INTRODUCTION
Different approaches are used to analyse literary texts. Among them is the semiotic approach.
In accounting for literary meaning, semiology does not study the grammatical
properties of language per se; rather, it calls attention to the meaningfulness
of signs that transcend literary texts. Although the signs are usually
represented graphically, the grammatical structure or properties of language
represented by graphic letters is of little importance here; it assumes only a
marginal position, because in semiology, language acquires meaning only as a
sign.
Signs,
it should be noted, vary a great deal from one literary text and cultural
context to another. Hence the aim of this paper is to identify and explain the
nature of signs, as well as their significance in accounting for literary
meaning in Ayi Kwei Armah’s Two Thousand
Seasons and Ngugi Wathiongo’s
Matigari
from a semiotic perspective.
Clarification
of Concepts
Two concepts are key to this study, hence the
need to clarify them. These are ‘semiology’ and ‘literary meaning’. Ferdinand
de Saussure (1993) traces the origin of semiology (also known as semiotics) to
the Greek word ‘semeion’, meaning ‘sign’. As the
founder of this discipline, he explains that the goal of semiology is to study
‘the life of signs in society’ (30). According to Oloruntoba-Oju
(1999, 156), semiology does not just study the life of signs, but also attempts
‘to elaborate the signification process in a given system’. Explaining the
goals of semiology, Crystal (2008) stresses that semiological
analysis has developed as part of an attempt to analyse
all aspects of communication as systems of signals (semiotic systems) such as
music, eating, clothes and dance, as well as language.
On
the other hand, literary meaning refers to what Frye (in Akwanya
2002, 2) also calls ‘new critical discoveries’. According to Akwanya (2002, 2), they are discoveries ‘not depending on
intuition or speculative reason’ but they are meanings which are sustained ‘by
means of arguments and justifications connected to objectively established
criteria’. In other words, literary meaning is the sense in an imaginative
work. Usually, this meaning is opaque and subjective. It is the business of
literary criticism to discover literary meaning.
METHODOLOGY
This paper used the Saussurian
dyadic signifier-signified model of classification of the sign to analyse two primary texts. The texts are Ayi Kwei Armah’s
Two Thousand Seasons and Ngugi Wa
Thiongo’s Matigari. From each text, four signs were identified and
discussed. This means that there are a total of eight identifiable signs
selected from the two novels. The signs identified and analysed
in Two
Thousand Seasons include Anoa, the white man’s drink, waters of Anoa
and the sea mouth, while from Matigari the paper identified and analysed
four signs which are the house,
Anglo-American Leather and Plastic Works, mercedes benz car, and the
garbage yard. There are mostly two paragraphs for each analysis; one
paragraph looks at the sign and its properties, while the second paragraph
treats the signifie of a given sign.
Theoretical
Framework: Saussure’s Model of the Sign
Ferdinand de Saussure (1993) postulates a
theory of sign that has been described as ‘dyadic’ (Chandler, 2002). In the
theory, he explains that a sign is made up of ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’. Saussure
describes the sign in various ways. In one way, he refers to sign as ‘anything
that stands for something’. He also characterizes the sign in terms of a
‘whole’ and a ‘link’. According to him, it is ‘the whole that results from the
relationship’, noting also that a linguistic sign is a link between a sound
pattern (signifier) and a concept (signified).
Guiraud (1971)
explains the sign as a stimulus or a perceptible substance of which is
associated in our minds with that of another stimulus, the intention being to
communicate something meaningful. A defining feature of signs, from the point
of view of Chandler (2002, 55), is that ‘they are treated by their users as
‘standing for’ or representing other things’. These understandings implicate a
number of things: the first is that a sign is like a ‘shadow’ in which the ‘real’
is hidden. It also means that in the process of meaning, a sign must relate
with the signifier and the signified. Finally, the basis of the relationship is
usually to perform a communicative act.
