Literary and Linguistic Perspectives on Flashback: A Study of Audee T. Giwa's From Fatika with Love

There are different studies on the conventional techniques that are used by literary writers to convey themes, characterization, setting and plot. Flashback is one of such conventional literary techniques. Like other literary techniques, it is used to achieve certain effects that are beneficial not only to literary writers, but also to readers of literary texts. This study investigates the motivations for deploying flashback in the novel, From Fatika with Love. Selected corpora from the text are examined, with a view to revealing the functions of flashback therein. The study hinges on the Projection Principle (cf. Adejare 1992, cited in Emuchay 1999) in making conclusions about the functions of flashback in literary writings. The Projection Principle posits that via selected samples from a literary text, conclusions can be made on what is being investigated; in this regard, the functions of flashback in the selected corpora, reflect its functions in literary writings in general. The paper explores The Critical Thinking Theory and the Text Analysis Theory as theoretical frameworks, and concludes that the functions of flashback in literary writings align with writers’ purpose, as flashback link the past to the present, explain occurrences and facilitate the interpretation of themes, settings, characterization and other elements of literature. On the whole, linguistic conventions facilitate the use of flashbacks in literary texts, as evident in the use of discrete parts of speech particularly verbs and adverbs.