[Download] "Society Challenged: A Prostitute's Bravado in Okot P'bitek's "Song of Malaya" (Critical Essay)" by Kola " eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Society Challenged: A Prostitute's Bravado in Okot P'bitek's "Song of Malaya" (Critical Essay)
- Author : Kola
- Release Date : January 22, 2009
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,Professional & Technical,Education,Language Arts & Disciplines,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 55 KB
Description
Okot p' Bitek, the East African poet before his death in 1982--was able to publish among other works, four long 'songs' and a collection of his native Acoli love poems which he translated into English under the title, The Horn of My Love. However, of his songs, the most compelling and contemptuous of our kind of moral sense of propriety is "Song of Malaya." It is an ethical tour de force and a challenge to the moribund nature of our present society. For the first time, and to the amazement of the functionalist sociologist in particular and all those who subscribe to the supremacy of society over the individual in general, a single character and, for that matter, a prostitute--engages society in a moral combat and apparently is victorious. The protagonist of the long poem, "The Malaya", is a prostitute, who, in a fit of exasperation against the hypocrisy and cant of our modern African society, lashes out at all of its segments like a rebelling confidante. She not only attacks everybody but is able in the end to fling our entrails to the dust. The result is a work of vengeance on a society that loves nakedness in darkness, but at dawn hurriedly puts on a multiple--perforated cloak over its unholy body.