The
sign is not the only aspect of Saussure’s semiology. As a matter of fact, he
defines the sign as ‘being composed of a signifier (significant) and a
signified (signifie). This is the dyadic nature of
this theory. According to Saussure (1993, 66), the signifier is ‘a sound
pattern’, but he goes to explain further that the sound pattern is not a physical
sound, but only ‘the hearer’s psychological impression of a sound, as given him
by the evidence of his senses’. Roland Barthes (1968) gives a simpler insight
into the nature of signifier by calling it ‘magnifier’ or ‘signaller’
(sounds, objects, and images), which, according to him, plays mediating role in
the explication of semiotic meaning.
Although Saussure
conceptualizes of the signifier as psychological and immaterial (as he also
does of sign and signified), the signifier, according to Chandler (2002), is
nowadays thought of as the material or physical form of the sign, while Theo
Van Leeuwen (2005) refers to the signifier variously
as ‘an observable form’, ‘objects that have been drawn into the domain’,
‘observable actions or objects’ ‘observable properties’, ‘words and sentences’
and ‘physical properties’. Therefore, one is to understand the signifier as
those other things that lend credence or support to the sign. In other words,
signifiers are the associating events which help to prove or explain the sign
better.
The
second component of a sign is the signified. While explaining the relationship
between the signifier and the signified, Saussure himself (1993) notes that
sound and thought (the signifier and the signified) were inseparable, or that a
sign could not consist of sound without sense. Hence, thought or sense is the
ontology or the being of the signified. According to Barthes (1964), the
signified is the ‘something’ which is meant by the person who uses the sign. In
consequence, therefore, Chandler (2002) has pointed out that, although Saussure
himself draws attention to his idea of the signified as a concept, Pro-Saussurian commentators still treat the signified as a
‘mental construct’, adding that they still think of the signified as referring
indirectly to things in the world. Thus, the signified is the notion of a thing
rather than the thing itself. Having said these about the theory, we shall now
move on to apply our theoretical understandings to account for the nature of
sign in Two Thousand Seasons and Matigari.
Text
Summary of Ayi Kwei Armah’s Two Thousand
Seasons
Two Thousand Seasons is a historical fiction
in which Ayi Kwei Armah represents the mythology of two clans (Dupon and Leopard Clans) whose rivalry for kingship caused
some cracks among the peoples and made them vulnerable to foreign infiltrations,
long foretold by age-long prophecies and warnings. Thus, the takeover of the
entire region, first by Arab missionaries, followed by European slave merchants,
as well as their domineering influences, dominates the narration.
Signs and
Literary Meaning in Two Thousand Seasons
Different signs litter the pages of Ayi Kwei Armah’s
Two Thousand Seasons. ‘Anoa’ is
one of such signs which the text presents as standing for something else. The
name has several references attached to it. For example, Anoa
is not just a character, but is also an age, a town, and an ideal. The novel
refers to all these in several places. As a prophetic character, she is described
as ‘far-listening Anoa’ who is reported to have foreseen,
in one of her ‘vatic utterances’, ‘vision of men glad to indulge themselves at
the expense of their own people’, and, of cowardly men determined ‘to the
slaughter of honest people’ (149). Hence, it is equally important to mention
also that one may associate Anoa with a milieu or an
epoch. Some of the carriers of this sign include ‘until Anoa
spoke’, ‘after Anoa’, and so forth. Similarly, as a
place, Anoa is variously alluded to as a place
containing ‘immense wealth’. Other qualifiers of the wealth are ‘the beauty of Anoa’, as well as reference to ‘the water of Anoa’. As signifiers, all of these help to amplify the
sign.
In
the cosmology of the people in the narration, Anoa is
analogous of ‘Eden’ in biblical literature. Thus, ‘falling from Anoa’ is certainly a condescension, or in their present
reality, a ‘lost paradise’. Thus, the immense wealth and the charming beauty
are not to be imagined in terms of observable qualities, but as expressions of
nostalgia for an era or a past time. Let us not forget that the once peaceful
and sane society has been plundered by ‘white predators’ from the desert and
‘white destroyers’ from the sea, even to the extent that ‘the beauty of Anoa’, which for many years could not be penetrated, has
now been violated. But these are expected developments because the people have fallen
from Anoa and descended into something else. To have
fallen from Anoa is also to lose track of the right
path for which the people now yearn. It would therefore mean that the only way
out for them is to return to Anoa, which is also to return
to the lost path of reason and ‘live entirely against destruction’ (155).
