Narratology and Contemporary Fiction

Christopher Ogunyemi conceptualizes the theory of narratology in the understanding of Irish fiction, Nigerian fiction and African American fiction. Chapter one attempts the science of fiction to explain the plight of the Irish ex-service men. McGahern in Amongst Women creates a former soldier Moran who fights gallantly in the war with his friend McQuaid. The story actually started after the war. Although the war had ended, for Moran the male protagonist, the war had not ended. He had to battle poverty and nothingness which had mostly preoccupied the experiences of ex servicemen after the war. Moran was upright; he went into farming to save the family and his efforts were able to see the family through the huddles of hunger. Chapter two x-rays Wisdom and Age in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. The combination of Autobiographical and methodological approaches make the work wisdom coded. Chapter three, however, uses narratology to clarify the theme of violence in African American literature with a comparative analysis of James Baldwin's Fire Next Time and Richard Wright's The Man Who Killed a Shadow. The role of irony, metaphor, and other literary elements were highly emphasized.