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Odeh Dean's M.A English Thesis, Unn.2010
Odeh Dean's M.A English Thesis, Unn.2010
ODEH DEAN
PG/MA/08/48544
DECEMBER 2010
BY
ODEH DEAN
PG/MA/08/48544
DECEMBER, 2010.
i
ANGEL
BY
ODEH DEAN
PG/MA/08/48544
DECEMBER 2010
ii
CERTIFICATION
The Last Duty and Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel”, was personally
written by me, Odeh Dean, under the tutelage or supervision of Professor Sam
requirements for the award of a Master of Arts (M.A.) Degree in English from
DEDICATION
possible, expressly paving the way and leading me through the path of a
Master‟s Degree. I say, may honour, adoration and glory be given to Him in
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Odeh, for all the care and prayers. My gratitude also goes to my younger ones:
Barrister Odeh, Fidelis Odeh, Ebiseride and her husband, Vincent Kemebimor;
Esede Ojoto and Saturday Odeh for their show of total concern for my Master‟s
studies. A big thank you also goes to Mr. C.P. Sibebo, Aunty Deinere Akarah,
Odeh and Jerry Odeh for their moral and financial assistance during my
Master‟s studies.
M. Onuigbo, who bore with me and also squeezed out time to attend to my work
Akwanya, and to other lecturers and non-teaching staff in the Department, for
Beal Dumo-opuye Amakiri, Boniface Ogumbe, and Ernest Ernest Ekpor for
Uwhoeli, Judith Okoro, and Eze Chijioke Jude as well as my good friends:
and Victoria Akpan for affecting my life positively in one way or the other
Finally, I express my happiness to Lady Edith Okoso for her concern for
me and my typist and friend, Miss Chidiebere Charity Idoko, for doing a
ABSTRACT
towards the study of literature can be partially attributed to the fact that some
combined with literature which is a creative art. Over the years, this battle
between language and literature has been on and has hindered some literary
critics from analyzing a literary work using the linguistic science. Also, the
language. The work is divided into five chapters. Chapter one contains the
features of Isidore Okpewho in The Last Duty and Helon Habila in Waiting for
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page - - - - - - - - - i
Certification Page - - - - - - - - ii
Dedication - - - - - - - - - iii
Acknowledgment - - - - - - - - iv
Abstract - - - - - - - - - vi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
2.0 INTRODUCTION - - - - - - - 16
3.0 INTRODUCTION - - - - - - - 30
3.1 Syntax - - - - - - - - 30
3.3 Parallelism - - - - - - - - 32
3.6 Chiasmus - - - - - - - - 36
3.8 Morphology - - - - - - - 40
3.9 Conversion - - - - - - - - 40
3.10 Borrowing - - - - - - - - 41
3.12 Reduplication - - - - - - - 42
3.13 Affixation - - - - - - - - - 42
3.14 Compounding - - - - - - - 43
ix
3.15 Graphology - - - - - - - - 44
3.16 Ellipsis - - - - - - - 45
4.2 Historicism - - - - - - - - 49
4.5 Humour - - - - - - - - 54
4.6 Proverbs - - - - - - - - 56
4.7 A Contrastive Analysis of The Last Duty and Waiting for an Angel 57
CHAPTER FIVE:
5.0 Conclusion - - - - - - - - 59
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
gesturing, facial expression or sign is language. Language is got from the Latin
word “lingua” through French langue – meaning “tongue” (Rob Pope 1998:49).
It is synonymous with tongue as the tongue is the main organ for speech
production and primarily spoken and heard (Quirk and Greenbaum 1990:21).
and Archibald (2009:1), “the gift of language is the single human trait that
different aspects of our society and this is responsible for its varieties which
Language in its myriad functions, is also used in literary works and language
Creative writers often use language in their own ways to achieve beauty
and meaning. They break the rules or norms of the language for a particular
stylistic effect, but in the canopy of the language. Literary writers express their
new forms (Leech and Short 2007:97). This creative use of language and the
understand the linguistic arsenal of the writer. Style, according to The Chambers
“the way in which language is used in a given context, by a given person, for a
given purpose. Text is the natural starting point or place for the study of style
3
Both style and stylistics are derived from the Latin word “stilus” meaning
the man – the writer (Luke Eyoh 2005:29). Every writer makes his own choices
on the language which he wants to use as well as the manner he will use them.
This choice and manner that constitute the style of the writer is the pre-
celebration of language in all its oddity, beauty, fun, astonishing complexity and
limitless variety” (Crystal 1997). Stylistics explores how readers interact with
the language of literary texts in order to explain how we understand, and are
1996:359).
It is understood that every writer has a style peculiar to him. This is also
true of Isidore Okpewho and Helon Habila. It is against this background that
this thesis analyses Okpewho‟s The last Duty and Habila‟s Waiting for an
4
Angel, with a focus on their artistic manipulation of the resources of the English
Language.
stylistic Analysis of Isidore Okpewho‟s The Last Duty and Helon Habila‟s
Waiting for an Angel”. Literary writers use language in a particular way for
aesthetic effect and meaning. This is also applicable to Okpewho and Habila.
