Exploring Juvenal’s Themes in Ahmadou Kourouma’s Allah is not Obliged

Abstract

This article discusses how issues of corruption, injustices, exploitation and conflict emerge as key in the works of Ahmadou Kourouma. A reading of Kourouma’s oeuvre reveals that he lampoons the general attitudes of African leaders who capitalise on their positions to exploit the masses. This study attempts a manner of using some selected Juvenal’s themes as a model to a reading of Kourouma’s Allah is not Obliged. The study shows how Kourouma’s fiction echoes the Juvenalian rhetoric and its stylistic dynamism as revealed in several Juvenal’s themes such as the theme of Corruption, theme of Soldiers are above the Law, theme of The Decay of Feminine Virtue, theme of People without Compassion are Worse than Animals and theme of The Vanity of Human Wishes.