LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:9 September 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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A Comparative Study of the Prose Styles of Achebe and Armah

Daniel Oppong Adjei, M.Phil. (Literature in English)
Alimsiwen Elijah Ayawan, M.Phil. Student (Literature in English)

Abstract

A number of scholarly studies have been done on the works of Ayi Kwei Armah and Chinua Achebe in general and The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born and Things Fall Apart in particular. A handful of these studies have been preoccupied with bringing to bare the thematic concerns expressed by the authors in their works in general and the two novels mentioned here, in particular. This study is akin to these studies in that it is also a study in Armah and Achebe. However, their relatedness ends here.

The focus of this study is to investigate the prose styles of the two novelists with The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born and Things Fall Apart serving as the data for the study. Hence, a selection of the opening paragraphs of these two texts is central to the analysis.

The study is comparative by design and a stylistic approach is employed towards satisfying this objective. The findings show a significant difference between the two in terms of the sentence patterns and the nature of verbs selected, among other striking features. These unique prose styles of the authors help them to develop their themes and characters.

Keywords: Achebe, African novel, Armah, comparative, prose style, stylistics

Introduction

A good amount of scholarly energy and attention has been devoted to the creative works of Chinua Achebe and Ayi Kwei Armah (Carol, 1975; Wright, 1985; Mwinlaaru, 2012). Most of the scholarship in this regard has been interested in generating thematic interpretations of their novels (Yankson, 2000; Adeoti, 2005; Adjei, 2010; Arko, 2012). It is understandable that most of these works have been interested in the themes that these writers project in their novels because of the too often argued claim that literature has some didactic function to perform. In addition to this claim is also the claim that these two writers belong to the field of literature known as post-colonial literature. The implication of this categorization is that the literature produced by these two writers in particular and post-colonial writers in general seem to have a certain well defined agenda that is expressed through their works. This agenda ranges from providing rebuttals to colonialists’ accusations of primitiveness, savagery and the general lack of civilization on the part of the colonized (e.g., as in Things Fall Apart) to presenting a picture of a post-colonial landscape mutilated by the exploitation and greed of colonialists, and the hypocrisy and greed of a new visionless post-colonial leadership (e.gs., as in The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born and Anthills of the Savannah).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Daniel Oppong Adjei
M.Phil. (Literature in English)
Assistant Lecturer/ Ph.D. Student
Department of English
University of Cape Coast
Cape Coast, Ghana
dantrigger@yahoo.com

Alimsiwen Elijah Ayawan
M.Phil. Student (Literature in English)
Department of English
University of Cape Coast
Cape Coast, Ghana
Tel.alims1@gmail.com
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