TITLE PAGE

A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF GABRIEL OKARA’S “THE VOICE”

RESEARCH PROJECT

BY

WILSON
UJ/2018/XXXXX

A RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE ART EDUCATION, FACULTY OF

ART EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF JOS
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT FOR THE AWARD OF BACHELOR OF ART
EDUCATION IN ART EDUCATION

JANUARY, 2024

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 CHAPTER ONE: Introduction

1.1 Background to the Study

Syntax is the study of how words combine to form a sentence and the rules which governs

formulation of sentence. It is the study of sentence structures. Syntax for a language specifies a

set of grammatical categories and a set of rules which defined the ways in which these categories

relate to each other. Syntactic analysis can simply be put as a piece of language means which

presents the types of phrases, clauses or sentences are present in it.

Language is an essential component of culture. As an aspect of culture, language is the

springboard of morality in traditional African society. In this regard, the language of morality

gives insight into moral thoughts or ideas. In the African ethical system, the centrality of the

notions of character and moral personhood, which are inspired by the African moral language, is

given a prominent place.

Okara incorporated African thought, religion, folklore, and imagery into both his verse and

prose. His first novel, The Voice (1964), is a remarkable linguistic experiment in which Okara

translated directly from the Ijo (Ijaw) language, imposing Ijo syntax onto English in order to give

literal expression to African ideas and imagery. The novel creates a symbolic landscape in which

the forces of traditional African culture and Western materialism contend. Its tragic hero, Okolo,

is both an individual and a universal figure, and the ephemeral “it” that he is searching for could

represent any number of transcendent moral values. Okara’s skilled portrayal of the inner

tensions of his hero distinguished him from many other Nigerian novelists.

Okara’s wit in exploring the nexus between ethics and language is quite analytical. His articulate

disposition, brilliance, and eloquence in this respect pass for a score card for intellectual

excellence. Okara’s persona-the embattled Okolo has a strong conviction that if the culture of

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expressing the right attitude is propagated and upheld there would be sanity and moral rectitude

in human relations. In Okara’s perspective, our language is a sum total of our attitudes, beliefs,

norms, values, etc. He is by extension a budding linguistic, analytic philosopher and, of course, a

meta-ethicist. Okolo, the protagonist, has deep interest in language, in the precision of thought

and feeling which a technical use of language produces. His valuation of people’s moral standing

centres on their behavioral framework as manifestly evident in spoken language of the

characters. Here is Okara understanding of how language profoundly affects human behavior:

Nobody withstands the power of the spoken word. Okolo has spoken. I will speak when the time

is correct and others will follow and our spoken words will gather power like the power of a

hurricane and Izonga will sway and fall like sugar cane (94-95).

The above statement is credited to a certain messenger in Okara’s novel, The Voice who shares

the same moral consciousness with Okolo notwithstanding the fact that he is at the service of

Chief Izongo – his principal. There is no iota of doubt that language embodies distinctive ways

of experiencing the world and of defining what we are. It shapes our distinctive ways of being in

the world or the moral community as moral agents. The same messenger further opines that,

“Our words will have power when we speak them out” (Okara 95). It is crystal clear from the

above background that language is the carrier of a people’s identity, the vehicle of a certain way

of seeing things, experiencing and feeling, determinant of particular outlooks on life (Afolayan

44). Okolo is presented, in Okara’s perspective, as his people’s preserver of the authority and

purity of language. This presupposes that what men are and do is always revealed in the

language they use. Hence, language is a product of conventional morality.

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In Okara’s The Voice, Okolo’s unflinching commitment to the indispensability of freedom of

speech as a moral absolute is indicative or suggestive of the strong ties between language and

morality. Okolo insists, and strongly so, that, “… always the straight thing do and the straight

thing talk and your spoken words will have power and you will live in this world even when you

are dead” (Okara 106). The import of the foregoing is that there is a symbiotic relationship

between what we say and what we do, morally speaking. Okara further writes that, “Izongo fears

Okolo, whose voice is „like the voice of a mosquito which had driven even sleep out of their

eyes‟ (10-11). The point being made so far is that language has a moral connotation or

implication. This fact is exemplified in Okara’s thought pattern

Gabriel Okara in his famous folklore novel, The Voice, uses the protagonist Okolo as a voice for

truth. Okolo is in a perennial quest about his existence and his role in life. Indeed, Okara is

reconsidering and assessing his country people and their daily life. The Voice protagonist Okolo

returned to his small village, Amatu, after finishing his studies, seeking answers to numerous

questions. The faces a huge resistance by the villagers who were hoodwinked and blinded by

loyalty to the leaders. In general, the meaning and essence of life differ from one person to the

next. Such a difference, hence, is probably the root of conflicts. No one, after all, attempts to

permeate another person’s inner self, and even if he does so, he is mostly kicked out at the door.

This research traces hints of the syntactic analysis of Gabriel’s Okara’s the voice in the African

community's daily life, at one level, and sets a generalizable universal human motif at another

level. Gabriel Okara tried his hardest to merge African traditions with its dissimilar European

literary form of the novel through the direct translation from Ijaw into English. At the level of the

language, he flooded African idioms into English without translating them literally. In terms of

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characterization, the discordance is mirrored through the embodiment of the two conflicting

characters Okolo, the seeker of truth, and the tyrannical leader Izongu.

