Functions of Secondary Texts in the Depiction of Characters in Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and The Jewel and Olarotimi’s Ovonramwen Nogbaisi
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Abstract
Drama texts have both dramatic and narrative elements, which are presented in the primary and secondary texts of a written play. This study examines the narrative role of the secondary dramatic texts in the portrayal of characters in Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel and Ola Rotimi’s Ovonramwen Nogbaisi. The study adopts the School of Poetic Drama’s theory of Narratology to explore the narrative function of secondary texts in written drama. Through a textual analysis of the secondary texts of the two plays, the study has shown that stage directions, speech prefixes, stage props and stage set, expose deeper dimensions to characters’ actions and reactions in the selected plays. It concludes that, close reading and interpretation of the secondary texts in the plays provides important information on character development, motives and traits, which contribute to in-depth understanding on the characters. The study contributes to existing knowledge on characterization, which are based essentially on the primary texts of the plays.
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