HOMOSEXUALITY IN JUDE DIBIA’S WALKING WITH SHADOWS AND WOLE SOYINKA’S THE INTERPRETERS

HOMOSEXUALITY IN JUDE DIBIA’S WALKING WITH SHADOWS AND WOLE SOYINKA’S THE INTERPRETERS

ABSTRACT

The theme of homosexuality though still in its infant stage in African literature is one worthy of serious academic attention and exploration as it has become quite topical in recent times the world over. Over the years, there have been several portrayals of gayness in African works and that is what this research investigated in Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows and Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters. Until recently, African authors have always represented gayness in the negative light and unsympathetically. It has however been discovered that currently a few African works have portrayed it positively and even sympathetically as could be seen in Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows. The two main portrayals of gayness in African literature are sympathetic/positive portrayal and unsympathetic/negative portrayal which the two Nigeria works under study Jude Dibia’s Walking with Shadows and Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters represent respectively. The duo portray homosexuality in two opposite directions; sympathetically and unsympathetically respectively. Both authors made extensive use of literary devices in portraying homosexuality in their individual novels.  This research work looked at the following as it discussed the subject of homosexuality in the selected texts: how gayness emerge in the selected works, what goes on in the minds of some of the characters especially the gay and of course the attitude of the other characters towards the gay. This research work did a psychoanalytical study of some characters in the texts in order to understand the thoughts of the key players in the individual texts and their attitudes toward gayness.