Modernism and Covid-19 Pandemic: A comparative reading of pathology in Corona Virus Disease-19 pandemic and contemporary African prose

Abstract

This study interrogates the pathological consequences of modernism with regards to the Covid-19 pandemic and selected works of prose fiction. It cross-examines the impact of modernism and its role in the genesis, transmission and accentuation of mental illness through the modern state and mechanization of humanity in the Covid-19 pandemic, Farah’s Close Sesame (1983) and Chikwava’s Harare North (2009). Using Ato Quason’s calibrations, the study adopts a combination of theories from the social, political, psychological and cultural domains to scrutinize the assumption that art is either a mere expression of the unconscious or the artist’s fantasies that seldom address the realities that affect the modern society. The eighteenth century saw the birth of a different perspective that was hailed as a genesis of sanity and social progress in Europe and the world at large. It was a modern era, a conversation that crowned rationality, and a break from tradition as pathways to civilization. Religion and insistence on traditional ways of thinking were confined to the private space given their emphasis on “irrationality” akin to insanity. Communal lifestyles and mass cultures were construed as “primitive” while universalization and globalization were upheld. Traditional forms of government were replaced by the modern state as a solution to problems faced by citizens. Similarly, the novel replaced traditional forms of literature such as poetry and drama; in spite of the new genre, modernist theories dismissed art as sheer fantasy, and worse, a self-defense mechanism exhibited by the sick artist, and may not be relied on to represent realities in the modern world. This is an analytical study that proceeds by a close textual reading of the primary and secondary texts to effect the comparison.