Narrating the economic and political environment: ghost characters in ben okri’s “the famished road”

Abstract

Since time immemorial, literature has played a pivotal role in mirroring the society. Literary authors in their endeavors to represent a lucid view of the state of things in the society have employed different types of characters to pass their messages. In Africa the use of humans, animals and objects feature in stories and have been studied and documented by various literary scholars. However, there have been little studies on the use of ghost characterization in prose. This paper has attempted to fill this gap by examining how ghost characterization reflects the economic and political environment in Nigeria. This paper has analyzed Ben Okri (1991) The Famished Road. The study has used Wendy (2004) magical realism strand as theoretical framework. Qualitative research design has been used where close textual analysis of the text has been carried out to show how the author has used ghost characters to reflect the economic and political environment in Nigeria. The study has established that ghost characters exceptional abilities enable them to pry into the oppressive, dilapidated, and impoverished Nigerian economic situation. In addition, ghost characters clairvoyant ability has enabled them to reveal the eerie political atmosphere that engulfed Nigeria during colonial and post-colonial period. The paper draws parallelism to the wobbly economic and political situation that overwhelmed the majority of African nations after the outbreak of covid-19 in 2020. Keywords: Magical realism, economic environment, political environment, clairvoyant, material realm, immaterial realm