Rhetorics of Protest as An Emerging Perspective in Post-Colonial Literature: A Study of some Selected African Poetry

Abstract

This paper examines the rhetorics of protests in post-colonial writings using some selected African poems. It does this against the backdrop of post-colonialism as the umbrella theory; although Marxist theory is considered in empasse due to the context of protest in this work. The paper is thus discussed in the order of background of study, scope of study, problem of study, significance of study, theoretical framework, contribution to knowledge and of course the main body, which is the explication of the elements of protests in some selected poems of some African poets. Post-colonialism in the view of this study, is the theoretical approach which studies works of literature from the perspectives of “challenging the status quo”. Post-colonialism involves the critical view of all forms of artistic revolution against colonial imperatives, post-independence failures and neo-colonial tendencies in the writings of former colonised societies. It looks at such works from the perspective of the colonized rather than the colonial power. Bill and Griffiths (1989) view of post-colonialism is decidedly the dominant view in this study.