Behaviour and Cultural Value in West African Stories: Literary Sources for the Study of Culture Contact

Abstract

Opening ParagraphIn much modern West African literature in English and French the authors depict problems concerning the relationship between the socio-cultural background and the particular experiences and behaviour of the characters portrayed. Investigation and analysis of such stories to ascertain the authors' ‘solutions’ of the characters' problems can aid our understanding of values and attitudes among modern Africans and in turn contribute to the growing corpus of knowledge about culture contact. As Cyprian Ekwensi, the Nigerian novelist, has claimed: ‘African writing is writing which reveals the psychology of the African.’ Obviously it reveals the psychology of both the author and the characters whom he portrays, and even though stories are written by individuals who are ‘modern’ Africans, strong opposition to any consideration of African literature as individualistic ‘art for art's sake’ has been manifested by Africans, including the Society of Nigerian Authors in their reply to Martin Tucker's 1962 argument that African novelists are over-communal and insufficiently individualistic in what they portray. In making such a response, the Nigerian authors in effect reasserted a traditional African attitude towards art as socially functional rather than merely aesthetically pleasing. One is thus justified in pursuing the study of modern literary works by Africans as expressions of attitudes and values related to tradition, contact, and change.