Literature, Psychic Re-Engineering And National Transformation: A Study of Ben Okri’s Dangerous Love

Abstract

The late Robin Williams, who played the role of John Keating, an English teacher in thefilm, Dead Poets Society, had told his students in one of his teaching sessions that nomatter what anybody told them, words and ideas changed the world. If indeed words andideas change the world, how does it happen? Is it possible to re-engineer human psyche?How can the whole body of a people’s culture be changed in a bid to transform them?What is culture? Since a text is made up of words and ideas, is it possible that it becomean agent of transformation? These are pertinent questions this paper seeks to answerusing Ben Okri’s Dangerous Love as a primary text. Qualitative method will be used inthe process of doing the paper to prove that indeed it is possible to re-engineer andtransform human psyche in the process of nation building, especially in Nigeria; and thatonce a cultured man or woman emerges, a healthy nation automatically evolves with hisor her emergence!