A saga of black deglorification : the disfigurement of Africa in Ayi Kwei Armah's novels

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dc.contributor.advisorCooper, Brendaen_ZA
dc.contributor.authorAyivor, Moses Geoffrey Kwameen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2014-11-11T12:53:33Z
dc.date.available2014-11-11T12:53:33Z
dc.date.issued1998en_ZA
dc.descriptionBibliography: p. 260-284.en_ZA
dc.description.abstractThe focus of this dissertation is the thesis that if Ayi Kwei Armah's five novels - The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), Fragments (1969), Why Are We So Blest? (1972), Two Thousand Seasons (1973) and The Healers (1978) - are closely analysed, they will emerge as a single creative mythology devoted to the fictional disfigurement of Black Africa from primeval times to the present. An analysis of Afiican writings reveals that a body of contemporary African literature has and is still undergoing a distinctive metamorphosis. This change, which amounts to a significant departure from the early fifties, derives its creative impulse from demonic anger and cynical iconoclasm and is triggered by the mind-shattering disillusion that followed independence. The proclivity towards tyranny and the exploitation of the ruled in modern Africa is traced by radical African creative writers to an ancient source : the legendary and god-like rulers of pre-colonial Africa. Ouologuem's Bound to Violence, Wole Soyinka's play, A Dance of the Forests, and Armah's Two Thousand Seasons and The Healers hypothesize that past political violations begot the present wreckage of the African populace. The legendary warrior heroes of the past, whose glory and splendour were once exalted in African writing, are now ruthlessly disentombed and paraded as miscreants and despots, who brutalized and sold their people into slavery. Although Armah glorifies "The Way" in Two Thousand Seasons and "the metaphysics of African healing" in The Healers, the dominant preoccupation of two novel histories is to divest the ancient godlike kings of their false glory.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationAyivor, M. G. K. (1998). <i>A saga of black deglorification : the disfigurement of Africa in Ayi Kwei Armah's novels</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9551en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationAyivor, Moses Geoffrey Kwame. <i>"A saga of black deglorification : the disfigurement of Africa in Ayi Kwei Armah's novels."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9551en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationAyivor, M. 1998. A saga of black deglorification : the disfigurement of Africa in Ayi Kwei Armah's novels. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Ayivor, Moses Geoffrey Kwame AB - The focus of this dissertation is the thesis that if Ayi Kwei Armah's five novels - The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), Fragments (1969), Why Are We So Blest? (1972), Two Thousand Seasons (1973) and The Healers (1978) - are closely analysed, they will emerge as a single creative mythology devoted to the fictional disfigurement of Black Africa from primeval times to the present. An analysis of Afiican writings reveals that a body of contemporary African literature has and is still undergoing a distinctive metamorphosis. This change, which amounts to a significant departure from the early fifties, derives its creative impulse from demonic anger and cynical iconoclasm and is triggered by the mind-shattering disillusion that followed independence. The proclivity towards tyranny and the exploitation of the ruled in modern Africa is traced by radical African creative writers to an ancient source : the legendary and god-like rulers of pre-colonial Africa. Ouologuem's Bound to Violence, Wole Soyinka's play, A Dance of the Forests, and Armah's Two Thousand Seasons and The Healers hypothesize that past political violations begot the present wreckage of the African populace. The legendary warrior heroes of the past, whose glory and splendour were once exalted in African writing, are now ruthlessly disentombed and paraded as miscreants and despots, who brutalized and sold their people into slavery. Although Armah glorifies "The Way" in Two Thousand Seasons and "the metaphysics of African healing" in The Healers, the dominant preoccupation of two novel histories is to divest the ancient godlike kings of their false glory. DA - 1998 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 1998 T1 - A saga of black deglorification : the disfigurement of Africa in Ayi Kwei Armah's novels TI - A saga of black deglorification : the disfigurement of Africa in Ayi Kwei Armah's novels UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9551 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/9551
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationAyivor MGK. A saga of black deglorification : the disfigurement of Africa in Ayi Kwei Armah's novels. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of English Language and Literature, 1998 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9551en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of English Language and Literatureen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherEnglishen_ZA
dc.titleA saga of black deglorification : the disfigurement of Africa in Ayi Kwei Armah's novelsen_ZA
dc.typeDoctoral Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoral
dc.type.qualificationnamePhDen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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