Memory Fragments and the Unpacking of National Myths in Wole Soyinka’s The Strong Breed and Femi Osofisan’s No More the Wasted Breed.
Kolawole
Olaiya
Department of English, Linguistics and Speech,
University of Mary Washington,
Fredericksburg, Virginia
(Estados
Unidos)
This paper investigates the patterns of myth and history in Wole Soyinka’s The Strong Breed and Femi Osofisan’s No More the Wasted Breed, two works based on the myth of the carrier in Nigeria. It examines the ways in which the “politics” of Soyinka and Osofisan determine their aesthetics choices and patterns of engagement with myth and history in their writings.
This essay further suggests that the creative works of Soyinka and Osofisan illustrate the conscious fragmented remembering and the intense politics of selection and exclusion involved in the unpacking of national myths. The differing exercises in mythoclasm involved in the way they use myth to interrogate the Nigerian state constitute one of the enduring legacies of colonialism. This paper proceeds from a discussion of these issues into a detailed consideration of the two plays as they borrow from, engage with, and interrogate each other.
About Kolawole Olaiya
Kolawole Olaiya is a Visiting Professor of Postcolonial Drama and Literatures at the University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Virginia.