FACELESS – THEMES, TECHNIQUES
Theme of superstition
In the prose, the characters believed that certain spiritual phenomena affects the lives of people. Maa Tsuru is believed to have been cursed by her mother to suffer in life. She herself believed this including her husband and mother-in-law. More so, Onko, the character who raped Baby-T, is believed to have suffered setback in his business because of what he did to Baby-T. From a different perspective, the latter can be referred to as nemesis while the latter is a matrilineal curse. Curse is a fact and nemesis is too. Therefore, depending on one’s ideology towards life, the situation can be referred to as superstitious, curse or nemesis. Meanwhile, a scientific connection based on cause and effect cannot be established.
Theme of poverty
Maa Tsuru’s family exemplifies this. Maa Tsuru involves herself with men so as to have money at hand, her two sons took to the street at an early age to fend for themselves and the family, Baby-T’s prostitution was condoned because it fills the family’s coffers and Fofo engages in pick pocket to get money. All these indecent endeavors are precipitated by the state of squalor the family swims in. in our immediate real life society such is the case: most criminals, armed robbers and prostitutes have a story of abject poverty to tell. But that direction is deadly. We are called to learn from the lessons of Maa Tsuru and her family and stay away from such life. Patience and followership of good direction can change the life of a church mouse.
Theme of charity
MUTE teaches the world the need to help not just the physically disabled, but the financially and security disabled. The security agencies failed to look into the circumstances surrounding Baby T’s death and MUTE dived into that. When Poison went after Fofo’s life, MUTE gave her protection; seeing that she needs not just shelter and security, they trained her to fend for herself by taking her to a catering school. That alone is financial and academic empowerment.
Theme of humiliation of women
Maa Tsuru suffered negligence and rejection from men starting from her husband Kwei who abandoned her because she was cursed. Baby T was defiled by Onko and Kpakpo, and was sent into prostitution as a child. Poison attempted to rape Fofo. Most of the tragic events in the prose, fell on women. It is man’s inhumanity to man.
Theme of child abuse
The prose is filled with event of children being assaulted physical and sexually. Baby-T was raped by Onko and Kpakpo, and was beaten by Poison because she refused to sleep with Onko in the hotel for the second time. Her two brothers went into work life at every young ages which is harmful to their sense of self-esteem, worth and value.
Techniques used in the prose
- Narrative technique
The narrative style is straightforward. As the story revolves around Baby T, the author manipulates it to create suspense in the mind of the reader.
- Language
The diction of the prose is simple and quite understandable. Any layman can grasped the line of the story without much stress.
- Humor: this technique in a way creates a comic relief and is evident in the actions of Kabria:
-
- description of how her son Obea grows rapidly
- the conversation she overheard between two women on her way to Naa Yomo’s house
- Her experience of the blind woman that rained abuses on her.
- flashback/reminiscence
This technique was used when the fifteen years life experience of Maa Tsuru was narrated and when Naa Yomo told a story of her life up to when Maa Tsuru was born.
Litionary 