Metastasised Characters as Hegelian Change Agents In Osofisan’s Morountodun and No More the Wasted Breed

Abstract

Scholars and critics always interpret change in Osofisan’s plays from a theoretical perspective, thus paying less attention to the roles played by characters as the immediate vehicles of that change. Characters embody the interpretive, primal consciousness which the author may seem unaware although they are his mouthpiece to ventilate remote and immediate ideological concerns. Detailed character analysis suffers an unwholesome fate in literary criticism and this constitutes a major problem. This paper critically examines some characters in Morountodun and No More The Wasted Breed to reveal how they negotiate and achieve change through metastasis – a radical transformation from one position to another. The paper argues further that the characters imbue Hegelian dialectic attributes which galvanize them to embrace their contrary positions to achieve change. Using the Hegelian Dialectic theoretical framework, the study establishes that change in the selected plays is a product of the characters’ sudden awareness and realization of their immediate circumstances. Until the characters became aware, they are continually subsumed in ignorance about prevailing situations in their society. For any real change to occur in society, social actors, the characters must first become aware and then radically shift from their positions to a new one.