Abstract
There is no doubt that one of the unresolved contradictions of representation in postcolonial fiction is that of the relation between the colonizer and the colonized. This issue generates a wide spectrum of critical hues, exploring how present circumstances shape a postcolonial narrative technique. The present paper explores Ben Okri’s In Arcadia (2002), attempts to display this innovative disturbing representation by investigating the narrative experimentation in the novel of Ben Okri. Okri’s novel reflects the dilemma of individual freedom and libration, and the contemporary situation of fragmentation, rootlessness, dehumanization, displacement, and disorientation in a world where man finds himself suspended in a void of meanings. Okri’s response to this dilemma is given by those scapes which become the new responsible creators of their own world by shaping fresh values, lives, and realities, which is reflected in the reshaping of the narrative mode of a postcolonial and postmodern Nigerian novelist, tempered with the narrative form and its representation of the experience of reality. His fiction has subverted the narrative modes of representation thereby dislocating the structure of narrative technique through the juxtaposition of spatial fragments from different situations. Thus, the hypothesis was that it would be valuable to analyze and examine Okri’s narrative experimentation as a contemporary writer, in order to see the extent of innovative progression.
Highlights
Ben Okri’s recent novel In Arcadia (2002) was a surprise book for those who expected the Nigerian post-colonialist to travel further down the “famished road” and explore ways of being free from the white man’s burden
The present paper explores Ben Okri’s In Arcadia (2002), attempts to display this innovative disturbing representation by investigating the narrative experimentation in the novel of Ben Okri
Lao is the Okrian protagonist who tries to find his freedom, he is isolated familiarly and metaphysically. He tries to open up a space, and excavates a secret place, where he can generate a genuine freedom for the self
Summary
Ben Okri’s recent novel In Arcadia (2002) was a surprise book for those who expected the Nigerian post-colonialist to travel further down the “famished road” and explore ways of being free from the white man’s burden. The “sad fallings” of the seemingly antithetical work aroused such responses as “the ramblings of a stoned sixth former” (Brown, 2002), and “pseudo-philosophical piffle” (http://www.calderdale.gov.uk). No longer being grounded in the strife torn Nigerian soil and not representing its turmoils and angsts perhaps called for such misplaced condemnations. The subtle insinuations of foregrounding black against the white backdrop are yet another strategy of destabilizing the originary dialectics and working against the grain, to throw-up through contrast and alterity so to say Is not the evident allegory of the title a way of homing in on the quest for a more compatible future and the journey motif contained within its pages a search for a utopian destination and an implied destiny beyond the damned past and the living “inferno”? The subtle insinuations of foregrounding black against the white backdrop are yet another strategy of destabilizing the originary dialectics and working against the grain, to throw-up through contrast and alterity so to say
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
