Lonely Days By Bayo Adebowale: Author’s Background, Plot, Theme and Setting

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bayo Adebowale hails from Adeyipo village in Ibadan, Nigeria. An astute literary scholar, he has written a lot of literary books which cut across the diverse sub-genres of literature. He is a novelist, poet, short-story writer and a librarian. DrAdebowale was a senior principal lecturer in English and former Deputy Rector of The Polytechnic, Ibadan. He is also the Founder/Director of the African Heritage Research Library (AHRL), which is the first rural community-based African studies research library in Africa. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Bells University of Technology, Ota.

PLOT ANALYSIS

The novel is about the plight of widowhood in African society. It is the story of Yaremi, whose beloved husband, Ajumobi, died suddenly after a brief illness.Yaremi hails from Adejipo. Ajumobi married her as a virgin. The couple lived Kufi, Ajumobo’s home town. It was a happy union. While other men maltreated their wives, Ajumobi spoilt his wife with love and devotion. The couple had three children namely, Segi, Wura, Alani

Since her husband’s death it has been lonely days and night for Yaremi. Only her little grandson, Woye, lives with her. Her daughters had all

EVALUATION QUESTIONS

1. What do you know about the author of Lonely Days?

GENERAL EVALUATION/REVISION QUESTIONS

Analyze the plot of the work.

WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT

1. “Here comes the princess, now heaven walls on earth”, illustrates the use of A. contrast. B. metaphor. C. metonymy. D. meiosis                                                                                                                                                                                                  
2. An ode is usually a poem written for A. condemnation. B. celebration. C. instruction. D. entertainment.
3. The main character in a literary work is the A. antagonist. B. protagonist. C. narrator. D actor.
4. A sonnet may be divided into an octave and A.  tercet. B. quatrain. C. sestet. D. septet.
5. “All hands on deck” is an example of A. metaphor. B personification. C. synecdoche D. simile

THEORY

Read the plot of Lonely days in Exam Focus and summarize it.

THEMES IN LONELY DAYS

THE AGONY OF WIDOWHOOD

Lonely Days relates the agonies of widowhood; it shows the effects of unjust widowhood rites and rituals on women. Yaremi, Fayoyin, Radeke and Dedewe all suffer maltreatment and deprivations because they are widows. The loss of a loved one is demoralizing on its own, adding unwarranted punishments to it is simply unreasonable. Widows suffer discrimination and marginalization. They are made to sing dirges and confess sins that they did not commit. Fayoyin, for instance, is made to lick libation and sing a dirge. The people sprinkle cold water on her head to make it easier for the barber to shave her hair. Fayoyin’s appearance is terribly altered after the hair-shaving episode. Dewede is also made to confess her ‘sins’;she is forced to sit beside her husband’s corpse inside a dark room.

The three widows during a visit to Yaremi tell her of how they sank deep into despair when they lost their husbands and how “a thick cloud gathered in our sky covering our earth in pithy darkness”. Widowhood in kufi, as in many other places, especially rural communities, means a loss of dignity and social status. Widows have many things in common, “they shed tears for the same purposes and laughed the same hollow laughter with the tip of their tongues”. They all look the same in their black widow’s garment. The widows state emphatically that they are “the subjugated people of the world with no hope and no security!”. They face societal restrictions and maltreatment. Widowhood dehumanizes and reduces the affected woman from a high pedestal of respect which comes with marriage to the butt of every joke and topic for gossip and romantic advances from unreliable suitors. Yeremi is pestered by Olonade, Ayanwale and Lanwa, each boasting of his great ability to meet all of Yeremi’s needs. Lanwa even tells Yeremi that he is entitled to Ajumobi’s human and material property because he is Ajumobi’s half-brother. The woes of widowhood are devastating.

LONELINESS AND SOLITUDE

The widow suffers loneliness and solitude; she is alone, from dawn till dusk, a castaway. Yaremi’scase is especially pathetic because her children are now adults and they do not live in Kufi. Segi lives with her husband at Olode; Wura with her husband at Apon; and Alani lives in Ibadan. Woye, her grandchild, whose company she enjoys, is soon taken away from her. Thus, for Yaremi, loneliness is a loyal companion.

To combat loneliness, Yaremi makes Woye, her grandchild, her companion. She tells him stories and they sing together. She also recalls her times with Ajumobi, both the good times and the seemingly bad moments. She recounts his care, his love and his tenderness. She tends his grave often. She even dreams about him.

Yaremi’sloneliness is heightened after her refusal to pick a cap at the cap-picking ceremony. The villagers after the incident begin to avoid her. They are reluctant to share pleasantries with her. Alani, her son that she had thought would stay back in Kufi and manage his father’s property, announces to Yaremi’s amazement that he is returning to the city.

