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How to do a Neo Critical Analysis: Using Mum Money and I by Odunayo Àjàní. Picking up a children's book, one often just randomly discards it as a bedtime storybook or just simply, kids' book that is not worthy to be read and examined.  For instance, one neglects the "how" and the "what" of how a texts is structured.  Reviewing children's literature, as such, is seen as something mediocre and mundane to the study of contemporary literature. Why is this so? Literary critics tend to focus on analysing literary texts based on how important they relate to everyday issues plaguing adulthood.  Thus one can ask the question, "are children literatures worthy of critical analysis or review?" One can answer yes; this answer is based on what the text is about and how important it is to scholarly study. Therefore, the text to be examined, which is a children's literature genre, focuses on financial intelligence education for children. With its subject ...

When Odion Ighalo's Manchester United's loan deal ends on the 30th June, 2020, would he make his deal permanent or go back to his parent club? Playing at the Theatre of Dreams has always been a dream for Odion Ighalo. Right now, as a player in the Theatre of Dreams, he is living his dreams.   I wouldn't want this sleep cut short into a nap. That is what Shanghai Shenhua (his parent club) is about to do with his new offer. Ighalo is being offered a new deal worth 400,000 pounds per week. The thirty-year old took a pay cut in order to play in Manchester United; a club he supported as a child. He agreed a 40% wage reduction from his £300,000 a week.  Let us do the maths: 40% of £300,000 = £120,000.  Thus, £300,000 - £120,000 = £180,000.   The Nigerian International earns £180,000 weekly at United. Such a price we pay for our happiness.  The sun isn't going up for Ighalo's career as a professional footballer (Except he is Zlatan Ibrahimovic). These are the factors h...

A SANDAL ON THE HEAD (Analysis) This poem has the lyrical characteristics of African orality. It is not written in the regular English poet’s literal form of writing. Kwesi Brew employed the use of proverbs and African adage to paint the poem with beautiful and colourful imagery. The features are metaphors embedded with African proverbs. Examples of these imagery are evident in: The broken cannot be made whole! The strong had sheltered in their strength The swift had sought life in their speed, The crippled and the tired heaped out of the way These statements are more than witty statements. Moreover, what this excerpt also mean is that things are seemingly not going the proper way. Perhaps the economy or political structure is defunct. The broken cannot be made whole will mean that things have been destroyed beyond reparation. That things have totally fallen apart. As a result of this hardship, only the strong, favoured, fortunate and opportune are able to endur...

VANITY (Analysis) Vanity is Birago Diop’s way of expressing the frustrations of Africans after colonization. During, and after, colonization, eurocentrism was rampant. Eurocentrism  is the act of accepting and digesting the European culture hook sink and liner while neglecting one’s (local) culture and tradition. The contact with the French and British made many Africans neglect their tradition and culture in order to dress, speak and appear like the Europeans. Colonialism further contributed to this issue because the European education, government and mode of education became what was required in the administration. These are the issues that if the poet persona should start to narrate, who will hear them without first laughing at them? If we tell, gently gently All that we shall one day have                          to tell Who then will hear our voices            ...

A Critical Analysis of “IT ALL STARTED WITH THE CONVERSION” by Phakamile Yali-Manisi. This poem is about the style in which Africans were colonized by the Europeans. It is about the subtle ways in that imperialism was injected into the systems of Africans, and how Africans were subtly ideologically conditioned through religion.  It is stating the root cause of the present dilemma that Africa encounter in the present day. That the problems of Africa today began with the conversion. The conversion from the African belief into Christianity. Hence Manisi provides detailed information on the description of the European clergy. With the use of vivid imagery and metaphor, the clergy’s “costume” and their hidden functions were described in the poem. It is in this vein that Achebe stated that: The white man is very clever, he came quietly With his religion. We were amused at his foolishness And allowed him to stay. Now he has won our Brothers. Our clan can no longer act like one...

Breaking Kolanut Breaking Kolanut is a poem about paying obeisance to a personality that is revered. This can be rephrased in another way to mean that it is a poem of greeting. It would be strange to one is not Igbo (or African) to decipher why breaking Kolanut is solely about greeting. This supposed strange phenomenon can be explained thus: breaking kolanut is a traditional act of greeting and welcoming someone in the Igbo community. Being the title of the poem, it aptly alludes to the Igbo traditional classic mode of greetings and hospitality, of which a piece of kolanut is halved by the host before it is handed over to the guest to take a bite. This mild ceremony means that the visitor is acknowledged and welcomed. Also, between men Gods, kolanuts are broken too. Men break Kolanuts before conversing with their Gods in their different shrines. What this poem entails is the act of greeting (or breaking kolanut) recorded orthographically. In this poem, the poet persona is ack...

Manchester United has signed Odion Ighalo on a six month loan deal. Odion Ighalo who rejected a bid from Barcelona because starting games was not guaranteed has been signed by the Red Devils with a weekly wage of 300,000 pounds a week. Ighalo posted, after the deal, on his Twitter account that he serves a living God. The thirty year old's contract might be made permanent at the end of the season. He has also made history by being the first Nigerian to play for Manchester United. Here are what some Nigerians said on Twitter about the deal: Mbah has said it all by converting Ighalo's weekly wages in pounds into Naira. Ighalo is making a fortune already.