The white man’s drink (108) is another
important sign used by Armah to signal meaning in the
novel. The drink episode starts when king Koranche
deceives a group of men and women that the white man has asked to host them,
during which they are to be lavishly entertained and offered assorted gifts.
The drink is actually a bottle of rum, and according to them, the rum lacked ‘the
throat-caressing friendliness of ahey’, and in
sweetness, ‘fell short of fermented palm wine’. Moreover, its taste is ‘sharp’,
and its journey down the throat travelled ‘like an angry enemy scorching its
way down’. These descriptions are signifiers because they constitute the ‘form’
of the sign, to quote Chandler (2002).
In spite of the
repulsive taste of the rum, Koranche would still urge
them on to drink, and not mind the burning of their throats. Similarly, he
encourages them to close their eyes against the taste and wait for its effect,
to which they also acquiesced. Rum is an intoxicating substance, but it is also
only a general name in the text for other intoxicants brought by the white man.
So, rum forms a class with the other enticers, such as clothes, trinkets and
religion. To accept any gift of this kind is to agree to be polluted. As a
matter of fact, Abena, Naita
and Lini would not take the rum after referring to it
as ‘poison’. Thus, what is implicated here is that the drink, as well as the
other enticers, is a sort of ‘pollutant’. Expectedly, the effect of taking such
a poison would be dramatic indeed because almost immediately, the king and the
rest of them found all things ‘extremely beautiful’, to the extent that they
too begin to admire ‘everything in the universe’. By showing an open admiration
for them, they have mortgaged their conscience for worthless things. The
enticements have simply blighted their senses and made them lose their meaning
of life completely. They are so intoxicated that they are no longer able to
tell whether or not the widespread intoxicants of the white destroyers burn
them in the throat. Thus, the kings, the Askaris, the
hangers-on and the ostentatious cripples—all of them have taken the poison and
are acting under its influence, which is what the society is suffering from.
Semiotic meaning is
contained in Armah’s use of waters of Anoa (75-77). This river flows
from the main land to the sea. It is on this river that the narrator, in
company of others, travel in a canoe towards the coastland for their open
initiation. We learn also that the canoe voyage is the ‘eye opener’ to new
discoveries about the river. The author uses different forms to amplify the
riches of the river. For example, there are ‘beauty’ and ‘music’, arising from
the flow that is not describable. Armah describes Anoa river as willing to slow down ‘before new obstacles’,
as though the river possessed animate qualities. It is said to be gentle and
calm, and, ‘patiently rising till it overflows what can never stop it’.
Interestingly, the
water in the above descriptions is ‘the darker water from the land’. The colour contrast between ‘dark’ and white’ in the novel is
significant, and distinguishes Anoa from the
whiteness of the predators and the destroyers. Its ‘even flow’ suggests
inclusiveness and unconditional generosity. Thus, there is an idolization of
the water of Anoa. As people of the same land, they
are proud to identify with the water and would always claim it. The old songs
that they sing while rowing on the water is reminiscent of their past, and
which adds also to the memorable, enjoyable and smooth water journey. Above
all, it confirms their strong attachment to their own way. By this
characterization, Anoa acquires a different meaning
and ceases to be a mere river. It is an identification mark,
and being thus so, they are proud to ‘flow’ with Anoa.
Our last sign for
discussion in Two Thousand Season is ‘the sea mouth’ (75-77). This is the
coastline where other waters are swallowed up by the sea. The very massive
nature of the sea is accounted for by the tributaries of other big rivers. This
is also where the water of Anoa empties itself into
the massive sea water. The narrator is among the young men who are being taken
there for their initiation by the ‘fundi’, supposedly a teacher. As they
approach the meeting point, the fundi warns them,
especially against ‘false enthusiasm’ and ‘the violence of the waves’.