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1.2 Statement of the Problem

Linguistic problems in African literary texts often involve much wider critical and interpretative

issues. The problem discussed in this research project showcase syntactic patterns in a single

Nigerian novel. It may at first appear narrow or aesthetic, but it directly involves such disputed

questions as the respective roles of author, language, and reader in constructing the meaning of a

text. It relates also to the longstanding debate among critics of African literature over the relation

between African authors and the colonial linguistic legacy. The particular linguistic or stylistic

problem thus enacts synecdochically the larger problem of African cultural and economic

resistance to continuing Western hegemony.

Through the course of this research project, the integral problem of contradiction between

modernity and traditions in the Syntactic analysis of The Voice by Gabriel Okara is discussed.

The novel, which is built on the duality of existence and essence, is dissected through a literary

analysis that encompasses analyzing stylistic features, prevalent themes, and a comprehensive

summary. The exploration of the duality between modernity and traditionality in African novels

usually highlights aspects of resistance and oppression and gradual change.

1.3 Aim and Objectives of the study

The purpose of this study is to examine the syntactic analysis of the voice by Gabriel Okara by

presenting modernity and traditionalism side by side illuminates and supplies the reader with a

wide array of images reflecting the daily life of community members and their differing

mindsets. Indeed, the study, thus, aims to extract and give eminence to such aspects.

By the same token, it seeks to accentuate the difference between the power and mechanisms of

the government and that of the community. Pertinent to the novel’s distinctive peculiarities, the

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study further sets to encourage novelty and praises the author’s bravery in undertaking the

unprecedented adventure of fusing orality with the modern form of the novel by presenting the

work’s worth and its worldwide spread in the literary terrains of post-colonialism.

The specific objectives of the study includes

1. To identify the themes in Gabriel Okara’s “The Voice”?

2. To identify the characters in Gabriel Okara’s “The Voice”?

3. To identify chapter by chapter summary of Gabriel Okara’s The Voice.

1.4 Research Questions

The research problematic brings about the following questions:

1. What are the themes in Gabriel Okara’s “The Voice”?

2. Who are the characters in Gabriel Okara’s “The Voice?

3. To identify chapter by chapter summary in Gabriel Okara’s “The Voice?

1.5 Scope of the study

The importance of this research work cannot be over emphasized as it explores the relationship

between language and morality and how the feature in the actual state of affirms. It utilized the

method of textual analysis and hermeneutic phenology in carrying out the research.

To educators and researchers, this research project is an important piece of research material

needed for future research and dissertation.

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1.6. Methodology

Methodologically, the present dissertation adopts a contrastive analytical method centered on

two subtle aspects that are traditional African culture and modern life. This is in order to build up

a comparison between traditionalism and the hero’s modern mindset, and this is an adherence to

the idea of an ideal life and search for virtue in a community that preserves a blind loyalty to the

ruling leaders. Herein, traditionalistic features are highly figured through tracing Okara’s

adoption of African originality and orality.

1.7 The Structure of the Research Project

The current dissertation presents a three-fold division. Whilst the second chapter is devoted to

the literature review, that is pertinent to the history of African literature, the second chapter

depicts the critical analysis of Okara’s The Voice. Along similar lines, the third chapter unfolds

an analysis of the binary opposition that is modernity and traditions in The Voice. A synthesis to

the proceeding chapters in the general conclusion is weaved.

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 CHAPTER TWO

Literature Review

The Voice, written by Nigerian Gabriel Okara in 1964, has been subject to much literary

criticism. For instance, as Ashaolu (1979, p.111) puts it in his introductory paragraph, curious

parallels have been drawn between Okolo (the central character in The Voice) and a number of

other literary characters. According to Ashaolu, Anozie (1965) sees Okolo in the light of Hamlet

seeking to get to the "bottom" of things, but having to run his head against the wall constituted

by the usurping King Cladius. Anozie also identifies in The Voice thematic echoes from

Conrad’s Victory and claims that the tragedy of Okolo is comparable to that of Axel Heyst.

Palmer (1972) likens Okolo to Christian in Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and to Man in

Armah’s The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born because all these characters in their search for

salvation "play symbolic roles, representing forces and ideas much larger than themselves."

Palmer goes further to recognize in Okolo’s quest something of the search for Holy Grail in

Eliot’s "The Waste Land." He then compares Okolo’s persecution in Sologa with that of

Clarence in Part I of Camara Laye’s The Radiance of the King, and finds in Okolo the picaresque

heroic qualities of Don Quixote. Still in Ashaolu’s introductory paragraph, in the last sentence,

he points out that Obiechina (1972) virtually makes a Christ of Okolo in an attempt to establish

the presence of all the main stages of the Passion story in Okolo’s life. Thumboo (1986) opines

that The Voice succeeds in a special sense: "Okara’s consistent and sustained orchestration of

English compels the reader to enter his mode and learn its meaning – procedures linked into

strategies that form the basis of a narrative that takes us gradually deeper into the fuller

significance of his theme…" Scott (1990), also concerned with the language used in The Voice,

provides an interesting stance on the relation between African authors and the colonial linguistic

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legacy by examining the text’s "translingual feature". Vakunta (2010) points out that Okara’s

style of writing produces a variety of English in which idiom and syntax are radically altered. He

further argues that the English we read in this novel is not standardized but domesticated English

that constantly suggests the presence of another tongue. According to him, this double-viscidness

is the quality that makes Okara’s fiction unique and challenging to the uninformed reader.

