ENVIRONMENTAL DISCOURSE AND REVOLUTIONARY DIALECTICS IN TANURE OJAIDE’S THE ACTIVIST
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Date
2019
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University of Ilorin
Abstract
Since literature cannot be divorced from pressing social events of society, contemporary African novels, in recent times, have largely explored environmental discourse as a dominant thematic preoccupation. Most of the likely eco-critically based novels explore human-environmental relations, and thus reflect ho literature mediates in canvassing eco-friendly society. This trend is nowhere more visible in Nigeria than in literary expressions of writers from the Niger-Delta region. Ojaide is a renowned African novelist whose idea is radical and militant, especially in connection with contemporary environmental discourse in Nigerian fiction. Thus, this essay studies environmental praxis, and the dimension of social vision in his The Activist. Relying on sociological criticism, the argument locates the agitation and violence in the Niger Delta in the socio-economic deprivation and poverty arising from environmental pollution and degradation. The objective of the study is to show, through the novel, how the intellectuals who champion the course of liberating the people from the shackles of poverty and environmental related crises, are grossly clueless when it comes to addressing the various challenges bedeviling their society. The study thus brings to fore the apparent challenges inhibiting the social vision that Ojaide wields as a weapon to promote social justice and change.
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Keywords
Activist, Environmental Literature, Revolutionary dialectics, Character