Stylistic Tension between the Extension and the Intension of Meaning in Omondi Mak'oloo's Prose Texts

Abstract

A new critical study of Omondi Mak'oloo's Too Young to Die, Times Beyond and Love Made in Germany, confirms that these texts uphold tension between their extension and intension of meaning. We predicate this inquiry on the dearth of systematic research into Mak'oloo's prose. We have foregrounded tension, a new critical technical device that recuperates dialectically split textual elements to generate harmonized meaning ; this is a strategy that has been accorded hardly any substantive recognition in critical discourse on Kenyan literature. This thesis has heavily relied on library research for the critical terminology and theoretical models requisite for both the interpretation and contextualization of the primary texts within New Criticism and Stylistics. In this analysis, the first objective has been to trace the author's evolution from concern with popular themes and style, up to his latter pre-occupation with profound constructive issues. On the basis of this, we have demonstrated that Mak'oloo is not an entrenched popular writer. We have, as our second objective, applied New Criticism and stylistics to obtain a systematic study of Mak'oloo's prose not as "works" but as "texts". These approaches have availed thematic incisiveness and aesthetic beneficence. Lastly, we have made it evident that the paradoxically strategized extension and intension of meaning in this corpus does not disrupt but constructs textual tension. Our analysis begins with an investigation of Mak'oloo's Too Young to Die in which we delve into the unifying function of rhythm and relate it to the romantic ironic undertow to reinforce the tension between the extension and intension of this novel's meaning. This ultimate attainment of textually integrated wholeness through the cohesion of variegated levels of meaning is in keeping with the plea for a balanced and stable universe bereft of racial exclusivity in Times Beyond. We have seen that this central theme of the triumph of inter-racial harmony over powerful traditional forces of segregation is subtly projected as the transcendental ideal in Love Made in Germany. In all these texts the extensional meanings are lend extra-significance (internal meanings) by the romantic ironic undercurrent belying them. As a consequence, the most rewarding essence is that homologized from the dialectical splits in the texts. This thesis has redefined Mak'oloo as a senous writer based on his expanding stylistic sophistication and depth of moral inquiry. Our conclusion, is that a sustained analysis of literary texts reveals the paradoxical relationship between intension and extension : thematic intelligibility and aesthetic interestingness are only mutually generated through the harmonization of the binary oppositions of meaning into tension.