
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Date
2016
Authors
Ouno, V.O.
Luvai, A.
Oluoch, O.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
IJAR
Abstract
All things contain within themselves internal dialectical contradictions,
which are the primary cause of motion, change, and development in the
world. Dialectical contradiction is not about simple opposites or
negation. For formal approaches, the core message of dialectical
contradiction constitutes the opposition between the objects involved in
a directly associated context. For purposes of this study, the
contradictions in the societies depicted in Soyinka’s two novels shall be
the primary sources of illustrative data. Of all the dualities that run
through Wole Soyinka’s literary writings and reflect his shifting
balance between the creative and destructive sides of life, one of the
most instructive sets of contraries is the alternation of materialism and
idealism. These two drives figure prominently in both the comic and
tragic sides of Soyinka’s artistic vision in the novels, Season of Anomy
and The Interpreters. They reflect the sometimes contradictory energies
that drive his writing: the human needs to enjoy life to its fullest as well
as to transcend it to a higher stage. This study argues that Soyinka uses
these conflicting drives to celebrate and satirise the human appetites for
love, power, money and glory by depicting the growth of appetite as
either a vice or a virtue. The physical appetites are usually associated
with egotism, while the spiritual drive is connected to self-sacrifice,
social commitment and artistic creativity. The continuous flux between
these two forces of appetite and sacrifice produces the dramatic tension
in Soyinka’s works.
Description
DOI: 10.21474/IJAR01/2305
Keywords
Citation
Int. J. Adv. Res. 4(11), 2009-2025