2.1 Concepts and Processes

2.1.1 Material Processes

Material processes are processes of doing. As specified by Iwamoto (2007:70), they are

processes of doing "in the physical world". A material process has two inherent participants

involved in it: the Actor and the Goal. The Actor is an obligatory element as it expresses the doer

of the process. The Goal, which expresses the person or entity affected by the process, is an

optional element, rather called Range when it is a restatement of the process. In addition, there is

an element called Circumstance, which may also occur with material processes and, in fact, with

any other process types. The Circumstantial meaning is realized by adverbial groups or

prepositional phrases to notify when, where, how and/or why the process takes place. There are

seven types of Circumstance: Extent (which may express duration or distance), Cause

(expression of reason, purpose or behalf), Location (which may express time or place), Matter,

Manner, Role and Accompaniment. Here are three examples ("Pr" stands for "Process" and

"Circ" for "Circumstance"):

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 2.1.2 Mental Processes

Mental processes encode the meanings of thinking or feeling. As reported by Iwamato (page 78),

Simpson (1993: 91) calls them "internalized" processes, in contrast to the "externalized"

processes of doing and speaking. A mental process involves two participants: Senser and

Phenomenon. The Senser is the participant who performs the process of feeling, thinking or

perceiving. Only conscious beings play this role. What is felt, thought or perceived is

Phenomenon. Mental process verbs are subcategorized by Halliday into three types: Cognition

(verbs of thinking, knowing, understanding), Affection (verbs of liking, loving, fearing, hating),

and Perception (verbs of seeing and hearing).

2.1.3. Verbal Processes

Verbal processes are processes of verbal action, such as "say, tell, speak, talk, ask…". They

usually involve three participants: Sayer, Verbiage and Receiver. The Sayer is the participant

responsible for the verbal process. What is said is called Verbiage and the one to whom it is

addressed is known as Receiver.

2.1.4. Behavioural Processes

Essentially, behavioural processes are processes of physiological and psychological acts. They

are expressed with such verbs as "breathe, cough, cry, dream, frown, laugh, listen, look at, sigh,

smile, sniff, snuffle, stare, taste, watch…". The one involved in the process of committing such

acts is called Behaver. When the process is directed to one entity, whether human, animate or

inanimate, that entity is called Phenomenon. Of course, the Phenomenon will rather be called

Behaviour when it is like Range (a restatement of the process).

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2.1.5. Existential Processes

Existential processes encode meanings about states of being as entities of any kind are stated to

exist. The structure of existential process clauses involves the use of the structural “there” which

has no representational meaning although it is necessary as a subject. So, the structural “there”

receives no functional label and it is left unanalyzed for transitivity. Only the other constituents

are labelled: the verb “be” or synonyms such as “exist, arise, occur", plus an obligatory

participant which is called the Existent.

2.1.6. Relational Processes

There are two main types of relational processes: attributive relationals and identifying

relationals. Each of these two types may be intensive, circumstantial or possessive. An intensive

relational is one through which a relationship is established between two terms with the use of

the verb "be" or a synonym. If it is an Attributive intensive, a participant called Carrier is

assigned a quality, qualification, or descriptive epithet which is called the Attribute. So, Carrier

and Attribute are the two obligatory participants of an Attributive intensive, and the meaning of

the relationship between them is that "participant x is a member of the class of participant y".

2.2 SYNOPSIS OF THE CONTEXT AND CONTENT OF THE VOICE

Gabriel Okara, known as a poet, has published only one novel, The Voice (1964), which is to be

counted as one of Nigerian post-independence novels. This novel depicts a number of social

vices in the post independent Nigerian society, especially the social and political corruption,

nepotism, injustice, to name but a few.

In fact, The Voice is the story of one man called Okolo (the protagonist), who returns from his

studies abroad and finds himself completely alienated as he tries to be upright. His hometown is

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Amatu. Chief Izongo (the chief of this town) and his followers are all corrupt. There is merciless

opposition between Okolo and the leaders. He believes that people should be only good-natured,

honest and upright. He daily seeks the truth and the meaning of life, which he keeps calling " it"

every day and everywhere throughout the novel. As Chief Izongo and the elders feel threatened

by his attitude, they say he is mad and they decide to ostracize him. Okolo’s search for the

meaning of life proves vain not only in his hometown Amatu but also in Sologa where he has

gone when ostracized.

2.3. Theoretical Framework

In the preceding section, we have tried to establish literature as a form of social discourse, in the

sense that literature generally uses linguistic structures beyond sentence boundaries, which are

meaningful only in defined contexts. The question that naturally bothers our minds is: what

exactly are the formal features or characteristics of discourse? Schifrin (1987:6) has identified

three main “properties” of discourse viz:

i. Structure

ii. Meaning

iii. Action

Structure refers to the internal constituents of language and their organization into meaningful

patterns. The relevant point here is that discourse is characterized by such internal linguistic

constituents or categories such as morphemes, clauses and sentences which operate within a

given social or cultural framework, to convey a specific textual meaning. Instructively, different

scholars have advanced different notions about the structure of discourse. While scholars like

Harris (1952) and Dijk (1972), for instance, believe that discourse study is not different from

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structural linguistics or transformational generative grammar, respectively, other scholars like

Linde and Labov (1975), and Linde and Goguen (1978), believe that the structure of a given

discourse is determined by or modeled after the communicative context.

On the level of meaning, lexical elements are used within discourse to link constituents together

and endow them with coherent and interpretable meaning. Gabriel Okara’s The Voice, for

instance, as we shall show in subsequent sections, displays such elements. We shall see that

linguistic categories such as pronouns, adverbs and conjunctions help to create discourse, not

because they have been distributed according to conventional rules, but because they act as

instruments for building and linking the various aspects of the discourse to create distinctive

meaning.