The research will illuminate and explore what is peculiar or specific to their
language, how and why Okpewho and Habila have employed the resources or
have been done to explore the literary beauty of these works but much remains
to be done in the area of linguistic investigation. That is the gap which this
literary language. Scholars like Brumfit and Carter (1986) (qtd. in Yeibo
2000:34) argue that there is nothing like literary language as we cannot isolate
an estranged language different from the ordinary language. Werth (1976) and
Carter and Nash (1983) suggest that, instead of literary language, we should
5
rather talk about “language and literariness” (qtd. in Yeibo 2000:34-35). Roman
says: “The object of study in literary science is not literature but “literariness”,
that is, what makes a given work a literary work” (qtd. in Abrams 1981:166 and
science can be carried out in literature, a pure art. Over the years there has been
methods to the study of literature, of which some linguists are of the opinion
that the activity is justified. But literary critics think otherwise. The argument is
difference between the linguistic science and the literary art thus:
One still feels obliged to assert that the discipline of linguistics will
never replace literary criticism, or radically change the bases of its
claims to be useful and meaningful form of human enquiry; it is
the essential characteristics of modern linguistics that it claims to
be a science. It is the essential characteristic of literature that it
concerns value. And values are not amenable to scientific method.
purely scientific approach to the study of literature can only kill the writer‟s
One model may have the purpose of accounting for the structure of
particular texts; another may focus on socio-linguistic variation;
another may be concerned to increase our knowledge about
linguistic universal and so on (qtd. in Alabraba 2008:11).
language.
The Last Duty and Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel. The research focuses
not language study in all its entirety but saliency, peculiarity, habituality and
no benefit, then there should be no study. Why carry out the study if there are
language works in literary texts. It will be useful not only to the students but
Secondly, the study of language variation and language use is relevant for
the teaching and learning of languages, and for developing the learner‟s
communicative ability.
ISIDORE OKPEWHO
Isidore Okpewho was born in Abraka in present Delta State in the Niger
Delta area of Nigeria in 1941. Okpewho attended St. Patrick‟s College, Asaba
and the University of Ibadan, where he studied Classics and graduated in 1964
with a First Class Honours. He worked shortly with Longman, Nigeria before he
left for the University of Denver, Colorado, USA, where he had a Doctor of
8
such as the University of Ibadan, the State University of New York at Buffalo,
such as The Epic in Africa; Toward a Poetics of the Oral Performance (1979),
Myth in Africa: A Study of its Aesthetic and Cultural Relevance (1983), African
(1970), The Last Duty, winner of the African Arts Prize for Literature (1976),
Tides, winner of the Common-Wealth Writers Prize for Africa (1993), Call me
Kaltungo, Gombe State in northern Nigeria. His father, Habila Ngalabak, was a
preacher with white missionaries, and later became a civil servant with the
Ministry of Works. While his mother was a seamstress, Helon Habila was a
good story-teller when he was a little boy in the primary school. In fact, he was
9
skillful in weaving stories, a voracious reader who had a flare for writing. He
did his primary and secondary education in Gombe State. He is the third of
seven siblings. Habila lost his parents in a car accident when he was twenty-
two.
Habila‟s father wanted him to become an engineer and enrolled him at the
Bauchi University of Technology and then the Bauchi College of Arts and
and despondent. Habila might have been counseled by Jason Cowley and he
studied English and Literature at the University of Jos and graduated in 1995.
At the University of Jos, he met Toni Kan, a young man from Delta State, who
had a similar interest in literature and writing. The two young men entered into
the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi from 1997 to 1999 and published the biography
Mai Kaltungo, the Chief of his home-town. He later went to Lagos in 1999 and
involved with the Lagos chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors. Habila
has written many creative works and had received various prizes and awards.
For instance, his poem “Another Age” won first place in the Musical Society of
Nigeria (MUSON), Festival Poetry Competition in 2000, his short story “The
Butterfly and the Artist” won the Liberty Bank Prize, his collection of short
stories “Prison Stories” submitted as “Love Poems” for the Caine Prize for
10
African Writing 2001. Habila published the collection of short stories as the
novel Waiting for an Angel. The novel, which came out in 2002, won the 2003
Common-Wealth Literature Prize for the best first novel by an African writer.
