THE CHANGING FACE OF ORATURE IN POSTCOLONIAL NIGERIA PROVERBS IN EDDIE IROH’S WITHOUT A SILVER SPOON AND BANANA LEAVES

Abstract

The coming into being of creative writing in English in post-colonial Nigeria since independence and the eminence attained in it as an expressive form by Achebe, Soyinka, Clark, Okigbo and many others, is a cultural revolution. This Cultural Revolution has affected oral tradition in many ways, including a symbiotic relationship with the new forms of creative expression through incorporation, translation and appropriation. Orature has also been affected by new technological forms such as the radio, television, mobile phones, and the internet. The focus of this paper is on the written and we stress that the postcolonial writers continue to incorporate, in varying degrees, orature elements such as tales, myths, legends, riddles and proverbs in their works. The presence of the oral in the works of Achebe, Kunene, P’Bitek, Awoonor, Soyinka and others, has consequently ensured the continuity and dynamism of the genre in Africa. In this context, this paper examines Eddie Iroh’s Without a Silver Spoon and Banana Leaves to show how the use of proverbs has enriched the two novels in terms of their narrative structure, thematic development, characterization and embellishment of language. The two novels deal with the growth and experiences of Chokwe in the village where he attends primary school, and in the city where he lives with his uncle, Ikenna. The contexts within which proverbs are used in the two novels are in tandem with their usage in face-to-face discourse. We therefore conclude that Iroh has guaranteed that all children who read the two novels, will, like Chokwe, come to know the proverbs and their value and also use them in appropriate contexts. There is therefore an envisioned dialectics of the oral moving to the written and at the same time giving birth to the oral.