Action as a property of discourse, at another level, refers to the functional value of language. In

specific terms, it refers to the goals and intentions of the speaker or author, as the case may be,

and how language is exploited to perform actions that are instrumental to the accomplishment of

these goals. Here we are concerned with “how language works and what it does, rather than what

language is” (Oyeleye, 1997). Language can be used to perform several functions (Halliday,

1970). In performing these functions, however, there are extra-textual conditions, linguistic or

non-linguistic, which are necessary for the analysis of the language of discourse. This brings us

to the context of situation, which also leads to such areas as literature as social discourse. It also

extends to such areas as: “Speech act theory”, i.e. how to do things with words, (Austin 1962;

Searle, 1969); “Conversation Analysis” (Van Dijk, 1985:1-7); and the “ethnography of

communication’ (Baumen and Shezer www.ccsenet.org/ijel International Journal of English

Linguistics Vol. 1, No. 2; September 2011 Published by Canadian Center of Science and

Education 215 1974, 1982) and (Saville Troika, 1982).

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Discourse is often discussed along formalist and functionalist paradigms (Schiffrin 1994:20). In

formalist paradigm, also known as structuralist paradigm, Discourse is described as a particular

unit of language above the sentence. In functionalist, also known as emergent or interactive

paradigm (May et al, 1992), Discourse is described as a discipline which focuses on language

use. These definitions underpin the differences between formalist and functionalist approaches to

Discourse Analysis. As summarized by Leech (1983:46), formalists tend to regard language

primarily as a mental phenomenon while functionalists regard it primarily as a social

phenomenon. Another fundamental point is that approaches to Discourse Analysis are inevitably

heterogeneous (Bright 1992). This is because it is difficult to pin it down to a single mode of

analysis; it can be applied to different genres and modes of language use and distinctive

theoretical data, which may either be written or spoken. However, most of the approaches are

unified in their pre-occupation with a common interest – looking beyond sentence boundaries.

Bright (1992) observes that this explicit interest leads to some common agreements on:

…the general kinds of data that is of interest, appropriate methodologies for handling and

interpreting this data.

Apart from lexico-semantics (which is the focus of the present study), Discourse Analysis also

examines phonology, syntax, and other related concepts in a specific discourse situation.

Discourse, by its nature, provides a concrete social and psychological ambience for the

explication of such formal abstractions. It also takes cognizance of different styles used by

authors to achieve cohesion and coherence within a text, as we shall show in this study.

The focus on lexico-semantics is in itself significant. Apart from delineating lexis and semantics

as autonomous levels of language use, such as phonology and syntax, it also shows the

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functional relationship between the two concepts. Ajulo (1994) captures this relationship when

he quotes Darbyshire (1967:139) that lexis is “the branch of linguistics which deals with the

major units of language and carries the main burden of referential meaning”.

McCarthy and Carter (1988) express a similar view viz: Much of what has been written

concerning lexis over the years has assumed that the proper place for discussion of the subject is

within semantics.

Bloomfield (1933) extends this thesis a little further when he posits that the semantic aspect of

language use is directly linked to the lexical and grammatical system in the sense that it is “…

ordinarily divided into grammar and lexicon”. Halliday (1978:79) echoes a similar viewpoint

inter alia:

The semantic system is an interface between the linguistic system and some higher-order

symbolic system. It is projected unto or realized by the lexico-grammatical system.

In this study, we shall adopt the functional approach to discourse analysis- analyzing units of

language which work in sequence to produce coherent and cohesive meaning, in a given social

and pragmatic context. Against this backdrop, Halliday’s systemic functional model, within the

broad discourse-stylistic theoretical framework, would be used as the analytical model for our

analysis of the text. This model is not only functional but is also sociological, in the sense that it

takes care of syntax, lexis, pragmatics, and discourse and describes the various ways in which

language in use reflects social meaning, all of which are relevant for the present study.

A critical fact is that, no scholar had used the discourse-stylistic theoretical framework in the

study of Gabriel Okara’s The Voice. The two-pronged model is a new area of research within the

functional linguistic tradition.

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Basically it is concerned with the identification, description and explanation of stylistic features

in a given discourse; hence it is a discourse-based stylistics. The crux of the model is that, as

Opara (2005) put it, “while Discourse analysis analyses WHAT is communicated in Discourse,

stylistics analyses HOW it is communicated” (emphasis mine). Unlike other modern linguistic

models, which study invented or isolated aspects of language, Discourse-Stylistics examines the

form and function of linguistic constructs which are beyond the sentence, in specific social,

cultural or historical contexts, as explored in the given discourse. The critical point is that, the

model enables the analyst to establish both the discourse and stylistic features in the text, by

exploring the network of interdependences among linguistic and extra-linguistic features, which

help the text not only to mean, but also to achieve cohesion and coherence.

Critical works on The Voice have concentrated on the technique of transliteration adopted in the

text. In his introduction to the novel, Ravenscroft (1969) remarks that, as a result of this

experimental technique, the text had a mixed reception and that some African reviewers found its

unconventional use of the English language uncomfortable. The scholar adds that reviewers

abroad were also partly nonplussed by the language and curious about its strange symbolism.

