1.0 Introduction
This chapter introduces the focus of the research. It gives background knowledge of the study, defines the concept of literature, analyses its function and also the role of the writer in the society.
This study recognizes that when a writer creates a piece of work, they cannot be different to the nature of social relations in whose framework they create, because the writer is a human being living in a given social system. Literature becomes the means through which the writer tells people about the situation of things by creating awareness to the societies cultural, political and socio-economic realities.
Just as literature reflects the society, it also influences and shape society. Literature functions socially to maintain and stabilize the social order. The function of literature in the society is very crucial in the sense that it educates, mobilizes and even enlightens. Achebe (1965:22) agrees with the above when he states that:
‘The writer lives in a society and interacts with the Interaction enables him to take a critical view of the behavioral pattern of Individual within the changing social structure in the society’
In addition, literature reflects the people’s social condition. Literature cannot be divorced from the culture of the people because the values of a society are usually expressed in the people’s songs, dances, sculpture, rites and ceremonies.
It is important to state that no writer writes in isolation. The writer becomes the conscience of his society since anything produced by a writer is greatly determined by the environment and the time which the writer writes. The writer reflects the social problems and presents them depending on the perspectives with which he operates.
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