Imagery And Animal Symbolism In Chigozie Obioma’s The Fishermen

Abstract

This study is a literary analysis of Chigozie Obioma’s The Fishermen. It investigates the use of animal symbols, imagery and the effectiveness of journey motif as part of imagery in the text. The study identifies symbols and imagery the author deploys in the text to add a deep layer of meaning. I observe that the animal symbols and images the author uses in the text reveal the underlying animosity amongst various tribes and communities in Nigeria. However, the author seeks to unearth the underlying problem and expose colonialism as the onset of destabilized communities in Nigeria. The use of a family tragedy is a strategy the author uses to capture the reader’s imagination, draw a vivid imagination and bring to consciousness the ills committed by colonialization and poor leadership that has galloped post-independence states to a state of violence and anarchy. I argue that through the images of Father, Mother, Ikenna, Boja, Obembe and Ben, Obioma displays the real image of Nigeria's political wrangles and it affects the societies. Through Ikenna and Boja's unending fights the novel reveals the unending ethnicity and tribalism in Nigeria. However, through Obembe and Ben the novel suggests hope to the nation as the two young boys struggle to find a solution to the causes of the family defragmentation. Additionally, I link the journey motif and emblems as ways of reflection of self-taken by the narrator to us the readers to embark together with the characters as we read. The narrator, through the writer, engages us into an additional journey of reflection and introspect not only on the short fallings of the fictional characters but also our own. By so doing the purgation of the ails and ills of the characters are understood from an oneiric in understanding the fictional characters. I argue that by looking at the imagery and the symbolism in The Fishermen, Obioma invites us to defamiliarise the old and understand the standing of not only Nigeria but our countries and continents as well. This creates a journey of space as well as time from the pre-colonial to the colonial, independence and post- post-independence