Department of English, MKBU.

Name: Nimesh DavePaper:14

'TheAfrican Literature'Topic:- "Concept of Tradition and Modernity as

well as Beckettian dramatic features in The Swamp Dwellers by Wole Soyinka“

Academic Year: 2015-16

Introduction

What is Tradition?

Cultural, social, conventional

Nonwestern attitude/ culture

village- joint family, caste…

Established power and unofficial violence in village

What is Modernity?

Complex phenomenon Encompasses various elements of the socalled

South African tradition or any tradition A change in society What type of change? Is it all about accepting western ideas, culture

and forgetting the tradition of one’s own To shun the roots……?

Polar opposites/ Binaries Tradition and modernity is a linear theory of

social change Tradition- a framework of nationhood The concept of development in modernityBoth are treated as polar opposites, or

binaries•Problem- tradition or modernity???Kinship system v/s money relationTraditional/ modern values: fostering or

encouraging corrupt behavior

Tradition is taught by our eldersModernity: a person’s thoughts about the worldCorruption- not related with tradition or

modernityWhy people are against modernization?Modernization has brought materialistic values to

the front seat and ethical and moral values have been relegated to the back seat…?

“The Swamp Dweller"

• In "The Swamp Dwellers" good countryside and evil city.

• The idea is represented in the characters of the two women characters 'Desala', unfaithful wife and 'Alu', the mother

• Makuri says, “There wasn't a woman anywhere more faithful than you, Alu; I never had a moment of worry in the whole of my life”

Makuri begins to discuss the city: “It ruins them. The city ruins them. What do they seek there except money?

Alu responds, “It was the swamp … He went the same way as my son” (87). The point is clear, even outside of Yoruba belief—the city is a swamp, a place of moral degradation, that “kills” those who go there.

The Swamp-the city is the result of colonialism, capitalism, industrialization, the shift from tradition to “modernity.”

Flood is not the only reason.Makuri explains, “Not a grain was saved, not one

tuber in the soil … And what the flood left behind was poisoned by the oil in the swamp water”.

enormous ecological and human waste due to greed Economy/ money is not the reason of corruption in

the playIn the opening scene, “a hut on stilts”; in the hut “is

a barber's swivel chair” (81). This strange, part comic, part pathetic icon of modernity was a gift to Makuri from Igwezu, when he was in the city.

Is it modernity or a change????????????

‘Beckettian' dramatic features

Isolated, hopeless, helpless characters Futility/ meaninglessness of life Disillusionment Characters going into their individual world Absence of God

Absurdity of human existence.Characters presented without much history –

driven to locate themselves in the world with reference to geography. But the world in which they live has no overall structure, it is a dreadful place in which every moment is like the next… Lacking an assured past, the tramps can have no clear sense of their own future…They are waiting without hope for a deliverance from a being in whom they do not really believe.

Absurdity of human condition against the background.

Human life presents constant problems and contradictions

The individual and the society in continual need of salvation for itself.

Representation of inexplicable and hazardous universe in which man finds himself.

Beggar, Awuchike and Igwezu - ready to submit- determined to survive against all odds.