Environmental Aesthetics and Power Relations in Tess Onwueme's What Mama Said
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Date
2018-06-01
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Alore: Faculty of Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin
Abstract
Ecocriticism is a theory that accommodates the nuances of environmentally sensitive literature. One of such expressions is the literature of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria in which many writers attempt to capture the various environmental crises of that area resulting chiefly from oil exploration. However, many of these literary outputs are poetry. This paper thus explores the environmental aesthetics in Tess Onwueme’s drama text; What Mama Said using the African perception of ecocriticism as enunciated by African eco-critics such as Aliyu, Huggan and Tiffin and Caminero-Santangelo. In her presentation, Onwueme’s environmental ideals transcends feminist issues as it sought to re-emphasise the destruction wrought on the environment by oil exploration and the general lack of adequate care for the region’s inhabitants by the government, the multi-national oil exploring companies and the people. These environmental issues are interlinked with other forces of oppression which include imperialism, dehumanisation, power and consequently revolution. The study concludes that dramatists like their poetry counterparts also adequately present environmental issues in their texts and are thus committed to environmental rejuvenation.
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Africaneco-criticism, Environmental Aesthetics