fellowship for two years at the University of East Anglia where he is currently
doing his doctorate. Habila has also been a fellow at the University of Iowa
University. His other works are: “Birds in the Graveyard” and “After the
Isidore Okpewho‟s The Last Duty is a recast of the Nigerian Civil War of
Eastern Nigeria and Nigeria itself. The Nigerian Civil War is fictionalized in
this novel – a fictive world. This fictiveness is seen in the imaginary setting,
border town comprising the people of Igabo and Kweke clans. Urukpe is in the
Black Gold state in the Zonda Republic and it is the war zone or setting in the
novel. The secessionist Simbians occupy and over-power the people of Urukpe,
causing havoc in the town. So, federal military troops come to the town to
The federal troops occupy Urukpe for over three years, forcing the
secessionist Simbians to flee for their dear lives, although there have been
occasional reprisal attacks by the rebels. The federal troops station in Urukpe to
eradicate rebellion in the Republic. The people of Urukpe welcome the federal
The assistance the indigenes give to the federal soldiers in Urukpe gives
fabricate lies against Mukoro Oshevire, a fellow rubber trader in Urukpe. Toje
12
is a very rich, popular and influential rubber trader who gets connected to Major
labels Oshevire a rebel collaborator just to incriminate and get rid of him
the life of a little Simbian boy asphyxiating, running away from a bomb blast
and chasing mobs out of pity. He is arrested and detained at the state capital city
of Iddu (33-34). Oshevire is imprisoned for over three years. Toje uses his
Urukpe. She is ostracized, kept miserable, hence she suffers hunger, lack,
and pretentiously offers to help her out only to seduce and mess her up sexually,
Toje or Odibo, his nephew, visits her. Toje continues to give her and her only
son, Oghenovo, food, money and clothing. The relationship between Toje and
Aku, Oshevire‟s wife, is symbiotic or a fair exchange. Aku needs food, clothing,
manhood (133).
13
Being impotent, Toje only arouses her. The arrangement is that Toje stays
in Odibo‟s house to make love to Aku while Odibo stays in her house to look
after her son, Oghenovo. Odibo has the golden opportunity of spending a night
with her because it is too late for him to go back home. He satisfies her sexually
and a relationship ensues. According to Odibo, “God never does a job half-
way”. Toje suspects their relationship and attempts to attack Aku but Odibo
stops him and the two men fight each other, butchering each other into coma
and hospitalized.
Oshevire is finally released for want of evidence. Major Ali briefs him
what happened and he divorces his wife, Aku, and sets his house ablaze. Getting
Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel is a novel which x-rays the advent
corruption and fuel scarcity as witnessed in Nigeria in the era of the military
– 1993) and General Sani Abacha (1993 – 1998). Between these two dictorial
regimes was the interim civilian government of Ernest Shonekan who became
14
the interim president of Nigeria after the annulment of the June 12, 1993
soccer star, Diego Maradona, because of his ability to dribble the country about.
On the other hand, Abacha used terrorism – more killings, arrests, kidnapping
and so on in his five years‟ regime than in all the military years put together in
Nigeria. So, military years in Nigeria are referred to as Abacha years (227).
diary and entries mostly headed with the days of the week as Lomba, the main
narrator, does to keep himself busy and forget his sorrows in prison and to
express his feelings: “Today I begin a diary, to say all the things I want to say,
Nigeria, is enthusiastic with soul music, girls and the novel he is writing. He is a
university student studying Theatre Arts but drops out in year two because of
the madness of Bola, his roommate who is beaten to a pulp by soldiers and
incessant riots and strikes. He meets Alice, the long awaited angel, in the
against IBB and Abacha. There is a strike action taken by students in all the
billboards and signboards for firewood, (113-114). There was the general
protest and epic match by the inhabitants of Morgan Street, now renamed
gas, beat and arrest the protesters. Lomba, also at the scene to cover the
the Abacha government led by Gideon Orkar. Dele Giwa, the founding editor of
Newswatch Magazine, is killed in a letter bomb; the editors of the Concord and
the Sunday Magazines are arrested and the office building of The Dial, a weekly
magazine of Arts and Society was burnt down; Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, wife of
M.K.O Abiola, Ken Saro-Wiwa, General Yaradua were all assassinated and
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 INTRODUCTION
the sun”. Lensmire and Beals (1994: 411) lend credence to this assertion thus:
“We are born and develop, learn to speak, read, and write, awash in the words
of others…. Our words are always someone else‟s words first; and these words
sound with the intonations and evaluations of others who have used them
before, and from whom we learned them (qtd. in Barbara Johnstone 2008: 166 –
167).
been done on stylistics and this chapter intends to review some scholarly views
2.1 Language
parlance to mean human natural language in general, not any particular one as
symbols” (qtd. in Okolo and Ezikeojiaku 1999:9). This definition implies that
the real world. Meanings of words are a collective agreement of the native
According to them, meanings are in people, not in words and the word is not the
as words and sentences must mean. In fact, there is a twin relationship between
words and meanings. According to Akwanya (2009: 13), “words and sentences
must mean, that they cannot be empty sounds or haphazard marks on paper”.
21). Humpty – Dumpty in Lewis Carrol‟s satiric: Through the Looking Glass
Sapir‟s definition is too myopic as language can do a lot more than only
vocal symbols used for human communication” (qtd. in Syal and Jindal 4).
structured, ordered or organized. This means that the various parts or elements
concepts they stand for or represent in the real world. The object, idea, concept
Again, human language is vocalic. This means that it is spoken and heard.
