The Supernatural and the Real: Dreams, Myths, and Perceptions of Reality in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road

Yıl 2015, Cilt: 5 Sayı: 2, 223 - 237, 30.12.2015

Aslı Değirmenci Altın

Öz

The supernatural content of Ben Okri’s novel The Famished Road spreads through the narrative and also affects the formal structure of the novel. The fact that narrator of the novel, Azaro is an abiku (spirit child) provides the basis for all of the supernatural phenomena in the novel. Furthermore, the Yoruba myth of abiku lends its cyclicality to the narrative structure. Many transitions occuring as Nigeria gets closer to independence are depicted through the eyes of Azaro, who, as a small child from a povertystricken working class family, travels many roads around his ghetto, registering all the developments that transform his environment irretrievably. This article suggests that Okri’s use of a culturally specific supernatural phenomenon (abiku) at the center of his narrative as well as the lack of references to a colonial presence provides him with the ability to depict a single inherently supernatural reality while at the same time depicting the transformation of colonial Nigeria, particularly the environmental changes, quite realistically.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Ben Okri, The Famished Road, Magical Realism, Nigeria, Abiku, Supernatural

Doğaüstü ve Gerçek: Ben Okri’nin Aç Yol Adlı Romanında Rüyalar, Efsaneler ve Gerçeklik Algıları

Öz

Ben Okri’nin Aç Yol adlı romanın doğaüstü içeriği anlatının her tarafına yayılıp romanın biçimsel yapısını da etkilemektedir. Romanın anlatıcısı Azaro’nun bir “abiku” (peri-çocuk) olması romandaki bütün doğaüstü olaylar için bir zemin sağlamaktadır. Dahası, bir Yoruba efsanesi olan “abiku” döngüselliğini romanın öykü yapısına da verir. Nijerya’nın bağımsızlığı yaklaşırken gerçekleşen bir çok olay, oldukça fakir bir işçi sınıfı ailesinin çocuğu olarak mahallesindeki yolları arşınlayan ve çevresini geri dönüşü olmayacak şekilde dönüştüren gelişmeleri kaydeden Azaro’nun gözünden aktarılır. Bu makale, kültürel olarak belirgin bir doğaüstü olayı (“abiku”yu) anlatısının merkezine oturtmasının ve aynı zamanda sömürge döneminin varlığına ait göndermelerin olmamasının Ben Okri’ye kendiliğinden doğaüstü olan münferit bir gerçekliği resmetme fırsatı verdiğini, hem de bunu sömürge dönemi Nijerya’sındaki dönüşümü, özellikle de çevresel değişimleri oldukça gerçekçi bir şekilde anlatarak yaptığını öne sürmektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Ben Okri, Aç Yol, Büyülü Gerçekçilik, Nijerya, Abiku, Doğaüstü

Kaynakça

• Appiah K. A. (1992). “Spiritual Realism”. The Nation 255/4 (1992) 146-48.
• Brennan T. (1989). Salman Rushdie and the Third World. London 1992.
• Butler R. A. (2005). “Nigeria has the Worst Deforestation Rate, FAO Revises Figures”. Source: http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1117-forests.html#J1bs3UshITlKkcrb.99. Accessed: 12 March 2013.
• Cezair-Thompson M. (1996). “Beyond the Postcolonial Novel: Ben Okri’s The Famished Road and its ‘Abiku’ Traveller”. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 31/2 (1996) 33-45.
• Cooper B. (1998). Magical Realism in West African Fiction: Seeing with a Third Eye. London 1998.
• Deandrea P. (2002). Fertile Crossings: Metamorphoses of Genre in Anglophone West African Literature. Amsterdam and New York 2002.
• Flores A. (1995). “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction”. Eds. L. P. Zamora & W. Faris. Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community (1995) 109-17. Durham, NC.
• Gates H. L. Jr. (1992). “Between the Living and the Unborn”. By B. Crider, The New York Times Book Review (1992) 3-20.
• Guignery V. (2013). The Famished Road: Ben Okri’s Imaginary Homelands. UK 2013.
• Highfield J. (2011). “No Longer Praying on Borrowed Wine: Agroforestry and Food Sovereignty in Ben Okri’s Famished Road Trilogy”. Eds. G. Myers & B. Caminero-Santangelo. Environment at the Margins: Literary and Environmental Studies in Africa (2011) 141-158. Athens.
• James E. (2012). “Bioregionalism, Postcolonial Literatures, and Ben Okri’s The Famished Road”. Eds. C. Glotfelty & T. Lynch. The Bioregional Imagination: Literature, Ecology, and Place (2012) 263- 277. Athens.
• Maduka C. T. (1987). “African Religious Beliefs in Literary Imagination: Ogbanje and Abiku in Chinua Achebe, J. P. Clark and Wole Soyinka”. Journal of Commonwealth Literature 22/1 (1987) 17-30.
• Mathuray M. (2009). On the Sacred in African Literature: Old Gods and New Worlds. Basingstoke 2009.
• Mbiti J. (1970). African Religions and Philosophy. London 1970.
• McCabe D. (2002). “Histories of Errancy: Oral Yoruba Abiku Texts and Soyinka's ‘Abiku’”. Research in African Literatures 33/1 (2002) 45-74.
• Nixon R. (2011). “Slow Violence, Gender, and the Environmentalism of the Poor”. Eds. G. Myers & B. Caminero-Santangelo. Environment at the Margins: Literary and Environmental Studies in Africa (2011) 257-285. Athens.
• Okri B. (1991). The Famished Road. New York 1991.
• Okri B. (1993). Songs of Enchantment. London 1993.
• Okri B. (1998). Infinite Riches. London 1998.
• Oliva R. (1999). “Re-Dreaming the World: Ben Okri's Shamanic Realism”. Eds. E. Linguanti & Francesco Casotti. Coterminous Worlds: Magical Realism and Contemporary Post-Colonial Literature in English (1999) 171-196. Amsterdam.
• Ong W. J. (2002). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London and New York 2002.
• Quayson A. (1997). Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing. Bloomington 1997.
• Roy A. (2000). “Post-Modern or Post-Colonial? Magic Realism in Okri’s The Famished Road”. Eds. D. Gover, J. Conteh-Morgan & J. Bryce. The Post-Colonial Condition of African Literature (2000) 23- 39. Trenton.
• Rushdie S. (2006). Midnight’s Children: A Novel. New York 2006.
• Wilkinson J. (1992). Talking with African Writers: Interviews with African Poets, Playwrights and Novelists. London 1992.
• Zamora L. P. & Faris W. B. (1995). Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Durham, NC 1995.