This situation could have engendered the initial cold feet developed by critics, and the awful

misunderstanding of the linguistic and cultural value and significance of The Voice in African

literature (Iyasere, 1982). However, Duruoha (1992) observes that, “a growing volume of

critique on this novel is emerging”. Previous linguistic works on the text include: Shiarella’s

(1970) “Gabriel Okara’s The Voice: A Study in the Poetic Novel”, Burness’ (1972) “The Voice:

Stylistic Innovation and the Rhythm of African Life”, Okiwelu’s (1987) “ Gabriel Okara: The

Voice and Transliteration”, Scott’s (1990) “Gabriel Okara’s The Voice: The Non-Ijo Reader and

the Pragmatics of Translingualism”, and Duruoha’s (1992) “Form as Metaphor in Gabriel

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Okara’s The Voice”. The Significant point is that none of these works examines the text as social

discourse, using the discourse-stylistic theoretical framework.

3. A Brief Biography of the Author

To fully appreciate the significance of the linguistic experiment in Okara’s The Voice, it is

imperative to peep into the background of the author. This will expose us not only to the

linguistic and socio-cultural or ancestral origins of the writer, but also to his distinct personality,

interests, and place in modern African literature, which are crucially relevant to our

understanding and appreciation of the linguistic experiment in the text. Born in April 24, 1921 in

Bumoundi town in Ekpetiama clan of Bayelsa State of Nigeria, Gabriel Imomotimi

Okara is one of the earliest exponents of African literature in English. After obtaining a Higher

School Certificate (HSC) at Government College, Umuahia, he became a book-binder,

autodidact, administrator, and Biafran nationalist. K.E. Senanu and T. Vincent (1976) comment

that from this point in his life: …okara developed a remarkable personality by dint of personal

tuition, reflection and deep interest in literature generally and in the language and culture of his

people. From the foregoing comment, we can observe that, though he later studied comparative

journalism at Northwestern University, Evanston, USA, Okara had developed interest in

literature generally and his linguistic and cultural roots in particular at a very early age. This

interest must have motivated him to do extensive research into these two areas of study. There is

no doubt that this would have equipped him with the intellectual resources to fashion out a new

linguistic idiom to interpret his bilingual and bicultural environment. It is, therefore, no

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coincidence that the most significant thing that marks out Okara in African literature is the

experiment with language (i.e. transliteration) in his The Voice.

Apart from this novel, the writer is also one of the earliest and foremost poets in Africa. His

poetry has won major local and international awards, including the Commonwealth poetry prize

(1979) and the Nigeria (NLNG) prize for literature (2005).

4. Socio-Cultural Context of Okara’s Text

For a thorough understanding and appreciation of language of the text, we need to situate it in its

appropriate socio-cultural context. The story of the voice centres on Okolo, the protagonist, who

returns to his home town Amatu, after studying abroad. He is nauseated by the degree of moral

corruption, deceit and materialism which have taken over the society and decides to devote his

life to a conscious struggle to re-instate sanity and moral order. He seeks to achieve this goal by

going around (both in Amatu and Sologa), to ask the leaders and the people if they have got “it”.

In the context in which Okolo uses it, “it” represents goodness, truth, faith, in fact, the meaning

of life. Chief Izongo and the elders feel threatened by his knowledge and straightforwardness and

by his awkward question “have you got it?” They decide to declare him a lunatic and ostracize

him. The degree of moral decay and social corruption in the society is illustrated by the contrast

between the protagonist, Okolo (which, translated means “the voice”), who is an epitome of

moral rectitude and uprightness and thus, represents Light, and the hierarchy of elders who are

led by Chief Izongo, and who represent Darkness. Thus the language of the discourse would be

explored against the background of this frosty relationship amongst the major characters.

Specifically, this forms the context of situation, which informs our study.

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2.4 AFRICAN LITERATURE REVIEW:

The Voice is set in an African country that recently gained independence, a stand-in for any of

the countries that were part of the huge (and long overdue) wave of decolonization of the 1950s

and 1960s. Ostensibly, there has been great change with the shift to self-rule, but the way Chief

Izongo of the town of Amatu frames it, imperialism has only been replaced by blind fealty to a

strongman, the Big One of Sologa, the nation's capital:

'What could you have been without our leader ? Some of you were fishermen, palm cutter and

some of you were nothing in the days of the imperialists. But now all of you are Elders and we

are managing our own affairs and destinies. So you and I know what is expected of us, and that

is, we must toe the party line. We must have discipline and self-sacrifice in order to see this fight

through to its logical conclusion.

'Our duty, therefore, is clear. We must support our most honourable leader. And on my part, I

here and now declare my most loyal and unswerving support and pledge my very blood to the

cause.

Okolo, who has returned to his native village, after receiving an education, stands out and

apart as someone who is not on board with the programme. The Voice is about his search for it --

a never more closely defined questioning of the newly received wisdom. He is unconvinced by

the supposed great change that has taken place, and uncomfortable with a new order that is only

superficially different -- and ignores true local tradition. As he puts it at one point:

If you put a black paint over a white paint, does it mean there is no white paint ? Under the

black paint the white paint is still there and it will show when the black paint is rubbed off.

That's the thing I am doing -- trying to rub off the black paint. Our fathers' insides always

contained things straight. They did straight things. Our insides were also clean and we did the

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straight things until the new time came. We can still sweep the dirt out of our houses every

morning.

Needless to say, the locals -- following the chief's lead and direction -- see Okolo as a threat

to the new order. Izongo complains about Okolo: "Always asking questions. Questions will take

you nowhere". The chief can not allow for doubt and criticism -- as they would uncover and

reveal the weaknesses, flaws, and errors of the new order (and undermine his position of power)

--; blind acceptance is all that can be tolerated.

