Education of the Deprived: Anglophone Cameroon Literary Drama

Chapter Four. Bate Besong – The Conscientisation of the Public

55 Chapter Four Bate Besong – The Conscientisation of the Public W hile Bole Butake and Victor Epie Ngome can generally be classified as writers of traditional drama, Bate Besong, in this chapter, and John Nkengasong, in Chapter Five, belong to the modernist tradition; for Besong’s and Nkengasong’s works reveal influences from the Theatre of the Absurd. Therefore, to better appreciate what they have done it is appropriate to first attempt a definition of the peculiar dramatic convention that has inspired them. We must, however, grant that to understand the concept of Theatre of the Absurd, a brief definition of it would hardly do. To have a working knowledge of it we must situate it within the intellectual and cultural history of Western civilization, for the Theatre of the Absurd came about as a consequence of scientific and industrial achievements as well as the spiritual malaise of that civilization. And this concerns the period known as Modernism, which is roughly from the beginning of the 20th century to the turn of the present century. But the spectacular scientific and industrial breakthroughs that became evident in the 20th century had begun earlier, around the middle of the previous 19th century. That science and industrialism had brought a great deal of benefits to Western societies, there is no denying it. But they had their negative effects too; for if these twin aspects of modernism were a boon, they were also a bane. Until the 19th century Western traditional values and assumptions had been fairly stable, but beginning from the middle of the 19th century some of them began to break down owing to scientific discoveries and the questioning and sceptical scientific method. Charles Darwin’s revolutionary theory of natural selection as expatiated in The Origin of Species (1859) and other biological discoveries stood opposed to the biblical creation myth; that is, they held the view that the world did not come about as a result of instant divine creation as narrated in the book of Genesis. Geological discoveries revealed that the world was a dizzy five billion years old rather than just thousands of years as previously believed. 56 Education of the Deprived: Anglophone Cameroon Literary Drama In the area of psychology Sigmund Freud’s clinical discoveries in the field of psychoanalysis made outstanding revelations showing that man was essentially an irrational being whose personality was dominated by irrational impulses held in check in the unconscious by the ego. This was a blow to man’s dignity. These findings and revelations shook the foundation of previously stable Western beliefs and assumptions. Hence the spiritual malaise. In the words of Douglas A. Hugh despite the positive achievements by science it has inadvertently contributed to the crisis of spirit in the modern world by destroying or weakening long held beliefs and values. More than anything else science has been responsible for the «death of God» and the arrival of nihilism, that peculiar spiritual sickness of our time that sees emptiness and meaninglessness at the core of life (Hugh 1974:143). Zarathustra, the central character in Nietzsche’s fictional work Zarathustra (1883) had declared that «God is dead». According to the story, as summarized by Martin Esslin, Zarathustra who had come down from the mountain to preach to mankind met a holy hermit living in the forest. This holy man tried in vain to persuade Zarathustra to remain with him in the forest. And when asked how he passed his time, the hermit replied that he spent his time composing songs which he sang; and that when he made up songs he laughed, he cried and he growled, thereby praising God. Sometime later, away from the man of God, Zarathustra wondered aloud to himself: ‘can it be possible! This old saint in the forest has not yet heard that God is dead!’ (Esslin 1983:399) To many people the ‘death of God’ means the universe is without what was considered its ‘centre and its living purpose’ (Esslin, Ibid); it means the world is deprived of a general unifying principle that has fallen apart. Without God the World is without ultimate certainties; it has become purposeless, meaningless, absurd. Eugène Ionesco, himself a dramatist of Theatre of the Absurd, defines ‘Absurd’ as ‘that which is devoid of purpose … cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless’ (Esslin:23). Moreover, 57 Chapter Four...