T.A. Ezeigbo and K. King-Aribisala (eds.), Literature, Language and National Consciousness: A Festschrift in Honour of Theo Vincent, University of Lagos Press, Lagos, 2006, 311-350. STATED OBJECTIVES, OBJECTIVE STATES: CHRONOTOPES IN TWO NOVELS OF NGUGI WA THIONG’O Harry Olufunwa, PhD Department of English University of Lagos, Akoka I The word “chronotope” is a literal translation of the Greek words for time (chronos) and space (topos). It refers to the category of literary analysis first articulated by the Russian philosopher and literary scholar, Mikhail M. Bakhtin, who defines it as “the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature” (84). The relationship between time and space has intrigued philosophers over the ages: Aristotle observes that “when some time is thought to have passed, some movement also along with it seems to have taken place” (12); Immanuel Kant argues that “[t]ime is the formal condition a priori of all phenomena whatsoever. Space as the pure form of external intuition, is limited as a condition a priori to external phenomena alone” (50); Henri Bergson claims that time and space are an abstract expression of “the double work of solidification and of division which we effect on the moving continuity of the real in order to obtain there a fulcrum for our action” (280); P.J. Zwart conceives of space as “a generalization of the fundamental spatial relations of before-and-behind, under-and- above, and next-to in the same way as time is a generalization of the primitive relation of earlier-and-later” (187 n. 1). Such long-standing interest in time and space is a reflection of their importance to human perception and apperception. Human beings are inherently spatiotemporal: they are born in particular places at specific times, and are thus situated within coordinates that significantly shape their sense of who they are and how others perceive them.