A neat scene presages what awaits Okolo:

Okolo left the window and went to his table. He opened a book and read. He read the book

without being aware of passing time until night fell and closed the eye of the sky. To the window

he went out once more and looked at the night. The moon was an about-to-break moon. A vague

circle of light surrounded it, telling a dance that was going on up or down the river. Larger and

darker clouds, some to frowning faces, grimacing faces changing, were skulking past without the

moon's ring, suffocating the stars until they too lost themselves in the threatening conformity of

the dark cloud beyond.

Okolo is seen as an outsider, eventually chased and hunted. Only one local woman -- herself

an outsider, branded as a witch -- offers support, but eventually Okolo faces the masses. Izongo

can not accept this cancer in their midst. As he explains:

'Keeping your thoughts in your inside alone will not do,' Chief Izongo said grinning. 'Your

hands will only be untied if you agree to be one of us.'

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 Okolo, however, can not stop being true to his cause and the more fundamental truth he

seeks. As he earlier told the witch Tuere:

'I cannot stop,' Okolo with whisper whisper spoke. 'I cannot stop this thing. I must find it. It is

there. I am the voice from the locked up insides which the Elders, not wanting the people to hear,

want to stop me. Their insides are smelling bad and hard at me ...'

Okolo is exiled, and undertakes the long journey to Sologa. On board the canoe he sits next

to a young woman who is being brought to the capital by a mother for her son; covering her with

his raincoat when it begins to pour there is then considerable debate and concern whether he

touched her inappropriately when hidden from view like that -- though both the girl and he insist

he didn't.

From such an inauspicious beginning, Okolo's circumstances unsurprisingly do not improve

in Sogala. Still obsessed, he is even less likely to find welcome in the already much more

corrupted metropolis -- "Money is inside everything in Sologa", he quickly learns. As Izongo

notes: "Only a mad man looks for it in this turned world" -- and it's hardly a surprise to find

Okolo soon institutionalized in an asylum. Eventually freed with the assistance of the family of

the girl from the canoe, he is again forced into exile from a place -- and returns to Amatu.

His return was also preördained: as Tuere knew when he left: "his umbilical cord is in the

ground of this town buried. So he will come back". His roots are literally so deep in Amatu that

he can not stay away -- and The Voice is, of course, at its most fundamental a story of his search

for his, and his countrymen's, roots.

Okolo is, of course, not welcome, a threat to Izongo and the system now in place; his exile

must be made permanent -- and so it is, the disruptive truth-seeker (in a world that doesn't want

22
to see truths) removed, carried away in a canoe with Tuere down the river in a stark, abrupt

conclusion.

Okolo's quest is stymied by a world that wants to avoid the question:

Why should Okolo look for it, they wondered. Things have changed, the world has turned and

they are now the Elders. No one in the past has asked for it. Why should Okolo expect to find it

now that they are the Elders ? No, he must stop his search. He must not spoil their pleasure.

But Okolo senses the rot. He literally has a gut feeling -- there is much talk of the 'insides', a

basic truth that the others turn away from as well. Izongo even admits the embrace of willful

ignorance:

We know not what it is. We do not want to know. Let us be as we are. We do not want our

insides to be stirred like soup in a pot.

Okolo ultimately is resigned to his fate. He wonders about the meaning of life, finding

satisfaction in his own conclusion, for himself determined to: "keep his inside clean as the sky".

Yet he recognizes his purity is too great a threat for those who found -- or grasp for -- a meaning

of life elsewhere:

Yes, each one has a meaning of life to himself. And that is perhaps the root of the conflict. No

one can enter another's inside. You try to enter and are kicked out the door. You allow another to

enter your inside and see everything in it, you are regarded as one without a chest or as one who

knows nothing ...

The Voice is a kind of parable, and while Okolo's basic wisdom is not embraced here, it is

heard; still, Okara seems to be suggesting it will take a while to sink in. Okolo's quest for it

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understandably aggravates everything around him, the lost ideal one that no one has time for in

this changed world and its changed circumstances, where the colonial yoke has suddenly been

thrown off -- and people have not yet grasped completely how illusory the resulting freedom is,

and how a different domineering system has already been imposed. Okolo's it does not need to

be more exactly defined. It is meant to be a vague concept, because it encompasses so much. As

is, it is perhaps best defined by its absence: whatever the world Okolo moves in has lost, that is it

.....

The Voice is also notable for its use of language. Written in English, Okara nevertheless

strongly draws on his native Ijaw (Ijo), often presenting expression or sentence structure to

mirror Ijaw -- as if the English were a very literal translation. So, for example, age is expressed

differently:

She must have killed sixteen years. If not, she must have less or little more years killed.

Repetition is more common, and the word order sometimes differs -- e.g.:

Your nonsense words stop. These things have meaning no more. So stop talking words that

create nothing.

Meaning is nevertheless clear throughout (beyond, arguably, the elusive it), and the

relatively simple if occasionally stilted-seeming expression is effective for a tale like this.

The Voice may ultimately seem too simple, in its message and delivery, but it's an

interesting poetic work, and though it hammers home that message fairly bluntly is, in a number

of ways, an interesting variation on the early post-colonial novel, addressing (in part obliquely)

significant issues that the post-imperialist transition brought to the fore.

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2.4.1 The Literary Analysis of The Voice

A literary work is always directly or indirectly concerned with man, especially men in society. It

depicts a person in his environment. It helps to understand his behavior. It is part of the human

being in the sense that it contributes to the ways humans use to explain the kind of life they lead

in their community. The Voice novel contains many narrative elements humanlike; this helps to

understand the message. This holographic approach is coupled with a clear linguistic overlap that

gives the novel its originality. The novel is titled The Voice which refers to humans and means

Okolo in the Ijaw language. Okara uses his mother tongue not only for the title of the novel but

also for the name of his main character who speaks on behalf of his fellow citizens who cannot

(Raimi,2014).

