Abstract:
The production and proliferation of the novel and its associated innovative modes of
narration in the modern corpus of literature require critical appraisal especially with
regard to narratological issues. Crucial is the concern for the function of and the
indispensable role of narratological time in narratives. This study explores Time with its
complexity in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Weep Not,
Child. As its theoretical framework, the research applies Genette’s Narrative Discourse.
In so doing, the study interrogates how the two novelists make use of Genette’s category
of Time with its sub-categories of Order, Duration and Frequency and their respective
sub-divisions in the dissemination of their messages. It is revealed that the two novelists
do not follow chronological order in the presentation of the events in their respective
works. This leads to deliberate discordance in the two temporal orders of Story Time and
Narrative Time. It also comes to the fore that Achebe’s narration is more of telling and
hence diegetic. Ngugi, on the other hand, is more into showing, a technique that renders
his work mimetic. With regard to Frequency, Achebe and Ngugi use Repetitive
Frequency to foreground some pressing issues or events in the narrative. The study
recommends that further studies are carried into the selected novels to analyse their
narrative Mood and Voice. It is also suggested that other researchers could take other
novels by each of the authors and treat the Narrative Time in them.
Description:
A THESIS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION, FACULTY
OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION,
SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES, UNIVERSITY
OF EDUCATION, WINNEBA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY
(ENGLISH) DEGREE
JANUARY, 2017