9 - Representations of War and Peace in Selected Works of Ben Okri

Summary

Introduction Ben Okri's works are often seen as quintessentially postcolonial or postmodern texts, but such terms may be said to “aspire to name the ocean.” The aim of this chapter is not to demonstrate whether Okri's works are postcolonial or postmodern; rather, the focus will be on one of the short stories, “Laughter beneath the Bridge,” and the novella Astonishing the Gods, with particular emphasis on the importance of language and naming in both texts and of (in)visibility in the novella. It is pertinent to recognize Robert Fraser's exploration of the intersection of naming, language, and violence in Okri's writings. Once people possessed

the tool of language … “they no longer understood one another. They broke into tribes. They had wars all of the time. And they moved away from the great garden that was their home.” … Language is the harbinger of violence. Most damaging is naming—the kind of language that takes aim and declares “I name this. This is mine.”

Okri's focus on the divisive effects of language in “Laughter beneath the Bridge” is in the context of the Nigerian civil war, when people are required to identify themselves through their language in order to determine whether they belong to the “enemy tribe.” Language, therefore, is linked to a person's ethnic identity. When ethnicity is a marker of difference that is used against the person concerned, it is obvious that difference is not a cause for celebration, as it is in so many postmodern discourses. On the contrary, Okri's short story reveals the far-reaching consequences when ethnic identity is used against people in times of war and conflict.

Since the publication of Ben Okri's first collection of short stories, Incidents at the Shrine (1986), it has been evident that war and conflict have become major subjects in his writings. Although the only archetypal war story in this collection is “Laughter beneath the Bridge,” the second collection, Stars of the New Curfew (1988), features three stories of war and conflict, namely “In the Shadow of War,” “Worlds that Flourish,” and “Stars of the New Curfew.” The novel Dangerous Love(1996) reconstitutes the Nigerian civil war through the memories of some of the major characters, who experience its traumatic effects. Because of the general violence of war and its aftereffects, Okri's writings project a grim and at times pessimistic perspective.