Narrating humanity to the African child: Deconstructing the hero figure in Naana J.E.S. Opoku-Agyemang’s Who Told the Most Incredible Stories (Vols 1-5)

Abstract

The figure of the hero is central to how cultures and societies construct themselves and articulate stable fundamental ethos. It is also a site of intense deconstruction because the figure of the hero is one way of normalizing or consolidating existing norms.  Yet, within the Ghanaian context, virtues and depictions of heroism are represented through the function of the trickster character. Drawing on Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth, the paper explores how traditional notions of heroism are subverted in J.E.S. Opoku-Agyemang’s Who Told the Most Incredible stories (Vols 1-5) through character foiling as a means of creating alternative forms of heroism. The paper shows that alternative models of greatness and/or heroism are encapsulated in values of community. The paper is significant in terms of the ways in which it echoes the role of literature in upholding and interrogating ideals of heroism in contemporary Africa and how literature contributes in thinking about new forms of subjectivities.