LE NARRATEUR NAIF ET LA NARRATION DANS LE PAUVRE CHRIST DE BOMBA DE MONGO BETI ET DANS UNE VIE DE BOY DE FERDINAND OYONO : UNE ETUDE COMPAREE

ABSTRACT This thesis seeks to identify the narrators and narrative skills the two writers, Ferdinand Oyono and Mongo Beti used in their books, Une vie de boy and Pauvre Christ de Bomba respectively, to achieve their objectives. Naïve narrators recount events plainly as they unfold not being conscious of the effect of what they say and are hence used by writers to achieve their objectives of informing and educating their readers. Matured, they would be careful with the narration of events of a story, often using euphemism and idioms to attenuate effects that would have been created by their narration. This work seeks to find out the effects of the naivety of the narrators on the narration as well as on the objectives of the writers. Critically reading through the two books, we discovered that the novelists intentionally used innocent narrators to tell their stories. Notwithstanding the similarities in the way they used the narrators, there are differences identified among which one could cite that, whereas the narration in Une vie de boy is one within another narration, that in Le Pauvre Chris de Bomba was started with the main narrator of the story. Innocent narrators were handled skillfully and effectively through the pages of the novels and through direct, scenic, flashback, prolepsis, and analeptic narrations, among others the writers succeeded in revolting against the colonial masters and colonialism as they sought at the same time to promote black culture. The naïve narrators and the narrative styles adopted allowed the writers to enter the private and secret life of the colonial masters to know them very intimately as individuals with weak moral characters, though in group they looked strong.