According to Chinua Achebe, as stated in the Author’s biography, “Come Away my Love” is a love poem. It is a love poem about the trials and tribulation of a love affair between a black man from Kenya and a white woman from England. Analogously, it is about the embodiment of altercations experienced in an inter-racial relationship. That is, this will be the same issue encountered by an Asian espoused to a European/American, or an Indian alongside an African. Being a love poem, the title of the poem gives a hint about the typical lovers’ activities. They come away from the public eyes into a secret/romantic environment where there love, affection and energy can be optimally consummated. However, another meaning can be derived from this title. The meaning that can be derived is that the persona is asking his lover to rendezvous at a secret location away from the society that has proven counterproductive towards their love. The society has been an inhibiting factor for their love be...

JOSEPH KARIUKI’S BIOGRAPHY. A lot of commentary is written on his existence on earth, but just a little was mentioned about his birth, death, Alma Matter and about his existence. The little that is known about him states that he is a Kenyan, born in Banana Hill. He is educated both in Kenya and abroad: at Makerere and Cambridge.  He is popular for his famous poem which is an ode to the former Kenyan president, Jomo Kenyatta.   However, nothing was said about his date of birth, parents, marriage, occupation and his childhood. Chinua Achebe’s comment about Kariuki goes thus: that he has met Joseph Kariuki through his poems, especially through his love poem “Come Away my Love”.  He opined that the poem is about the trials and tensions of an African in love with a white girl in Britain.

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION ABOUT WHAT THE POEM ENTAILS. This analysis mirrors the interpretation of Tanure Ojaide’s “The Fate of Vultures and Other Poems” as a text that functions as a conduit of vituperation. What this means is that writers often turn to their crafts (in this case, poetry) to voice their opinion on prevalent issues in the society. This is possible because writers such as Ojaide are categorized among writers with a social conscience. Tanure Ojaide is a poet who cares deeply for the people (especially, the masses) in his society. He cares about the plight of the poor, the uneducated, the un-exposed, the less priviledged and victims of numerous societal injusties. This analysis endeavors to exemplify the areas that the poet, in this collection, expresses his social conscience nature. Certain poems in Ojaide’s “The Fate of Vultures and Other Poems” would be interpreted in line with the theme of a writer with a social consciousness, and as a writer that is an activist...

Modern African Poetry Modern African poetry, or literature, is not only modern in terms of being recent. It is termed modern because it is not traditional African poetry, or literature, and because it is pro and post independence in some region, and because it is recent. Moreover, certain uniform traits exists among poems, and literature, in this era. Some of these traits, features, characteristics or attributes are evident in their forms and contents. Examples of them are: syntactic jugglery, imagism, fragmentation, neologism, allusiveness, among others. They are also termed Modernist poetry because most of these poets imitates the techniques of the European Modernist poets too. From North Africa down to South Africa, poems in the early 19th century were mostly either written against oppression, imperialism, colonialism and apartheid. The poets who wrote against colonialism and imperialism, the first set, are regarded as the pioneer poets. Examples are Wole Soyinka, Christo...

Perlocutionary Acts The perlocutionary acts here will be considered according to the effect the data have on the readers. This therefore will prompt one to consider if a datum is a promise, order, bet, persuading, encouragement and so on. These are examples of some of the elements that will be examined in the data below. Datum 1: Discover scented skin that turns heads! One can suggest that this datum depicts order due to the fact that it instructs the reader to behave in a certain. This simple clause is written in a such a way that it is used to compel the reader to choose the product. Another thing one can deduce is that the word 'discover' and the exclamation help one to deduce that this cause is giving order. Datum 2: Keep your braids or weaves neat everyday within 3weeks of use. This datum can be asserted to have a promise a perlocutionary acts. The writer promises the reader  that the product will help to keep the weaves and braids if the reader neat up to three we...

FANTASY VERSUS REALITY: SOME MISCONCEPTIONS IN SOCIAL MEDIA Fantasies are thoughts that spawn from one’s imagination that is they are not real, material or concrete. Reality forms the existential events and surroundings around us; this simply puts means that reality deals with what we feel, embrace and what we can get. Fantasy dwells on living in one’s head or thought. Fantasy relies on fictitious events that one may want to happen but is not taking place. It is a shift from reality and as such tends to dull the senses of a person due to its intriguing aspect. It can be suggested that fantasy is the same thing like drugs; this is due to the fact like drugs releases dopamine (the pleasure hormone to the brain).  Reality which dwells on actual events tends to pass information of what is really happening.  Let us begin with a story in Chuang Tzu’s For the All Things. “Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and p...

Words are added to the English dictionary constantly, everyday, due to writers giving themselves freedom to capture their thoughts; thus, they take liberty in creating new words. This is due to the fact that the English language is the most spoken language in the world. As a common language used among humans, therefore it calls for users to make words to convey or reveal their meaning so as to express themselves evenly. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society  (as cited in Salzmann, 1993, p. 153). Thus, one can sense the importance why new words need to be created. This attitude easily gives English the advantage to have more lexicons than some other languages. There are four different levels of linguistics, and these levels are: phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The bra...

Words are added to the English dictionary constantly, everyday, due to writers giving themselves freedom to capture their thoughts; thus, they take liberty in creating new words. This is due to the fact that the English language is the most spoken language in the world. As a common language used among humans, therefore it calls for users to make words to convey or reveal their meaning so as to express themselves evenly. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society  (as cited in Salzmann, 1993, p. 153). Thus, one can sense the importance why new words need to be created. This attitude easily gives English the advantage to have more lexicons than some other languages. There are four different levels of linguistics, and these levels are: phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The bra...