CONSTRUING INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND MENTAL PROCESS IN TANURE OJAIDE’SSTARS OF THE LONG NIGHT(2012)

Abstract

This research work aims at correlating the interpretation of interpersonaldimensions and mental (perceptive, cognitive and affective) process in some passages culled from Stars of the Long Night (2012) by one Nigerian contemporary writer, namely, Tanure Ojaide. To deliver the above-set objective, it has been necessary to adopt a mixed method research whichenablesto generate the analysed data. The findingsrevealed by the combination of these two linguistics features (Interpersonal meaning and mental process) are discussed against the backdrop of gender identity. The discussion detects that by drawing on the heterodiegetic nature of the narrator, Ojaide has described and portrayed the social and cultural situations in Agbon community. The writer has, through characters like Kena and Oyeghe, shown how female characters, thereby, African women as a whole, are of golden importance in aforementioned for their community. More importantly, the writer’s predominant use of declarative mood has shown the women’s determination to assist Kena (protagonist) to wear the Oni-edjo mask. The various proportions of mood and modality show some kind of power and authority shift with the emerging paradigm about the festivity and the interpersonal (which in fact does not affect love) between Oyeghe and Obie. It can be overtly deduced that unlike Soyinka, Tanure Ojaide is a prowomanistwriter