ERIC Number: EJ1126933
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Oct
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2203-4714
EISSN: N/A
Semiotics of Power and Dictatorship in Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's Later Novels
Amoussou, Yemalo C.
Advances in Language and Literary Studies, v7 n5 p208-221 Oct 2016
This paper explores the different uses of symbols to express power and interpersonal relationship in Ngugi's bulkiest novel "Wizard of the Crow" (2006), with a few illustrations from "Matigari" (1987). It draws on the semiotic approach and identifies about a hundred discourse strings in which signs are used to express tenor between characters. In the main, supernatural, faunal and floral symbols are found to be main vehicles of power, though many other such avenues as "vocations", "social and gender-related symbols" and "biblical characterisation and numerology", etc are unexplored here for space constraints. Before the analysis, it is deemed necessary to overview the theoretical background to the study in which relevant concepts have been clarified. It has been concluded that there is no other work in which power is so much expressed through the explored devices as in "Wizard of the Crow".
Descriptors: Semiotics, Power Structure, Gender Differences, Biblical Literature, Novels, Authoritarianism, Literary Devices, Interpersonal Relationship, Discourse Analysis, African Languages, Grammar, Authors, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Kenya
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A