2.4.1 Plot

Is a special linguistic technic that, Okara used, different words in the English language in the

novel are not easily understood by normal English speakers and writers, which means a very tuff

kind of language and not so easy to get into one meaning in one side. (Lindfors,1965).

Okolo is a young man, who is despised by his people, for daring to think for himself and ponder

the meaning of life. By being insightful and ruminative, he makes enemies virtually everywhere

he goes including at nearby Sologa, where there has been a major change with the switch to

autonomy and the way he framed his hometown Amato, the so-called blind loyalty of a strong

man. Where the idea of the hero Okolo is not embraced by a tragic ending,

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In the end, Okolo and a woman known as a witch called Tuerre were killed. This may surprise

many, but the hostility that traditional leaders led by king Izongo had toward Okolo, who was

ultimately just a young man (Khotseng,2008).

This is a novel written in what might be dubbed African English, over the years some pundits

described what author Okara does here as an experiment. What is clear is that if the prose

puzzles many Eurocentric readers most authentic Africans would find it convincing and

powerful. Many African phrases from the mother tongue are rendered directly into English

which might conflict with Westerners. But aside from the language, it is a simple interesting

story (Ibid).

2.4.2 Characters

In The Voice novel one of the strengths of Okara's style that eluded its critics is the idiosyncratic

features of the character's names, the characters representing these ills being Chief Izungu Dr.

Abadi, and the Elders. Izongo seeks oppression and is therefore dangerous, and the leader Izongo

is assisted by sages and his messengers. The Elders are the direct collaborators of Izongo. After a

meeting with their leaders, they announce the decision taken.

When Okolo must be captured, they tell the messengers to go and look for him. They are

considered members of the Izungu government. The chief concern of the sages is to defend the

new order against their enemies. Enemies are all people who want to conflict with their interests.

They defined their lives with the life of the Absolute Leader Chief Izungu (Goodley,1976).

Okolo’s basic wisdom was not adopted. Here, it is audible. but, the pursuit of his goals

understandably exacerbates everything around him, a lost idea that no one had in this changing

world and its , as the yoke of colonialism, has been abruptly thrown off , and people are not yet

26
fully aware of the extent of the resulting delusion. Freedom, how different tyranny was imposed.

You do not need to define Okolo more precisely. It’s meant to be a vague concept because it

involves so much. His absence is perhaps best defined by his absence: whatever world Okolo

moves in is lost (Ibid.)

2.2.3 Themes

Okara distinguished himself through his creative presentation of themes of colonialism, racism,

and the fear of losing one heritage which consumes most African writers of his time, he also

incorporated themes of cultural crisis, selfishness, loss of innocence, and honest versus false

expression in his poems such as Once Upon a Time Although readers cannot find these topics

directly in the texts, they are an integral part of them (Joseph, 2022). Gabriel Okara conveyed his

social vision and aesthetic goals in The Voice, he also highlighted themes of light and darkness,

corruption and morality decadence, hypocrisy, materialism, truth, integrity, etc. that form the

axis that revolves around the meaning of the text. He also built this novel on the duality of

essence and existence, Okolo in many things he felt his existence, but in many, he did not feel

the essence of this existence, he believes in the philosophy of existence that searches for the

essence of things and from it he made his hero a searcher of the truth and essence of life, and he

followed the style of Shakespeare in his plays, which his hero bid farewell to life for the sake of

the idea of struggle and sacrifice. The novel is very expressive of the real suffering of the

individual in his African society (yeibo, 2016).

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2.2.4 Style

Okara adopted the simple folklore style in writing The Voice novel, known as folk literature, or

oral traditions. Folklore depicts the way main characters manage their everyday life events,

including conflicts or crises. Simply, folk literature is about individual experiences from a

particular society, Okara’s style of writing produces a variety of English in which idiom and

syntax are radically altered (Vakunta,2011).

The English used in this novel is not standardized but domesticated English that constantly

suggests the presence of another tongue. This double viscidness is the quality that makes his

fiction unique and challenging to the uninformed reader, the more so because Okara believes that

there should be a Nigerian or West African English that we can use to express our ideas, and

thinking philosophy. it dawns on the non-African Anglophone reader that the writer has

relexified and domesticated the English language to make it carry the weight of his Ijaw

language and culture(Holmes,1987).This style of writing stems from the need to solve an

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 CHAPTER THREE

METHOD AND DESIGN

This Chapter depicts the research setting, practical issues, along with research participations,

instruments, procedures of data collection, data analysis among others. This study was designed

to assess the syntactic analysis of Gabriel Okara’s the Voice The main part of the data which is

analyzed in this paper comes from two different classes in year 1 and 3 at a high achieving senior

high school. Students who attend this school have above average grades and they perform very

well on national tests. The data from this school has been contributed by two teachers. These

have in turn made a selection within the classes resulting in eight texts from year 1 and seven

texts from year 3 with an even distribution between males and females.

While analyzing texts written from ‘the Voice’s which may be very well be interesting, it is not

certain that we can draw any real conclusions on the language structure used in the novel.

The nature of the corpus makes it a solid base for a quantitative study and a researcher can chose

the amount of text he or she wants to investigate, it is of course also possible for other scholars to

study the exact same texts opening up opportunities for more substantiated results. However,

there is currently no other option than to analyze data manually due to the complexity of the

human mind and the number of syntactic anomalies produced by it. No computer program of

today is able to do the analyses currently conducted by scholars of syntax and therefore studies

are often limited to a certain amount of data, a number manageable for the researcher.

