Modern (Wo)Man and the Narrative Grammar of Tony Nwaka’s Shadows and Nothings
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2021-12
Authors
Azumurana, S.O.
Oluwadare, S.I.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
A publication of Department of English, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria
Abstract
This paper has been informed fundamentally by the criticisms against Structuralism as a tool of critical exegesis. Despite such criticisms, the paper argues for its relevance by using it in the reading of Tony Nwaka’s novel, Shadows and Nothings (2019). The paper first clears some erroneous misconception about the theory of Structuralism before deploying its two basic concepts – the concept of signification and of binary opposition - for its analysis. Drawing on the concept of signification (the arbitrary relations between the signifier and the signified), it makes use of Tzvetan Todorov’s schema of narrative grammar that stresses that every narrative follows the seek-and-find formula. Yet, by deploying the three properties of signification – wholeness, transformation, and selfregulation – the paper demonstrates that Todorov’s traditional “seek-and-find” formula undergoes some transformation in Nwaka’s novel – so that, instead of the “seek-andfind” pattern, there is on one hand the “seek-find-and-lose again” and on the other, the “seek-find-lose-and-find-again” structure. However, the narrative is still self-regulated because, despite its transformation, it again reinforces the redemptive underpinning that characterizes classical fictions – that of the hero(ines) always questing for one thing or another that they feel in some way would transform them. Going further, by employing the concept of binary opposition, the paper contends that there are two pairs of oppositional characters in Nwaka’s Shadows and Nothings – those who “seek-find-andlose” and those who “seek-find-lose-and-find” again. The paper then concludes that by broadening or overturning the scope of the traditional “seek-and-find” structure, Nwaka successfully lines himself up in the queue of modernist writers who see the life of modern (wo)man as being more complicated, and who would, therefore, completely avoid a dogmatic adherence to the sentimentality of traditional/classical narratives.
Description
Scholarly article
Keywords
Citation
Azumurana, S.O. and Oluwadare, S.I. (2021). Modern (Wo)Man and the Narrative Grammar of Tony Nwaka’s Shadows and Nothings. Lagos Review of English Studies A Journal of Language and Literary Studies (LARES), 20(2), 19p.