According to the narrator, they are also warned against pitting themselves directly
‘against the power of the waves’, as doing so could exhaust them of their
strength, adding that the raging water will overturn the canoe. The unfolding
experience is scary indeed and justifies the fundi’s warnings. All that they
see are ‘a wild turbulence’ and, ‘a violent upward surge’ coming from ‘clashing
waves’, so that the easy flow of the water of Anoa is
unable to withstand the ‘turbulence’. The fundi’s warnings and the stark
reality before them are all necessary ingredients of the sign. In other words,
they help to announce it.
The sea water and the
darker water from the land are very significant here. The two waters represent
two forces, one of them of reason, and the other of destruction. They stand
directly in opposition to each other, hence the ‘forward motion’ from both. The
clashes between the two waters translate to real confrontations between the
people of the clans and the white destroyers. Although very much aware of the
dangers associated with the violence of the waves, they, nevertheless, rowed
even ‘towards the turbulence’. This demonstrates their resilience and expresses
their determination not to give up until the water of Anoa
overflows ‘what can never stop it’ or defeats the coercive might of the
destroyers.
Text
Summary of Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s Matigari
Matigari is an
inter-textual narration in which Wa Thiongo re-inaugurates another level of struggle in an
imaginary post colonial country. The unnamed country
has just been out of a protracted guerrilla warfare that expelled the colonialists
from the Country. However, in the twist of events that soon followed, those who
actually prosecuted the independence war, upon their return, have nowhere to
call their home, in addition to the fact that they are now being labeled ‘enemies’
of the state. The new struggle, being led by Matigari
and other patriots, is to reclaim the country from imperialist agents so that
those who fought to build the country and the generality of the people may also
enjoy the fruit of their labor.
Signs and
Literary Meaning in Matigari
Our first attention will be on ‘the house’, and the extent of its
signifying power in Matigari. As is often said in legal parlance,
the house is ‘the cause of action’ in the story. We are told that Matigari, after returning from the forest, walks through
the length and breadth of the Country looking for the house, in order to
resettle his family. When he finally locates it, an elated Matigari
points at it and remarks: ‘that is the house for which I spent so many years
struggling against settler Williams’ (35). To his disappointment, however, he
is now being asked for ‘the title deed’ to the same house he had labored to
build. The house now belongs to a new owner (John Boy)! Therefore, it becomes only
necessary that ‘the builder demands back his house’. Perhaps one needs to
understand the associating descriptions to appreciate the importance of the
house. According to the novel, it is ‘a huge house’, and stretches out, ‘for
miles’. In addition, the property is fenced with a gate. Then, there are
adjoining pieces of land, with other landmarks in the surroundings such as ‘tea
plantations’ and a ‘road’.
However,
one is not to imagine this house as a single property out of many with easily
definable boundaries. To the extent that the house is so big, it must belong to
more than one person. Elsewhere in the text, the same house, also referred to
as ‘the property’, is said to now belong to ‘the local people of all colors—blacks,
brown and white’, having been given up by the colonialists. So, this,
certainly, is more than an apartment. Otherwise many races will not be linked
with it. Our perception of this situation in the novel therefore challenges us
to consider it in terms of a whole country. The author’s use
of images of ‘fences’ and ‘gates’ in the narration is purposeful. They
suggest, possibly, that a whole people are under a siege, or that the entire
wealth of a nation has been cordoned off, so to say! The claimant (in this case
Matigari) is not a selfish contender, believing that
‘the house’ is big enough to accommodate all his ‘people’.
We
now turn our attention to another semiotic resource in the text--.the Anglo-American Leather and Plastic Works
(8-9), which is a manufacturing
company. This factory alone, as a
sign, is not an end in itself. It is representative of something else. For
example, the bill board introducing
us to the company has all the writings written in ‘a red bold lettering’. Other
inscriptions on the bill board are ‘Private Property, No Way’. The security
guard is also wearing a ‘red fez’, while a ‘red tractor’ is sighted coming from
the factory. Similarly, ‘a wire fence’ ran around the compound, but the company
building itself is surrounded by ‘a wall of metal sheeting’, while ‘barbed
wire’ fenced the workers’ quarters.
The above
descriptions are signifiers and help readers to understand more the phenomenon.
