Previous Issues
Volume :9 Issue : 33 1989
Add To Cart
Download
The Narrative Techniques and the Oral Tradition in Ayi Kwei Armah's The Healers
Auther : Ahmad Saber
Indeed The Healers is a well-constructed novel, woven effectively around its central situation, the historical situation and the myth-making process. Furthermore, the novels form and stricture are marked by a dramatic narrative shift strikingly different from that of Amrahs earlier novels. The Healers narrative design is more accurate and more precise. Looking at its formal division into seven parts with six subdivisions each, one may quickly get the impression that the novel has an episodic plot. Far from this, The Healers narrative structure is quite complex. Its complexity derives mainly from the rich variety of narrative techniques through which the novel addresses itself to the reader. These include oral narration, epic proportion, the narrators use of the plural voice, the techniques of time-pattern. All these narrative methods are used accordingly with the novels communal sense, historical and myth-making guidelines, didactic intent, and socio-political thought.
The Healerss relationship with oral literature is embedded as much in its form and narrative techniques as in its content. Thus, Armah perfectly adopts the African oral tradition of narration and storytelling based on those of the West African griot whose art linked indissolubly the functions of entertainment and education.