According to Joy Uguru, man‟s vocal system was designed for speech
production and that of animals was not and that chimpanzees do not have the
appropriate voice box for speech production (2009: 19 – 20). So, humans are the
Okolo and Ezikeojiaku 10). This definition centres on the unifying function
infinite of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of
childhood as a child is born with all the mental facilities for language
and systematic.
people (qtd. in Asher and Simpson 4375). For instance, the critics see it as
instrument used for writing”, is what the concept “style” meant 2000 years ago.
But nowadays, definitions of style do not point to the instrument used by the
writer but to characteristics of the writing itself. Enkvist further defines it as the
20
“sum of linguistic features which distinguish one text from another” (1973:11)
in Asher and Simpson. This implies that “style” is the whole gestalt or oeuvre of
describe style: “Style C‟est I homme meme” meaning the style is the man
(Asher and Simpson 4377). Plato also declares that the style “proclaims the
man” meaning that the style is the man himself (Eyoh 27) with the expression
Richard Ohmann (1964) regards style as “a way of doing it” and the
“alternative ways of expressing the same content” in language use (qtd. in Asher
and Simpson 1994: 4375). Ohmann means that “style” is a particular way in
also construed as “the stable mark of the writer himself” (Akwanya 2004:176).
This means that it is the linguistic fingerprint or thumbprint of the writer which
marks individuality.
speaking; just as there is a manner of doing things” (435). So, a person can write
(346). So, we can have Miltonic style, Shakespearian style, the style of Achebe,
Soyinka, John Pepper Clark, Gabriel Okara and so on. She further opines that
“the dress of thought” (qtd. in Crystal 1997: 66), Gustave Flaubert says: “style
is life! It is the very life blood of thought (qtd. in Nigel Watts 1996:105). Watts
himself sees it as “not something added to a piece of work, it is the work” (105).
He further adds: “Style is the expression of the writer…. Writing style is not
This array of definitions of style implies that style is something that has
his mind. It is an emanation from his being. In other words, the definitions
suggest that the style is the man as it reveals the inner man, personality and
thought process of the writer and it is individualistic. Gorrel and Laird give
credence to this assertion when they state: “Style is the man. But a good style is
the wise man using words and sentences so that they reveal him faithfully…
(qtd. in Crystal 66). This simply means the linguistic choice or habit of an
individual writer and no two people or writers write or speak exactly the same
prose is “words in their best order” and poetry is “the best word in the best
Although style is a universal term cutting across all spheres of human life
and endeavour, it has been narrowed down to the study of literature. According
to Asher and Simpson, “Western culture has tended to study literary writing
more than any other form of language” (4377). Style refers to the whole gestalt
Hendricks maps out group style for a group of writers with the same world-view
or out look, or of the same era or period of time. So, we can talk of Elizabethan
style. They are: choice, difference and iteration. The concept of choice is the
alternative ways employed by the writer to express the same content. Osundare
concerned with intuition or thinking made by the writer prior to verbal choice. It
a writer makes on the language to achieve his objectives. Style primarily comes
regularity of striking linguistic features or choices in the text for stylistic effects.
“for a style to exist, the same sort of linguistic choice must be repeated in a
approach to the study of literature and often criticized by language and literary
style study.
anatomy and functions of the language (Toolan ix). Ofuani and Longe see it as
style”(qtd. in Asher and Simpson 4378).But these definitions are too eclectic.
Leech and Short (2007:11) see it as “the linguistic study of style” or “the study
25
of language as used in literary texts, with the aim of relating it to its artistic
functions” (13). Finally, Welleck and Warren (1977: 176) opine that “linguistic
study becomes literary only when it serves the study of literature, when it aims
linguist deaf to the poetic function of language and a literary scholar indifferent
language and vice versa as students are made to specialize in either of them.
term in stylistics translated by Garvin (1964) from the Czech term “actualisace”
Leech 18).
the forecourt of the reader‟s attention” (Yankson 3). It is the creative use of
language and the creativity is equated with the use of unorthodox or deviant
forms of language for stylistic effects and meaning (Leech 12). Linguistic
always wrestles with words, breaks or bends language, making it to obey a will
(Ogum 41).
Foregrounding makes linguistic features stand out for a second look. This
makes Cyril Connoly to define literature as “the art of writing something that
will be read twice” (qtd. in Ndimele 2009: xxv). Literature is a fine or beautiful
writing derived from the French expression “belles lettres” meaning fine or
27
imagination in word and action (Ogum 2002: 15). Foregrounding cuts across
Grammar, and so on. The approach taken for this research is Michael Halliday‟s
considered more appropriate for this work because the research is on language
analysis in texts. According to Halliday, “text is the form of data used for
making grammar. This meaning-making cuts across the three areas of form,
content and context and anchored on a text. The text acts as an object and
instrument to create meaning – the why, how and what of the text. In other
29-30).
groups, and it gives us the power of recognition. This is the ideational function
of human language. The ideational function is divided into two: experiential and
interpret figures with elements. The logical function works beyond the
experiential and organizes our reasoning on the basis of our experience. It is the
potential of the language to construe logical links between figures; for example,
“this happened after that happened” or, with more experience, “this happens
enacts our personal and social relationships with other people around us because
man is a gregarious and social animal. This function is both interactive and
the ways in which constituent structures of the language relate to one another in
or text; making choices on the vast resources of language, to create and express
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 INTRODUCTION
This chapter investigates language use in Okpewho‟s The Last Duty and
Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel – how they have made choices, variations and
meaning in their works. We shall deal with syntax, morphology, and graphology
Fromkin et al 2007:173).
