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be on logical competence, but also on imaginative powers and aesthetic sensibility.

He must not only be tactically clever, but must also be strategic. Ethically, he should be evidently courageous and resolute as well as clear-sighted about the rights of individuals to realize their potential. In essence, he should not only be strong willed, he must also be committed to presumably sound values. A flat character easily changes his mind. He is chronologically indecisive. He has a simple set of traits when he is faced with decisions. He ties himself in knots thinking of a host of pros and cons and ends up procrastinating his way into decisions, for example the car he intends to buy gets sold to someone else, the wife he intends to marry leaves in disgust and the two weeks of his holiday run out.

A static character is one that does not undergo an important change in the course of the story. He remains essentially the same at the end as he was at the beginning. He also remains cheerful, humble, easy going or, on the other hand, outgoing, bitter, resentful, cynical, suspicious and selfish. A dynamic character is the one who undergoes an important change in the course of the story. These are not changes in circumstances but changes in some sense within the character in question.

Change in insight or understanding (of circumstances, for instance) or change in commitment in values. The change (or lack of change at stake in this distinction is a change in the character (nature) of the character (functional figure). The protagonist undergoes a radical change in his self- identification. Whether this change is good, however, depends on whether we judge it to represent a ‗fall‘ or an achievement.

When a drastic change in one‘s circumstances (whether good or bad) might motivate a change in one‘s outlook in life. If it results in this sort of change, we are confronted with a dynamic character. The definition of characterization adopted for this work is that of Ukala (2012), while Baker (2000) classification of characterisation is also adopted for our analysis of characters.

2.8 Scholars’ perspectives on the use of language in the plays of Ola Rotimi

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relatively easy to understand as texts and in performance, Ola Rotimi‘s works are embellished with the use of proverbs. These proverbs express literal and figurative meanings and are very theatrical and popular with Nigerian English-speaking audience. Ola Rotimi winnows and selects words, phrases and images that run close to vernacular parlance. In the opinion of Ukala (2000:91), Ola Rotimi tempers the phraseology of the English language to suit ―the ear of both the dominant semi-literate as well as the literate classes, ensuring that his dialogue reaches out to both groups with ease in assimilation, clarity and identification‖. This results in an adventurous brand of English which assimilates the flavour tones, rhymes, emotional and intellectual content of (indigenous) language and thought (Ukala (2000:91, Osanyin 1983:4-5, Ogunbiyi 1981:35 and Adelugba 1978:217).

The gods are not to blame, Kurunmi and Ovonvamwen Nogbaisi were written predominantly in this indigenized brand of English. The plays are peopled mainly by traditional elders and aristocrats, who are illiterate and whose indigenous speech patterns Rotimi recaptures in the English language. Since the speech pattern is structured in the traditional cultures represented in his major plays (for example he portrays Yoruba culture in The gods are not to blame and Kurunmi) while he portrays Edo culture in Ovonramwen Nogbaisi), speakers of Yor6bq and Edo languages identify with the English in the plays. Apparently, Rotimi reserves indigenized English, enriched with proverbs, poetry and analogies, for pro-classical tragedies with traditional cultural settings and personages. However, that brand of English does not feature in If… a Tragedy of the Ruled, which has cosmopolitan setting and characters and no tragic hero in the classical sense.

We shall give an example of indigenized English, which derives partly from what Rotimi calls ―imagistic simplification‖ (Rotimi 1991b:28) In The gods are not to blame, there is this exchange:

Odewale: I cannot name names Chief: Why not?

Odewale: All Lizards lie prostrate: how can a man tell which Lizard suffers from bellyache? (P.25)

All speeches in the said tragedies are not written in the parlance just exemplified. This parlance is used mainly by elders in formal discussions. It drops at

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urgent and informal moments. It is also hardly used by woman and children, who are seen as presumptuous if they address elders in adages and parables. Furthermore, the white men who appear in Ovonramwen Nogbaisi and Kurunmi do not use language in that manner. Yet it is used frequently enough to give the plays a prevalent and distinctively indigenous linguistic ring. The ingenuity, humour and beauty of the manner of speaking never cease to fascinate the Africans. The challenge of decoding it never fails to engross his African audience.

