APOCALYPTIC RHETORIC IN AFRICAN LITERATURE: AN ECOCRITICAL STUDY OF ELECHI AMADI’S THE GREAT PONDS

The study explores the theme of apocalypse in Elechi Amadi‟s The Great Ponds. Apocalypse as a critical idiom envisions the world in an imminent danger of destruction end occasioned by violence. In Amadi's text being studied here, it is also occasioned by the brutality, pride and greed of members of both Chiolu and Aliokoro villages of Erekwi clan, leading to wanton destruction of lives and their environment. The study discusses millennial, secular and environmental aocalyptism as the three major classifications of the concept of apocalyptic rhetoric and asserts that the novel projects both the secular and environmental forms of the rhetoric. It links the apocalyptic vision of the novel to the war of the Great Ponds of Wagaba. The study avers that though the mention of the 1918
influenza is an intrusion that weakens the plausibility of an otherwise closely knit and convincing plot, it links the novel to the class of novel of environmental consciousness. The ecocritical approach adopted in the study of Amadi‟s The Great Ponds does not only inject a fresh reading of the novel, it also brings to the fore the relevance of both Elechi Amadi as a great writer and the novel as a narrative of environmental consciousness.