Lonely Days is a testament to Yaremi’s loneliness and the fact tat lonely days still lie ahead of her. For Yaremi, there is no hope that the lonely days would ever end; she is nevertheless willing to face the days that lie ahead without fear or fright.

THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR

The narrative underscores the fact that if women would be empowered, they most have something doing, that is they must be engaged in a meaningful occupation. Yaremi, the protagonist, in addition to her taffeta business, has a farm. The narrative stresses the need for women to be hardworking and diligent at work. Yaremi can stand tall and face the men of Kufi because she is self-sufficient. She stands by her decision not to replace Ajumobi with any other man beacause the proceed from her work can cater for needs

Yaremi is forced to work alone. She does all the work, both the one that belongs to her gender and those that women are not supposed to in. she treks to long distance to her husband’s farm to uproot cassava root for her  goats. She dries maize in the sun. she makes and sells taffeta cloth, she threshes bean- seeds, tends cocoyam, stitches her old quilts, all without complaining. she is surprised when a woman remarks that she gradually becoming a man. Her hands are harsh from the hard labour she preoccupies herself with. Even her voice is becoming authoritative and sharp and her gait has become restive.

CHARACTERIZATION

1. Yaremi: yaremi is the heroine of the novel she once had a husband, Ajumobi, and three children. They are Segi, Wura and Alani. She is portrayed as a lonely woman in her early fifty. Though lonely, she is hardworking, generous and knows what she wants. The latter informs her decision not marry after the  death of her husband. At the end of the work, is ostracized from Kufi but determines to fight it out with her last blood.
2. Ajumobi: Ajumobi was the husband of Yaremi three children. The writer informs the reader that he died nine months before the narration begins. He was a hunter and farmer. He played the roles of a husband while he was alive. We see him as a talkative and a boaster especially when his drunk. Yaremi see his death as a good one but the villagers see it in the other way round. From the little we could harvest from his wife, he is a hardworking, devoted and compassionate husband.
3. Woye: Woye is the grandson of Yaremi and her mother is Segy. He is an innocent boy full of live and humour. He plays the role of a companion to the grandmother. The grandmother teaches him how to be hardworking  

EVALUATION QUESTIONS

1. Discuss two themes in the work.
2. Describe the main character in the work.

GENERAL EVALUATION/REVISION QUESTIONS

1. Describe the main character in the work.
2. Describe two minor characters in the wok.

WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT

1. “The star blinked and the wind wailed” is an example of _____

(a)  antithesis(b)  euphemism    (c)  metaphor    (d)  parody    (e)  personification

• Pick out the odd item from the following ____ (a)  comedy     (b)  octave     (c)  Quatrain    (d)  sonnet    (e)  sestet
• “United we stand, divided we fall”, illustrates the use of ____

(a) anti-climax(b)  antithesis    (c)  climax   (b)  irony    (e)  sarcasm

• The writer’s freedom to use words to suit his own purpose is called_____(a)  author’s freedom     (b)  author’s license    (c)  poetic freedom   (d)  poetic license (e)  writer’s license
• The expression, “Before Idi Amin breathed his last he admonished his children to shun violence” is a/an ____ (a) anecdote (b) metaphor (c) euphemism (d)    onomatopoeia    (e)  paradox

THEORY

Analyze Yaremi as the major character in the work.

SETTING

Lonely Days is principally set in Kufi, a village in south western Nigeria. Adeyipo village is another prominent village that features in the narrative. Adeyipo is a village in Akinyele Local Government Area of Oyo State and it is the author’s hometown. Within the context of this novel, the name ‘ Adeyipo’ is very symbolic and significant. ‘Adeyipo’ in the Yoruba language means the crown has gone round or around. From a symbolic level f interpretation, we can say that in this novel, the author uses the name to emphasize the point that the crown of peace and happiness that came with Yaremi’s marriage to Ajumobi was replaced with a crown of thistles, thorns and sorrow after his death.

The setting is a traditional one. All the characters, except Alani who lives in the city, are village dwellers. They follow and obey the dictates of their traditions and customs as enshrined in their cultural norms and values. Most of the events of the narrative take place in Yaremi’s home, as she is the protagonist of the novel. There are references to other places in Kufi village, such as the brook, the farm and the widow’s road. Another village of note in the narrative is Oyedeji village, where Yaremi and Woyetrek to, to sell their wares. It is also at Oyedeji that some people claimed to have sighted Ajumobi, after his death.

