Papers by Otosirieze Obi-Young
Sometimes, there are unique artists who transcend their genres of specialisation. In this twenty-... more Sometimes, there are unique artists who transcend their genres of specialisation. In this twenty-first century, Africa already boasts of many of such. But more importantly for a continent run by aged generations, these artists are young yet, in certain respects, have outdone some of their predecessors. Here, the roles of the Grammy-nominated Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the singer and agricultural entrepreneur D'banj, and the Mexican-Kenyan actress-model-film and music video director Lupita Nyong'o in opening up paths for younger generations are studied.
In their emphasis on the sociological method, the phenomenon of psychosis is a tool that has been... more In their emphasis on the sociological method, the phenomenon of psychosis is a tool that has been consistently employed by African playwrights in their allegorical analyses of our continent’s ills especially in the post-colonial period. Two of the most prominent examples are by two of the continent’s leading playwrights: John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo in Song of a Goat (1964) and Wole Soyinka in The Beatification of Area Boy (1995). A third is Fidelis Okoro in Joys of War (2000). Guided by the psychoanalytic and postcolonial theories, it is the position of this research that these three plays allegorise different aspects of the story of postcolonial Africa and that their location of inquisitive psychotics at their respective cores allegorises the place of the probing African writer as the locus of societal analysis through the three stages employed by this study: Africa’s relationship with the West, Africa’s troubles within its constituent states, and the writer’s place in Africa. The three plays could, in theory, constitute a trilogy due to their being facets of a single concern, namely, the peculiar situation of the African writer in highlighting the continent’s historical ills.
In applying an often-neglected mode of psychotherapeutic criticism to these two postcolonial fict... more In applying an often-neglected mode of psychotherapeutic criticism to these two postcolonial fiction texts, Purple Hibiscus and On Black Sisters' Street, it is revealed how, as meaning-seeking human beings, we must take one or more of the three paths to the attainment of meaning as done by the characters: Papa, Sisi, Kambili, Joyce, Mama, Efe, Jaja, and Ama. These pathways are creative values, experiential values and attitudinal values. Because meaning must be drawn from one's own individual and social history, those motifs, symbols and activities that serve as sources of meaning as well as the dynamics of the socio-cultural backgrounds that shape characters’ meaning systems are unearthed. The study establishes that, by stressing the spiritual rather than just the physical, Logotherapy offers more rounded assessments of literature than other modes of psycho-literary criticism like psychoanalysis.
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Papers by Otosirieze Obi-Young