Aspects of Naturalism in Contemporary African Drama: a Study of Some Selected Drama Texts

Abstract

Few centuries ago, European dramatists developed a movement, a philosophy that could account for the influence of the environment and heredity on the lives of the people. Their major concern was to create on their stage and theatre, a life as could be lived on the normal terrain of human existence. In their bid to create 'a slice of life', they initiated a movement popularly known as Naturalism. Naturalism is a literary movement that seeks to recreate a believable everyday reality as opposed to such movement as romanticism or surrealism. It casts art's role as the scientifically accurate reflection of a 'slice of life', aligned with the belief that each person is a product of heredity and environment driven by internal and external forces beyond his own control. This Naturalistic philosophy was a challenge, a step ahead of Realism. With less emphasis on props and other theatrical conventions, it recreated a life as it could be lived in normal life. Africa writers over the years have adopted this philosophy and applied it in their creative works. The major concern of this paper is to show how some modern African dramatists adopted this Naturalistic ideology and made good use of it.