Parallels and Distinctions in Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy and “Orpheus and Eurydice”

Andrew Bula

doi:10.46809/jcsll.v2i5.78

Abstract

Criticism of Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy alongside the Greek mythological story of “Orpheus and Eurydice” has usually been an engagement in drawing parallels between both texts, or of uncovering symbols and allusions found within the novel that echoes the Greek myth. None, however, has explored at the same time the range of similarities and dissimilarities between both narratives; nor is there available a sustained attention devoted to the criticism of both. This study fills that critical vacuum. The question thus opened up is that there are convergences as well as divergences in the narratives; and although Season of Anomy is not without borrowings from the Greek mythology which constitutes the convergences and to some extent informs some of the divergences, the novel’s trajectory and imaginative framework transcend the classical story. Julia Kristeva’s notion of the figure of “double destinations” under her theory of intertextuality is brought into play in this study to make sense of the parities and disparities between both accounts.

Highlights

Existing criticism of Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy (1994) together with the Greek mythology of “Orpheus and Eurydice” are preoccupied with uncovering affinities, symbols, and allusions in both narratives
Criticism of Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy alongside the Greek mythological story of “Orpheus and Eurydice” has usually been an engagement in drawing parallels between both texts, or of uncovering symbols and allusions found within the novel that echoes the Greek myth
The question opened up is that there are convergences as well as divergences in the narratives; and Season of Anomy is not without borrowings from the Greek mythology which constitutes the convergences and to some extent informs some of the divergences, the novel’s trajectory and imaginative framework transcend the classical story

Summary

Introduction

Existing criticism of Wole Soyinka’s Season of Anomy (1994) together with the Greek mythology of “Orpheus and Eurydice” are preoccupied with uncovering affinities, symbols, and allusions in both narratives. (p.8) the argument which Akwanya advances here, and rightly so, is that the affinities which Season of Anomy has with “Orpheus and Eurydice” go beyond the sound effect in the names of Ofeyi and Orpheus; Iriyise and Eurydice respectively As he sees it, the classical legend is too small and does not stretch past the Temoko passage in the novel, and so it can scarcely constitute the architecture of meaning of the novel. This paper is devoted to exploring the convergences and divergences between Soyinka’s Season of Anomy and the classical tale of “Orpheus and Eurydice”, a thing which has not received sustained attention in the criticism of both narratives To accomplish this task, a mythological image of the figure of “double destinations” (Kristeva, 1980, p.43) will be put to use in order to make sense of this double analogy of likeness and differentness. The mythological image, features proper to this study in that portions of Soyinka’s novel will be interpreted as having affinities with the classical narrative whereas other portions of the accounts will be interpreted as charting different trajectories

Points of Convergence

Points of Divergence

Conclusion