Style and Rhetoric in Festus Iyayi's Violence,Heroes,and The Contract

The author has noticed a dearth of attention in rhetorical study of both literary and non literary texts. Therefore, he has carried out stylistic and rhetorical study of Festus Iyayi's Violence, Heroes, and The Contract in order to reveal new perspectives in the interpretation of these novels. The work adopts eclectic approach which draws from text linguistics, reception theory, literary stylistics and rhetorical criticism. Through diction, parallelism, and foregrounding, Iyayi has expressed the themes of violence, suffering, exploitation, oppression, destruction, war, privation, greed, chaos, corruption, etc. in his novels. Moreover, through rhetorical resources of pathos, logos, and ethos, he has been able to appeal to the audience's emotion, reason, etc to achieve conscientisation of the masses, mass mobilization and persuasion which make apparent his Marxist ideology. Iyayi's language and style depict class struggle. Message is an important element of Iyayi's novels.