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2.2 Statistical Analysis of the Data

The paper focuses mainly on the number of words within each noun phrase but adding to this

there are several items also taken into the investigation. For every text, items are counted and this

then becomes the statistical basis of the study. The items counted in every text are;

1. The number of heads of noun phrases and the average length of the noun phrase

2. The total number of postmodifiers and the average length of the postmodification

3. The total number of premodifiers and the average length of the premodification

4. The number of lone determiners. Lone determiners are determiners that have no

premodification following them.

5. The number of relative clauses, appositive clauses, non-finite clauses and prepositional

phrases as post modifiers, each given a separate value

Calculations on average premodifier length are done by dividing the number of words in each

premodifier by how many premodifiers there are. This is done without including determiners.

The post modifier average is done in the same way. All words are included, counted and then

divided by the number of post modifiers. To get the average noun phrase length, all words within

noun phrases (determiners, quantifiers, modifiers, and counting contractions as two) have been

counted and then divided by the number of total noun phrases in each text. However, for the sake

of clarity the reader should be aware that coordinated heads of noun phrases such as in examples

(3) and (4) are only counted as one head because of its connotations.

African literature and novels, modern and traditional, were characterized by their appearance as

well as their characterization, starting from the precolonial period to the postcolonial and modern

ages. African literary works were also influenced by modernism and traditional debates.

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The rise of the modern African novel is the result of the creativity and the living experience of

the African writer. Schreiner explains that the application of the term modernism in discussing

Anglophone South African literature has its basis in the concept that modernism as cultural

production exists in a dialectical relationship with the geopolitical and economic structures of

modernity (Schreiner, 2017). The reason why modernism emerged in South Africa in the

nineteenth century as a foundational and enduring mode of literary expression is directly

associated with the imperialist means by which the area was included in the capitalist world

system (Ibid).

Traditions are a contrasting concept to modernism that authors may incorporate into their novels.

Isabel Caldeira says about it: They may choose to revive traditions to give back to communities a

sense of belonging and identity (Caldeira, 2016). The Voice by Gabriel Okara, which includes

the two concepts, and many writers consider it a creative experiment novel, needs to be

considered more. In his introduction to The Voice, Ravenscroft explains: “I share this view.”

Nevertheless, “The Voice” has not had the kind of recognition it deserves”. (Okara, 1964, p. 4).

3.1 Local Traditions in Gabriel Okara’s The Voice

The writer employs traditional rules to emphasize the subject of traditions and attempts to

explain the relationship of language and identity to psychic and cultural forces. In Okara's The

Voice, which takes place in the village of Amatu In African postcolonial communities, in which

imperialism has been replaced by a blind fealty to the leaders, this has been one of the strongest

traditions in an African country that recently won independence. Ostensibly, there has been a

great change with the shift to self-government. The local traditions' images, such as the blind

31
loyalty to the leaders and the acceptance of unjust judgment and slavery in collective, are all

summed up in Okara’s saying: "No one in the past has asked for it." (Okara, 1964, p.24).

Okara used oral traditions, which are written down, normally in the form of storytelling, so they

can inform us a lot about the society and those who originated them and allowed history to be

stored.

The characters in Gabriel Okara’s “The Voice” include Okolo, Chief Izongo, Tuere, Abadi,
Messengers, Benitu and Tuduo.

3.2 Characters in the Voice

Okolo: Okolo is the protagonist of The Voice. All the actions centre on him. He is educated and
likes to spend his free time reading or feeding his mind. He is described as a man with no chest
and no shadow. He is different from the other people as he has a clean inside.

He is search of ‘it,’ hence, the whole village thinks he is crazy. His good beliefs are a stumbling
block to Chief Izongo, hence he sends him out of town. Okolo doesn’t succumb to material
things like money, property and all. He believes in keeping his insides clean.

He leaves for Solanga because he is also not accepted there. He becomes friends with Tuere who
protects him when Izongo searches for him. He returns to the village and is eventually chased out
again. He leaves with Tuere. He can be described as focused and strong-willed as he does not
allow what he faces to affect him.

Characters in the Voice

Chief Izongo Chief Izongo is one of the leaders of Amatu. He is powerful and sees Okolo as a
threat to him. He sends him out of the town. He constantly celebrates this achievement. He is
highly respected in the town and has the messengers and elders at his beck and call. He is very
mean and inconsiderate. This is evident in the way he treats Okolo.

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Tuere: Tuere is one of the characters in The Voice. She is a woman who lives at the outskirt of
town. She was accused of being a witch because her parents died at around the same time. She
grew to live in loneliness. She protects Okolo when Izongo searched for him. She is kind and
caring as she provides food for Okolo in his time of need. She resonates with Okolo’s “insides”
and supports his search. She hopes that he returns from Solanga. She was eventually drowned
with Okolo.

Messengers: The messengers are the men sent by Chief Izongo to capture Okolo. They are
cowards and shy. They are not able to carry out the duty successfully.

Abadi: Abadi is the second in command to Chief Izongo. He is very educated as he has obtained
his master and PhD degrees respectively. He advises the chief on certain issues. He is very wise.
Despite his education, his “insides” are corrupted by the things of the world.

Benitu and Tuduo: Benitu and Tuduo are Okolo’s friends. They were sent by Chief Izongo to
remind him to leave the town.

33