Idiophone and non-verbal expression also occur freely in Rotimi‘s plays. They are readily identified with by his audience. In the cultures portrayed by him, these devices are commonly employed. Noss (1972:75) describes the idiophone as:

a descriptive word that, unlike the verb (which merely) creates an emotion, creates a picture; it is sensual, enabling the listener to identity a feeling, a sound, colour, texture, expression movement for silence through his own senses. The idiophone is poetic; it is in the purest sense imagery.

The idiophone is not, however, a ‗word‘ in the lexical sense, like onomatopoeia. Rather, it is a sound, the meaning of which depends on its context. It may be a dispensable addition to a complete sentence, but with the important function of making the sentence clear, as in these examples: ―when una talk munumunumunu finish make una fin me come for my house‖ (Our husband p.68). ―Master, why are you biting people yaun yaun like that, this evening?‖ (Hope of the living dead: p.79).

Each of the idiophones, like imagery, inspires in the Nigerian a vivid mental picture of its referent, with its full nature and import. According to Ukala (2000:97),‗munumunumunu‘ creates the silhouette of comparators engaged in a hushed talk that will come to naught. ‗Yaun yaun‘ recalls the threatening snaps of a distressed dog‘.

Ukala (1990) suggests that a qualifier might be replaced with the idiophone.

For example, ―By dat time… Your Betty go done old kune-kuje, kuje-kuje‖

(If….p.22), or a group of words as in, ―they were returning from Ilorin in peace not troubling anybody‖. All of a sudden: ―gbam gbam, gba!‖ (Kurunmi p.53). ―Kune-kuje, kuje-kuje‘ is a substitute for ―well-well‖ (Nigerian Pidgin for ―very well‖) while

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gbam…gbam… gha gha gha is a substitute for ―they were attacked with guns and machetes. In the transmission of the folktale by print, the use of the idiophone helps in capturing ―traditional linguistic flavour‖ which is a crucial determinant of the authenticity of translation (Ukala 1990:297). The same function is served by the idiophone in Rotimi‘s plays. By adding the idiophone to his African phraseology of the English language, Rotimi enhances the authentic ring of his work, which inspires the African audience to identify with it.

Another important use of language in Ola Rotimi‘s works is the use of polyglotism, which involves the use of many traditional languages in the play (Rotimi 1991a:28). This feature occurs remarkably in Hopes of the living dead and If (…) Here is an example from If (…)

Mama Rosa: Dis na my broder way I go bail now – now for Police station, Sah, Dem catch am for fishing port say eno pay tax (…) Banji: I see: what really happened?

Mama Rosa: (...) Moiku uko o pirii (….) Fisherman: Duko o piri, yeri njibabo Mama Rosa: He say him be fisherman Fisherman: Tarri da so njibabo

Mama Rosa: Hm papa na fisherman (….) (pp.25-26)

This is the beginning of the fisherman‘s story to Banji which covers two pages and a half. According to Ukala (2000:98), ―using polyglotism, Rotimi attempts to solve a linguistic problem apparent in his earlier plays and one which confronts many African creative writers (…)‖ When a character who is proficient only in the English language and another one proficient only in a given indigenous language are engaged in a dialogue, they have the problem of communication. Another example of polyglotism is the interaction between Okavbiogbe (the chief security officer of Benin) and Philips (the British Vice-Consul) with Idiaghe his Benin-born guide (Ovonranwen Nugbaisi, pp.29-30).

Rotimi also adopts a strategy in which there is audience participation in the action. He allots a feature of mannerism to Madam Ajanaku in Our husband has gone mad again “No more no less‖. In the view of Ukala (2000), in performance, after Ajanaku has said it once or twice, the audience, in keeping with traditional practice,

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joins her in completing it each time it recurs in her subsequent speeches. What we then get is.―Madam Ajanaku: No more. Audience: no less‖ (p. 68). The same feat is achieved when one of Rotimi‘s characters directs a question to the audience, for example, Man wey carry Ogbono soup-pot for hand, and di man way carry foo-foo for head, na who go fin who (Our husband, p.68).

The review above confirms that the major concern of the playwright in his works is to reach out to his Nigerian audience. A non-Nigerian audience of his texts may not appreciate the beauty embedded in his use of language.