Nigeria, July 24 -- The twin motif of appearance and reality frames a great deal of the experience recounted in literary texts. The concept speaks to the truth that things are not always what they seem to be. From Chaucer to Chinua (Achebe), the world has been fed with verses, yarns and acts that portray the dual nature of man embedded within that which is either altruistic or dubious. Writers have depicted humanity as a canvas which embodies the oppositional strain between villainy and valour, nobility and dubiety, conscience and con-science! The world is not really as it is. It is deep and complex, and better put confounding.

The complexity of the world or reality is not an end in itself. It is what human beings make of it. Beyond God ...