Abstract
An essential feature of Nigerian literatures is their capacity to exploit history and social experience to bring to light the human condition in society without compromising literary aesthetics. Thus, Nigerian novels often appear to be more educative than entertaining by their ability to illuminate social realities far more effectively than historical or sociological texts. This is evident in the representations of soldiers in Nigerian novels which are highly influenced by historical and social circumstances. This paper carries out a comparative and descriptive analysis of portrayals of Nigerian soldiers in Isidore Okpewho’s The Last Duty and Festus Iyayi’s Heroes from a new historical perspective. Most studies on the military in Nigerian novels often focus on their actions in war situations and their disruptive and undemocratic activities in politics. However, these studies frequently explore the military as a group with little attention to the texts as expositions on character types in the Nigerian military. This study therefore contributes to criticism on the nexus between literary representation, history, and society. It further highlights historical and social contexts of military explorations in Nigerian novels and their impacts on the perception of the Nigerian soldier in society. These are aimed at showing that depictions of the military in Nigerian novels go beyond their capacities for disruptions and destructions in society; they represent artistic probing of the nature and character of persons in the Nigerian military.
Highlights
This study deviates from the norm of assessing the Nigerian soldier in imaginative literature from perspectives similar to political and sociological studies, which survey the military by institutional paradigms
The two studies of Onwuka come closest to analyzing soldiers on character basis, but their major concerns were on military dictatorship and oppression in society
This study has carried out a descriptive and interpretative assessment of significant military characters in Heroes and TLD, appraising them as individual soldiers rather than the military as a group. It highlights and describes five character types among soldiers in the Nigerian military using the resource of characterization in the two novels under analysis
Summary
This study deviates from the norm of assessing the Nigerian soldier in imaginative literature from perspectives similar to political and sociological studies, which survey the military by institutional paradigms. None of significance has explored the approach proposed in this paper: to appraise Nigerian soldiers as individuals reflecting character types in the military.
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