3.1 Syntax
sentences (Andrew Carnie 2007:3). Language has structure and it is not a hotch-
language are arranged in accordance with a set of rules. Sequences of words are
ordered into phrases, clauses and sentences following the conventional rules of
grammar. For instance, English is an SVO- language with SVOCA as its clause
structure (Quirk and Greenbaum 1973). There are various forms of syntactic
based on meaning rather than on syntactic rules alone”. For instance, “Lomba
32
flows with the flowing bodies”. This sentence is semantically faulty because of
the incongruity between the subject “Lomba” and the verb “flows‟. This is
because Lomba is an animate subject and not a mass noun and, therefore, should
take or select a different type of verb than the flow-type. This is also applicable
to other examples in the sentences above where the incompatible NPs and VPs
each group are underlined. For the purpose of acceptability, sentences should be
3.3 Parallelism
structures for stylistic effects (Yankson 14). Both Okpewho and Habila employ
Both Okpewho and Habila employ the use of the Pidgin and it also marks
their style. This is as a result of less formal education of some of the characters
in the works. Okpewho uses pidgin and other informal expressions such as “Oga
money for the drink” spoken by a bar steward at Iddu (125); “Oga” (225),
Habila, on the other hand, makes an elaborate use of the Pidgin. It is used
and so on. Brother uses it to x-ray general poverty in the country, the
something chosen for its effectiveness or acuity for the task at hand …The
pidgin… is to show the masses how they are being exploited and dehumanized
friends here because dem no get brothers in the army to thief and
laugh at the wrong people. Make you go laugh at all the big big
34
Dem de drive long long motor cars with escort while I no even
using the right language for the audience you are addressing” (2009:49).
Brother has used Pidgin as it best “expresses his thoughts and ideas more
language that can carry all the oppressed and exploited along.
tortuous parody of correct grammar in English”. For example, Muftau the prison
Henry David Thoreau, “under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the
true place for a just man is also a prison”. Bola, a character in the novel, further
turned the country into one huge barracks, into a prison” (50). Some of those
14 So. You wont. Talk. You think you are. Tough (9).
18 There is nothing I cannot do, if I want. So write. The poem. For me. (18).
20 Soon I‟ll be marry her and she‟ll be come to live here. Then you believe
(112)
prominence. According to Leech and Short, “to be truly creative, an artist must
Creative writers seem to be covered with “language immunity” or they have the
According to Gustave Flaubert, “one arrives at style only with atrocious effort,
with fanatical and devoted stubbornness”. Taban Io Liyong also gives credence
In fact, they are sentences produced by a cured deaf-mute testing his or her
voice for the first time, or an aphasic – one who has a language dysfunction as a
result of brain damage – damage of the Broca‟s area which contains the
in the left frontal lobe or hemisphere of the brain – named after Paul Broca, a
of aphasia in which grammatical elements are lost and the resulting speech of
fixed expressions; also slow and hesitant (Peter Matthews 1997:12). In other
words, the person‟s syntax will be impaired and his sentences become
The prison superintendent and Nkem do not have any physical brain
your fate” (4); “our heads bowed, our hearts quaking”(5); “his prison –fevered
mind”(6); “now I realized that I really had no “self” to express; that self had
3.6 Chiasmus
repeated in a reversed form in another which follows. It is used for the purpose
“Odibo comes here”, or “he comes here” to give us the normal clause
structure “SVA” and not “AVS” as the writer presents it. It is used in this
193).
separate ideas joined together. The non-simple sentences are always formed by
sentences are joined together by such coordinators and complex if two sentences
of unequal grammatical status are combined. We have one main clause which
we have one main clause and two or more subordinate clauses or two main
clauses and one or more subordinate ones. The simple sentence is a kernel or
basic one which is acted upon by transformational rules such as the “Tnot” for
negativisation, “Tp” for passivisation, “Tq” for interrogation and “T and” for
compounding of clauses and “Taf” for derivation of the correct forms of verbs
in sentences ( Tomori 1977: 69- 75) to make them non- kernel or non -basic.
