Excremental Vision: A Comparative Study of Swift's A Tale of a Tub and Soyinka's the Interpreters

Abstract

To read Swift's A Tale of a Tub and Soyinka's The Interpreters is to decode the meaning of excremental vision which Swift exploits by using excremental images to satirize the malpractices and wrongheadedness of British colonizers in Ireland and Soyinka to look at Nigerian government which is not different from white colonial administration. Swift's frequent movement from tale through digression to further digression and allusions refers to the lawlessness in the ruling of Britishers and its effect on learning, religion, rationality, and philosophy. Soyinka with images of shit and faeces hits at the cancerous effects of post-colonial hegemony in post-Independent Nigeria. His characters like Sekoni and Sagoe are disillusioned because of their project killed by the forces of corruption. His post-colonial project presents post-independent Nigeria of 1960s as same as white colonial administration since malfunctionings prevail as the legacy of colonial administration.