CONCURRENT MEDIATED LITERARY RESPONSE TO INTERNAL SECURITY CHALLENGES IN ELNATHAN JOHN'S "BORN ON A TUESDAY"

Abstract

Literature is not taken as seriously as it ought to be. Most people tend to think that all literature is mere fantasy "stories" to be read or listened to, to while away time, and therefore it is nothing other than entertainment fit for the idle. This has been so since the invention of creative fiction. Over the centuries however, and with the emergence of African creative fiction, which came at the time of struggles against colonial domination, literature was put to more functional use than mere entertainment. Through a thematic analysis of Elnathan John's novel, Born on a Tuesday, the paper intends to show how literature can be, and has been, put to such serious use as the concurrent mediated response he adopts as a means of combatting of insecurity in Nigeria. The study also proposes how literature in its various forms such as drama, film, and music can, in all their subtle ways, be used to solve internal security challenges.