Adapting Benjamin Kwakye’s The Clothes of Nakedness as a Film: An Essay

Abstract

This paper discusses the usefulness of adapting the novel, The Clothes of Nakedness by Benjamin Kwakye (1998) as a film. This adaptation is relevant because the novel presents themes, language and gender issues pertaining to Ghana and by extension Africa as a whole. The thematic issues could be relevant to other parts of the world which share similar characteristics. While values that could promote development seem to receive little attention, there is a growing tendency among the youth to watch movies and other entertainment programmes. This growing inclination among the youth could be harnessed to promote values such as those depicted in the novel analysed for this study. Feminism and feminist reception theory have been employed in this study. This essay employs text analysis and literary appreciation to analyse and discuss The Clothes of Nakedness in terms of the values, characters and other literary techniques in the novel to demonstrate the usefulness of adapting the novel as a film. The title of the novel, The Clothes of Nakedness, derives from an Akan proverb which states that, ‘Se Kwatrikwa se obe mawu ntuma-a, tie ne din’ to wit, ‘If Nakedness promises you clothes, take note of his name.’ The title is a satirical reference to people who pose as wealthy, yet do not have anything but rather depend ironically on the very people they claim to assist. Mystique Mysterious typifies this pauper but it also reflects the incompetence of the men in the novel who are supposed to support their female counterparts. As an outline, the paper begins with the concept of adaptation and proceeds with a synopsis of the novel. The paper further discusses the Feminist theory and how it underpins the study. There is the discussion and analysis based mainly on gender and feminist theory and the language of the novel is also examined.