Interrogating Sexual Preoccupations in Tanure Ojaide’s <i>The Activist</i>

Abstract

Discourse on Tanure Ojaide’s The Activist tends to concentrate on his preoccupation with eco-activism, ignoring other meanings generated by the silences in the text. This essay investigates an aspect of this silence – sexuality – to show its role in the novel’s plot and character development. Aspects of the psychoanalytical theory which give insight to the workings of sexuality are used to do a deconstructive reading of the text. Sexual interactions play a key role in The Activist. Plot and character development are, to a large extent, dependent on the characters’ understanding of their own and/or reactions to the sexuality of the significant others in their lives. The Activist therefore is a novel of sexual connectedness.

Keywords: sexuality, sex, gender, psychoanalysis, deconstruction.