Character Naming and Authorial Attitudes in Contemporary African Literature.

Abstract

One of the overt characteristic features of written literature, especially contemporary African literature, is character naming or labeling. Character naming, as the name implies, is a process whereby a writer names or labels his/her characters. The name given to a character (male or female) in a literary text often serves a specific function. Of course, the function of a given name is mediated by the choices its bearer makes (or someone else makes on behalf of its bearer) in the language system. In this sense, the analysis of language can be argued to unveil the roles a character plays as well as the attributes and traits s/he evinces in context; the roles as well as the attributes and traits, as believed, often exude the semantic import or meaning (or content) of the name the character bears. It can also be contended to reveal such aspects as gendered identities and social relations in social practice (McConnell-Ginet in Holmes and Meyerhoff, 2003). Anchored on theoretical insights from literary onomastics, gender studies and linguistics, this paper aims to explore how Amma Darko names or labels her male characters in four of her fictional works, viz. Beyond the Horizon (1995), The Housemaid (1998), Faceless (2003) and Not Without Flowers (2007). The analysis also highlights the authorial attitudes, perceptions and biases vis-à-vis the characters. The findings reveal that Darko obviously demeans the male image via the narrative technique of character naming in that the male characters are literally or/and rhetorically depicted through names and naming labels as well as roles, attributes and traits that denote or/and connote negative semantic imports or onomastic implications.

Keywords: Character naming, contemporary African literature, literary onomastics, male-dominated setting, male image.