39
complex and so on, and vary them to avoid monotony of sentences in their
works. This is also applicable to Okpewho and Habila. But what is remarkable
linking of clauses and sentences and the fronting of subordinate clauses to delay
the main statement or idea contained in the sentences. This implies that
sentence situation whereby subordinate clauses come before the main ones as a
way of delaying the main idea till the end of the sentence (Wales 442). In
26 After all, this is my house, I built this home, I own it, I married a wife and
crisis comes to this home? (24) This is a very long and complex
27 When I pay a man good money I expect good service … And when a man
28 When he was certain the Landrover was on its way, he picked up his
30 After a quick look around he made for the bedroom (Okpewho 17).
31 When the big soldier started to talk to my mother in his big voice and told
her to shut up and stop crying, and mother was crying and crying and
crying, and the big soldier was talking more and more in his big voice
and asking my mother to shut up, i began to cry and cry because i was
with his psychological state as his thoughts are captured, unedited most
and his sentences are a piling up of repetitive phrases and clauses linked
incident and sometimes more than one. We also see this stringing of
32 And when you looked and hoped and waited and finally realized that I
was never going to come, that you had just made a finally irrevocable
choice…(79).
41
strangled (82).
34 They picked up my mattress and shook and sniffed and poked (7).
35 On the last day Lomba went to the hospital, the women were not there
(Habila 96 – 97).
36 In the two weeks since he first saw Alice outside the hospital, Lomba had
37 When she spoke, there was deep melancholy in her voice (Habila 97).
3.8 Morphology
This is the “branch of linguistics that deals with words, their internal
structure and how they are formed” (Aronoff and Fudeman 2005: 1 – 2).
so on in their works.
3.9 Conversion
stylistics (Syal and Jindal 91). We see this in the following from the texts:
42
41 His wife had been “prostituting” herself to somebody else (Okpewho 72).
43 The whole twenty-five of its detainees – leaving this prison in one “go”
(Okpewho 148).
44 They were trying “to humour” this fanciful child (Habila 182).
(Habila 30).
above are shifted from their original word classes or grammatical categories to
3.10 Borrowing
This is the act of taking and using a word from another language.
language (Syal and Jindal 94). Okpewho and Habila write in English but borrow
words from their native languages and other foreign languages in their texts. In
The Last Duty Okpewho uses words like agbada (39), garri (53), eba (64),
ukodo, a mouth-watering delicacy cooked with fish or meat and plantain or yam
43
without oil in Urhobo and Ijaw languages (76), migwo „genuflecting‟ (68), vren,
doh „get up, thank you‟, kai (99), baba (142), Allah (203) and so on.
Angel: ole (40), molue (114), oga (42), ka chi foo (Ibo), oda ro (Yoruba), sai
gobe (Hausa) – all meaning good night. (128), meigad „gate-keeper‟ in Hausa
language (67), ogogoro (110), aso-ebi (127), igbo „Indian hemp‟ (127) and so
on. Lexical borrowing from our native languages shows the Africanness of the
work as well as the plurality of languages in our country. Habila also employs
words from foreign languages such as devaju (114), dues ex machine (228),
papier-mache (15), tsunamis (187), aluta continua Victoria acerta (49) and so
on.
This is a new and strange word coined which was not observed in the
3.12 Reduplication
whereby part of the base or the whole base is copied or repeated to create a new
word with a different meaning or different word class (Edward Finegan 47).
This reduplication is either partial or full and before the word (prereduplication)
44
reduplication which also marks his style such as glassy-glossy (14), boy-boy
3.13 Affixation
use the derivational morphology to form new words in their works. For
verbs “talk and smile” (117). Habila uses wrong affixations and wrong
segementations of words such as: Prison. Misprison. Dis. Un. Prisoner – words
3.14 Compounding
word. Habila freely compounds or joins words in Waiting for an Angel which
also marks his style. For example fetch-water, half-blocking (71), mud-caked
It is pertinent to say that all the above word formation forms, and few
others not discussed in this work are distinct stylistic features of the two texts.
According to Jonathan Culler in Eyoh (16), “it does not matter whether a word
proliferation of particularities”.
3.15 Graphology
system of a language (Syal and Jindal 21). Every language has its own alphabet,
italicization, underlining, bold print and so on, and are generally used according
to the norms of the language. For the purpose of foregrounding, Okpewho and
Habila flout or deviate from the norms of these graphological devices in their
works. For instance, Oghenovo in The Last Duty employs small letters to start
46
proper nouns and first person pronoun “I”, small letters to begin paragraphs and
after full-stops, and so on. For instance, Odibo is written odibo, onome,
The use of small letters for proper nouns shows the psychological
vehicle of consciousness and vision”. This excerpt from the text also practically
shows this deviation: “i want to be like the big soldier, so that i can give onome
a good beating. calling my father a thief saying the soldiers took away my
language must deviate from some norm” (55). Okpewho has deliberately flouted
the rule of capitalization and the full-stop or period for the purpose of
foregrounding.
136, 116, 177 10-11, 46, 86-7, 60, 64 etc); capitalization (30), dashes (84, 106,
71, 59, 98, 51, 34); indentations, hyphenations and so on are used for the
purpose of clarity and emphasis and to captivate the attention of the reader.
for an Angel. First he flouts the use of the full-stop or period in English. The
full-stop is only used at the end of complete statements, but he uses it even
when there is no complete statement as in: these. Are the. Your papers. (14);
47
papers. And pencil. In prison. (8). This is a blatant abuse of the full-stop in
English.
