Deconstructing Marxist/Revolutionary Labels in Femi Osofisan’s Plays

Abstract

Nigeria’s famed playwright, Femi Osofisan evidently commits his literary nuances to social change. Marxism thrives on revolution as an instrument of social change. Therefore, literary critics exercising their scholarly prerogatives interpret Osofisan’s plays from a Marxist perspective. When these critics focus their Marxist searchlight on Osofisan’s plays, they isolate the socio-political and economic indices that give rise to class polarity in society. In their analysis, they go on to advocate for a new society achieved through the instrumentality of revolution where one class, the proletariat, must overthrow its class counterpart, the bourgeois. In this way, the understanding and appreciation of Osofisan’s works are circumscribed by Marxist interpretations, which inevitably limit their literary and ideological potential. This paper argues that beyond Marxist sensibilities, Osofisan’s plays can be read and understood from a Hegelian dialectic perspective which emphasizes evolution of society through the inevitable interaction of opposites. More importantly, Osofisan commits to achieving mass awareness of the many incongruities besetting society by demonstrating that opposites are bound by the principle of complementarities. As a popular and fashionable theory in the 19th and 20th centuries, Marxism provides a critical tool for interpreting many literary works. However, in the 21st century post-Marxist era, how will Osofisan’s plays appeal to new readers? Relying on the theory of deconstruction, this paper liberates Osofisan’s plays from the confines of Marxistinterpretation and establishes that they can be comprehended from a new prism, the Hegelian dialectic.