REFLECTING THE METAPHORICAL USE OF RAPE IN KUNLE AFOLAYAN'S OCTOBER 1ST FILM

Abstract

Accounts of trauma date back as early as 2000 BC. Trauma can manifest in different ways depending on one's psychological makeup, cultural background, and the nature of the traumatic event. Before Nigeria's independence, the nation was ripped of personality, culture, and pride by the invasion of the colonial masters. Giving an account of such trauma experienced by people who were deceptively ripped of their values and cultures by the coming of the colonial Europeans to the country requires the use of strong and heart-rendering images that can vividly present the experiences to create the emotions and an in-depth understanding of the effect of the loss and violation of the people in the mind of the audience. This is what Kunle Afolayan did by adopting the use of rape as a metaphor to drive home the unsuspected act of the violation of peace, culture, and dignity perpetrated by colonialism in the country especially the Yoruba race before independence on October 1st. This work answers the questions of the true intentions of the colonial masters' invasion and the effects of the invasion on the colonized by reflecting on the use of rape in the film as a method of narrating the people's story. The traversals between 'male' and 'female' to discourse the stories of colonialism and the valences of traumatic sexual symbolism of colonialism is indubitably implied in Afolayan's Nigeria independence story in his October 1st (2014) film written by Tunde Babalola. This paper adopts George Lakoff 's conceptual metaphor theory to reflect on the metaphorical use of rape in narrating the effect of colonialism in Nigeria as represented by Akote a Yoruba race as an act of violation of the country before independence.