Toward an Interpretative ‘Destruction’ of Tewfik Al-Hakim's Fate of a Cockroach

Abstract

Like the cockroaches’ kingdom, Nigeria is plagued with enormous socio-political problems. Sadly, those who are saddled with the responsibility of providing solutions to the problems are bereaved of ideas on how to go about them. Accordingly, most of the studies on Al-Hakim’s Fate of a Cockroach have overtime been limited to the socio-political realities in Egypt. The use of language and metaphors in the play transcends various stunted interpretations. This paper attempts an interpretative ‘destruction’ of the play to demonstrate the powerlessness of ready-made concepts. It places the events in the play on the Nigeria canvas together with the idea of social reality in literature which the play symbolically captures. There is, for instance, the clueless king alongside his ministers who cannot proffer solutions to the daring problems of foreign dominance, food insufficiency, insecurity, and threat from the ants. The paper therefore highlights the leadership flaws of a nation. It underscores that for the healing of the nation, there is the need for an Epistocratic system of government in Nigeria and a world of communality like that of the ants, where discipline and leadership are practiced and everyone is significantly taken into account. This would result to an egalitarian society free from hollowness, absurdity, and vulgar crystallizations. Combining deconstruction and sociological theory of literature, the paper advocates for a change in attitude towards the capacious and yet subtle role of the author in our interpretation of the text.

Keywords: deconstruction, socio-political reality, interpretation, literature, metaphor

DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/13-3-04

Publication date: February 28^th 2023