The temporal setting of Lonely Days is a post independent one, deducible from the description of Ibadan, where Alani lives, as a place where the people “cruised about in smuggled limousine and hire-purchase Mercedes Benz”. Although Kufi is a Nigerian community, it is quite unruffled by the whiteman’s civilization; it is  a village that is still at peace with the traditions and beliefs of its ancestors. The people are ruled by traditions and the waystheir forefathers handled situations; they believe in superstitions and they still sit outside their houses, on moonlit nights, to tell folktales.

As earlier noted, Lonely Days recounts the agonies of widowhood and the unjust rites that women are made to go through once they lose their husbands. Dewede, for instance, is asked to confess sins that she has not committed, Fayoyinis asked to lick libation “to purge her of all thieve sins they insisted thetoo had committed”. Radeke’s case is the same; she is cursed by the villagers who believe that her dirge is full of lies. Yaremi suffers thoroughly as widow. She dines with loneliness and wines with solitude. The pains of widowhood are many and gargantuan.

LANGUAGE AND STYLE

1. Diction

Lonely Days consists of fourteen chapters; it also contains an Entrance Verse, a poem of twenty-five lines preoccupied with the woes of widowhood. The language of the narrative is simple and easy to understand. There is the insertion of Yoruba words into the narration as a means of foregrounding the setting of the novel as a rustic, traditionally oriented village in the Yoruba speaking parts of South Western Nigeria. The novel features a rich vocabulary on traditional life, hunting, farming, dyeing, wood carving, flute playing and a host of others. There are also descriptions of various types of birds and animal that inhabit the animal kingdom and folk tales and myths in traditional societies. Many parts of the narrative feature a prosaic-poetic use of language.

• Point of view

BayoAdewale employs the third person omniscient point of view, whereby the narration is done not by any of the characters in the novel but by an outsider, who sees all and knows all. The narrator knows even the thoughts and plans of the characters. Thus, the presentation of the events are as perceived by a narrator who is not hindered by lack of sufficient information, but one who knows everything happening to the characters. The reader learns about the characters and their experiences from what the narrator says and what the characters say in dialogues, which are introduced to enliven the narrative.

• The use of the technique

Flashback is employed to supply the reader with information about what had happened in the past. Yaremi’scourtship with Ajumobi is known to the reader through the writer’s employment of flashback. Also Yaremi’s reminiscences are helpful in filling the gaps that exist in knowledge about Ajumobi who had died nine months before the narration of the story began. Other information about Yaremi’s childhood and business are provided through a flashback to those experiences.

• The use of suspense

Suspense is introduced to create an air of expectancy and curiosity in the reader. Woye’s sickness and the possible outcome are points of suspense in the novel. The reader desperatelyseeks to know if Woye would be well again. The cap-picking ceremony is also another suspense-filled episode in the novel. The reader is very interested in knowing whose capYaremi would pick; the reader shares the villagers’ surprise when Yaremi walks to the bench, stares at the caps, bows to the elders and walks away from the arena.

• The use of myths and folktales

Myths and folk tales are employed to enrich the story. The narrator tells of the myths and folk tales that are told in the village about the moon. There are also references to the stories of the tortoise who visited his in-laws’ house and “messed himself up with a mess of hot pottage in the sitting room right in front of his new life, Yanibo”; the proud antelope who lived a prince and who was eventually subdued by the hunter’s bullet; the hungry baboon who enlarged his flat nose as he tried to smell the aroma of the farmer’s wife’s melon soup; the greedy thief who died of constipation from the stolen corn that he ate and other stories about the hyena and the chicken

GENERAL EVALUATION

1. Analyze three main characters in the work
2. Discuss the role of women in the work.
3. Discuss the language of the work.

GENERAL EVALUATION/REVISION QUESTIONS

1. Discuss the use suspense in the work.
2. Discuss the style of the work.

WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT

1.   Repetition is usually used in literacy works to ____

(a) assess (b) emphasize (c)  exaggerate   (d)  expose   (e)  modify

2.   “She was found without her flower” is an example of ______

(a)  alliteration    (b)  allusion     (c)  apostrophe   (d)  metaphor   (e)  simile

3.   The figure of speech used in the statement “The village lost its beautiful structures, glory and its inhabitants to the inferno” is ____

(a) anticlimax (b) antithesis (c) climax (d) epigram    (e)  paradox

4.   “The child is the father of the man” illustrates the use of ______

(a)  exaggeration     (b)  metaphor     (c)  oxymoron    (d)  paradox     (e)  personification

5.   Rhetorical questions are used in literary works to achieve the following EXCEPT _____ (a)  creating awareness     (b)  drawing a point home      (c)  emphasizing a point

(d) jettisoning the writer’s position  (e) reinforcing a point

THEORY

Discuss the use of symbols and folktales in the work.