Poverty, Infidelity and Oppression in Festus Iyayi’s Violence

Nwabudike Christopher Eziafa ,Anaso George Nworah

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijclts.v.3n.4p.49

Abstract

This paper takes a cursory look at the subjects of poverty, infidelity and oppression in Festus Iyayi’s Violence . Using Malinowski and Radcliffe Brown’s Functional approach to literature as a framework, the writers peer into the society with the intent of exposing the ills bedeviling the people. The preponderant penury has been decried; the cruelty of infidelity and immorality has been denounced as well as the dehumanizing oppression of the poor by the rich. The study concludes with a call on the government and well-meaning members of society to stand and overcome these three maladies. Keywords: Poverty, Infidelity, Oppression, Violence

Highlights

In Violence (1976), Festus Iyayi has presented the poor condition of many people in his country in the midst of the abundance from the oil boom of the 1970’s
As seen in the above, Violence has repeatedly depicted the subject of infidelity just as it has done that of poverty which was considered earlier as well as that of oppression
The subject-matter of oppression is very pronounced in Violence, and the one that makes the content of the novel to justify its title and vice-versa

Summary

Introduction

In Violence (1976), Festus Iyayi has presented the poor condition of many people in his country in the midst of the abundance from the oil boom of the 1970’s. The perpetrator is the society, the type of economic-cumpolitical system which is operated in the country that brutalizes the individual and rapes his manhood When such men of poor and limited opportunity react, they are only in a certain measure answering violence. These and other questions shall be answered in this essay In his second novel, Contract, Iyayi yields the stage to the infinite appropriators, so that we can see them clearly in all their bizarre adornment. His father., for being poor and unable to finance his education, but after passing through the furnace of experience, he realizes that poverty is never by choice as there are many structures in society that are tailor-made to confine the majority to penurious scavengers He has come to the full awareness. If ever we need the novelist as teacher today, Iyayi is definitely a foremost contender to the title

Concerns with Poverty

The Subject of Infidelity

The Subject of Oppression

Conclusion