Besides the period, Habila also employs the italics in pages (13,14, 79),
3.16 Ellipsis
sentence without distorting the meaning because of the surrounding words and
sentences. It is used to avoid repetition and redundancy and for the purpose of
compression. The omission is indicated by the use of three dots (…) or a dash (–
). Ellipses are used as a result of brain lapses or memory failure, lack of words
oh… em… I have a pain in my neck (150); you come to accuse me of – (25);
and so on.
Habila also uses ellipses for compression: I thought you were … (31); I
CHAPTER FOUR
The Last Duty and Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel to bring to the limelight their
similarities and differences. These two novels are indisputably related or similar
in many respects and dissimilar in some other minor perspectives. In the first
place, they are similar because they are of the same ideological stance of
narration and so on. These shall be discussed and illustrated from the text.
German Karl Marx (1818 – 1883). According to Marx, “the history of all
Mclellan 1980: 177). Marx makes a social stratification of the people in the
society into two main classes: the bourgeois capitalisists and the proletariats.
The bourgeois capitalists are the owners of the means of production, the
employers of wage labour, the rich at the corridors of power who often use their
proletariat. On the other hand, the proletariats are the poor labourers in the
49
178).
and gather themselves up to fight against and overcome the bourgeoisie to bring
about an egalitarian society. As Abrams puts it, “the struggle between classes is
(Abrams 179). Okpewho and Habila, aware of the capitalist oppression and
Asomugha (220),
(qtd in Asomugha (221) opines that “good literature will do a little bit of
Duty in the Civil War between the secessionist Simbian rebels of the Kweke
50
clan in the Black Gold State versus the Federal Republic of Zonda (3 – 4, 20) as
a whole. Marxism is also seen in the cutlass fight between Odibo and Chief
Toje Onovwakpo butchering each other into coma (217) as the former gains
consciousness and attempts to get freedom, egoism and respect from the latter
(113 – 114), the students riot (68 – 73), the street name changing demonstration
Mao which leads to the death of Hagar, Michael and Eniola, a pregnant
so many (166 – 179), the Gideon Orka led coup, the first putsch in Nigeria on
the 15th of January, 1966, led by Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu (224), the Civil
War between the Republic of Biafra and Nigeria in 1967 – 1970 (133 – 134)
and so on.
4.2 Historicism
Both Okpewho‟s The Last Duty and Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel are
not autotelic and does not end in itself but goes out to the outer world.
admixture of literature and history is what Paul Ricoeur (1981: 183 – 184) terms
phenomena into their works. For instance, both novels are historical ones as
Habila does not only make reference to the Nigerian Civil War, but also
Abacha, the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the killing of Dele Giwa in a letter
General Yaradua, the use of names of actual places like Lagos, Warri, Ibadan,
Port-Harcourt, Jos and so on – all live happenings, people, events and places
In addition, both texts are literary works of the third epoch or period – a
Africans for independence become futile or abortive. Africans hoped that things
would be better for us all when we gain independence from the colonialists. But
the reverse is the case as our own indigenous leaders are worse than the colonial
leaders are Whitemen in black skin. In other words, they are Whites in the
disguise of black. This is simply because our African leaders have a similar trait
equality as we can see in Okpewho‟s The Last Duty and Habila‟s Waiting for an
Angel.
Both The Last Duty and Waiting for an Angel are similar in structure or
physical outlay. In other words, they have the same visual or physical
53
appearance. In the first place, they are all prose fictions – prose because they are
any metrical or rhythmic unit and written with the everyday language (Abrams
different characters who tell the stories from different perspectives and in no
definite causal relationship. In fact, the plots of both novels are episodic. This
witnesses that are telling the stories. Again, it is a style the novelists employ to
distance themselves from the narrators never to share with their views but to
make or have a direct intimacy with the readers. The readers, after getting the
first episode which begins the novel is supposed to be at the end of it and vice
versa.
poetry pastiches at the beginning of each part of the three part-divided novel. He
54
Okigbo (91), and Soyinka (171). Quasimodo‟s is the first poem and it is an
Besides Quasimodo‟s, each of the rest poems in the novel is used to sum
up each part of the novel. For instance, Okigbo‟s poem is used to sum up the
intrigue Toje plays on Oshevire and that it is only a critical investigation that
Except by rooting,
On the other hand, Lomba writes Love and Prayer poems in Waiting for
Okpewho and Habila may have used poetry because of the psychological
disfigurement of the characters in the novels and because of the war and
muse which is a god or goddess that inspires one to write poetry. So, a poet does
have any knowledge of what he is saying because it is the god that speaks
through him. Akwanya likens a poet to a pen that does not know what it is
55
writing. It is after writing that the poet regains consciousness when the god
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poetry is the best words in their best order”
(Ihiegbunam: 143).
hero, the hero of the high mimetic mode, the hero of the low mimetic mode and
the ironic mode (Frye 33 – 34). Okpewho and Habila employ the low mimetic
hero in their works. The low mimetic hero is one who is neither superior to
others nor to his environment. This implies that the hero is just one of us (Frye
34) and we jubilate, empathise or sympathise with him in any situation he may
find himself.
