POINTS OF CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE IN KALU UKA'S A HARVEST FOR ANTS AND EMEKA NWABUEZE'S WHEN THE ARROW REBOUNDS

Abstract

Adaptation is one of the major sources of drama in Nigeria and dramatists of all generations in the country have not failed to explore it. Inter-genre adaptation (as against the intra-genre type) is one type of adaptation which some Nigerian playwrights have engaged in. Kalu Uka and Emeka Nwabueze are among the playwrights that have explored the inter-genre adaptation as demonstrated in their plays, namely, A Harvest for Ants and When the Arrow Rebounds respectively. The former was first performed in 1975 while the latter was staged to mark the 60th birthday celebration of the "Eagle on Iroko" (Chinua Achebe) in 1990. The two plays share the same source because they are derived from Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God.

This essay attempts to establish the points of convergence and divergence between Kalu Uka's A Harvest for Ants and Emeka Nwabueze's When the Arrow Rebounds since both of them derive from the same source material. In addition, an attempt is made to unravel the extent to which playwrights can go in the art of making prose fiction dramatic as exemplified in the two plays under discussion. The paper attempts to highlight the inherent differences and similarities in two different works based on one source as is the case with the adaptations of Chinua Achebe by Kalu Uka and Emeka Nwabueze under focus.