To start with, everything about the company is an announcement of the
prevailing economic ideology. The emphasis on ‘private property’ is not just
about the company, but includes also the hired guard, who is even now wearing
the tag of ‘company property’. Thus, there is a propensity to private ownership
of everything, including humans. The pervading red colour
in the company’s environment speaks volumes about the philosophy of this
business outfit. Conventionally, most cultures equate red with ‘danger’ and
‘hostility’. So, everything about this business environment is evidently
hostile, rugged and unfriendly. Finally, one may also conclude from the
descriptions of the company as very highly fortified and protected with ‘barbed
wire’, ‘wall of metal sheeting’ and ‘wire fence’ as the author’s means of
exemplifying exclusiveness in the text. It actually means that only a few may
be accommodated by the prevailing socio-economic system.
Another signaling
object used in this novel is the mercedes benz car. The first mention of
Mercedes in the novel is when ‘a black man and a black woman’ are noticed in
the car with ‘a beer and soft drink’ (6).
This is one of the types of cars in use in the story. It is supposed to be
a very costly car and, owning it, according to Muriuki
is like ‘a ticket to heaven’. We learn that it is a luxury car that has such
fittings as air conditioner, window blinds, automatic window control buttons,
reclining seats, a little bar, stereo recorder and radio, to the extent that Guthera would liken it to ‘a house’. These features are
‘amplifiers’, to borrow from Barthes (1968).
In the narration, the
Mercedes car identifies the class to which one belongs. Notice that all the
cars parked at Eso-petrol Station next to the
Sheraton (a posh area) are Mercedes benzes.
Of course only people who are well-off are likely to entertain themselves with
such ‘luxuries.’ This is also similar to the assorted dry gins, brandies, and
soda water found inside one of the chambers of the seized Mercedes car
(122-129). To have a mercedes car in the story is to be
seen as very rich indeed. The car is a mark of opulence in the peoples’
estimation, and the tendency is to think that whoever drives one must be
influential, which is why Matigari is able to beat
neatly, all the police check-points after seizing the same type of car from the
minister’s wife and her lover. Sometimes, owners of Mercedes benz cars are fondly called the ‘mercedes people’. Therefore, being a car for the wealthy,
it is also the quickest way to identify the oppressors who ‘only shepherd money
taken from the workers’ (129).
Wathiongo’s use of the
garbage yard (9-10) also deserves analytical attention here. In the
narration, the site is designated for dumping all kinds of wastes from the
transnational company. It is ‘a huge hole fenced
around with barbed wire’, with two men guarding it. Among the heaps of rubbish
are pieces of strings, patches of cloth, shoe soles, rotten tomatoes, bones,
banana peels, sugar cane chaffs and every imaginable trash. An effluvium could
be perceived all over the place. As the children notice the red tractor
carrying the rubbish to the dump site, they begin to trail it, but around the
pit are not only the children, but also vultures, hawks and stray dogs
scavenging for some things that might still be useful.
The system is so
rotten, and this image is seen in the huge rubbish. The emitting stench is
perceived everywhere and affects a good number. There is a systemic decadence. Thus,
a corrupt system such as this is indeed a ‘garbage yard’. The fence around the
hole and the fact that certain charges are collected from scavengers, point to the
highest level of exploitation. The people are denied and deprived. The literal
translation is that the poorest of the poor have very restricted right of
entry, even to the worst things available. The oppressive tendencies and the
resulting mass poverty is so harsh and biting that the
dump site is now a common ‘dish’ for humans and animals.
CONCLUSION
From the outset up until this moment, this
paper has tried to project semiology as a useful framework in literary
analysis. It has been able to lay bare the meaning import of this approach, as
shown by the rich data that we have made use of from the two primary texts. It
is important to point out that there are many more of them that this paper
simply could not accommodate, for constraint of volume. All this goes to prove
that literary texts are constituted primarily by signs.
Again,
before we wrap this paper up, it is worthy of note that every literary text is
imagined in a cultural context where the different signs are mutually shared.
This implicates that, literary critics, in trying to apprehend issues in
various texts, also need to pay close attention to other possible meaning
indicators and how they interact with other textual features, in order to
realize their meaning potentialities to the fullest.
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