Waiting for an Angel as well as their fellow sufferers are all characters among
instill in us fear, pity and purgation of emotions. Both novels are works of
56
4.5 Humour
ease tension in the novels. Habila uses it in the episode where Muftau, the
Prison Superintendent, punishes Lomba for writing poems but later gives the
personally written them and further asking him to write more for him as he
(Muftau), being the Prison Superintendent, can make life easy for him as there
writes some personal love poems to Janice, his girlfriend, but he copies
Sir, your poem is both original and interesting, but the part
sure, and food. You can remove me from solitary. But can
you stand me outside these walls, free under the stars? Can
We also see these humorous, sarcastic and satiric episodes in The Last Duty in
Urukpe (133), a big man and rubber magnate and, one of the few names that
lend respect, recognition, credit and catapults or brings the community to the
assassination, and adultery and gets venereal infection and loses his potency or
erection. Again, Toje often claims and brags of being an illustrious and
prominent son and at the top echelon of Urukpe and its environs. Yet he is not
enlisted in the Igabo Progressive Union and subtitled Great Sons and Daughters
4.6 Proverbs
less fixed form marked by shortness, sense and salt and distinguished by the
popular acceptance of the truth tersely expressed in it” (qtd in Dumbi Osani
2008:96). Proverbs are an African cultural practice and African oral literature
58
Achebe in Things Fall Apart (1958:6), “among the Ibo, the arts of conversation
is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are
eaten”. African literary writers use them to show the African flavour. In other
words, to show the Africaness of the work. Okpewho and Habila, being
Africans, employ them in their works to show the local colour. In The Last Duty
we have:
51 If you spare your scabies the harsh scrub of the sponge, merely because it
will hurt your skin, you may later be faced with a malignant boil (109).
52 A man does not suddenly reject his brother simply because he has
contacted yaws (188).
We also have the following proverbs in Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel:
53 The drunkard‟s handshake had gone past the elbow (147).
4.7 A Contrastive Analysis of The Last Duty and Waiting for an Angel.
In spite of their similarities, The Last Duty and Waiting for an Angel are
they all employ parallelisms, chiasmi, pidgin, simple and non-simple sentences,
of agrammatic aphasics which are not employed by Okpewho in The Last Duty.
In addition, Habila uses Pidgin and other varieties of non-standard English more
derivational morphology, and borrowing more elaborately and more freely than
sparingly.
ellipsis and so on. But Habila uses them more elaborately than Okpewho. More
so, Habila uses indentations but Okpewho does not. Again, Okpewho abuses the
use of the capital as we can see in the sentences of Oghenovo who uses lower
case letters to begin the first person singular pronoun “I”, proper nouns and
beginnings of paragraphs and after periods. But Habila does not employ this
graphological deviance.
their works and statements in Waiting for an Angel. For instance, he quotes
Wole Soyinka‟s The Man Died and the quotation: “the man dies in him who
stands silent in the face of tyranny (48 and 68); Amilcar Cabral: “every
onlooker is either a coward or a traitor” (48); Martin Luther King: “It is the duty
of every citizen to oppose unjust authority” (49); Franz Fanon: “Violence can
60
Marx‟s Das Kapital (123), Kafka‟s Great World of China (96) and so on.
The reference to all these texts implies that there are prior texts and prior
Mikhail Bakhtin in the 1920s and 1940s which was introduced by Julia Kristeva
reference.
The quotations and allusions to scholars in other fields of study are shown
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 CONCLUSION
use in a literary text. It describes and interprets how the writer has made
express his message and how his chosen or selected or regular choices reveal his
personality as the style is the man. This analysis is text-based as the text is the
out. This necessitates the Hallidayan model employed for this work.
the language for embroidery and thus make features of the language stand out to
captivate the attentions of readers for a second look. This deviation for
prominence cuts across all the levels of linguistic descriptions, ranging from
use of the language to drive home their points and feelings in The Last Duty and
Waiting for an Angel respectively. They make choices, deviations and iterations
on the architecture of language for specific stylistic effects and meanings. These
cut across all the levels of linguistics. But this work concentrates on and treats
and special language distinct from the everyday language. This, therefore,
bridge as it sits at the boundary between linguistics and literature, merging them
together.
This work has given us the awareness on how language works on the
parlance of literature. The work will be of immense benefit to its readers as they
linguistics and literature ensures that literary students should understand the
various levels of linguistic analysis before they bend or break the conventional
Equally, students of linguistics should not only master the rules at the various
levels of linguistic analysis but also apply the resources of language in their
analysis of literature.
63
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