THE CHARACTERISTICS AND STYLE OF THE SEARCH  BY CHUKUEMEKA IKE’S
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0    INTRODUCTION
This chapter is a general introduction to the entire essay. It will focus attention on Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike and his works, purpose of study and scope of study. Attention will also be given to review of critical writings on The Search.
1.1    VINCENT CHUKWUEMEKA IKE AND HIS     WORK
Vincent Chukuemeka Ike was born   in 1931, into the royal family of Ike of Ndikelionwu, in the present Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State. He  attended Government College Umuahia between January 1945 to July 1950, where he was college prefect. However, Ike proceeded to the University college, Ibadan from October 1951 to June 1955. In purist of higher academic qualification, Ike attended the prestigious Stanford University in California in 1966.
    Ike has had a varied experience in his working life. Between 1957 to 1960, he was an Assistant Registrar and Student Affair Officer at the University college, Ibadan. Besides that, Ike became the Deputy Registrar of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka from 1960 to 1963. However, Chukuemeka Ike became the first African Registrar of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka from 1963 to 1971. In 1971 to 1979, he became the Registrar and Chief Executive of the West African Examination Council, (WAEC), with headquarters in Accra, Ghana. However, on July 1, 1979, Ike voluntarily retired from the Public Service. Again, he was invited by the University of Jos to be visiting Professor of English and Creative Writing from 1983 to 1985.
    A novelist par-excellence, Ike is a committed writer who takes up his pen not because of a concern for the aesthetics of writing for its own sake, but because he has pressing observations to make or a message to communicate. He has written and published ten fiction and two non-fiction. His fiction include;
Toad for Supper, (1965), The Naked Gods, (1970), The Potter’s Wheel, (1973), Sunset at Dawn, (1976), Expo’ 77, (1980), The Chicken Chasers, (1980), The Bottled Leopard, (1985), Our Children Are Coming, (1990), The Search, (1991), and To My Husband from Iowa, (1996). In addition, his non-fiction are: How to Become a Published Writer, (1991) and the University Development in Africa: The Nigerian Experience, (1991).
1.2    PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
    The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how Chukuemeka Ike has been able to reflect reality in the Nigerian society through his novel, The Search.
1.3    SCOPE OF STUDY
    The scope of this essay includes the examination of the setting, characteristics and style of The Search. In this endeavour, what Ike does in his spatial and temporal setting of his fictional society will be exposed. The way he inverts characters in situations to dramatic realistic issues vis-à-vis the use of style will also be our focus.
1.4    REVIEW OF CRITICAL WRITINGS ON THE SEARCH
Literature, oral or written form has consistently remained one of the greatest tools in the representation of reality. Literature has become an important means of understanding human and interpreting aspect of society such as politics, religion, social conflicts, class struggle and the human condition. The creation of illusion of reality has the preoccupation of every literary artist since ancient times. To buttress this fat, Ernst Fischer posits that “Literature is born of reality and acts back upon reality”. (496).
Novel, a genre of literature has become a viable tool through which practicers depict reality of life, especially contemporary life as it is lived in the society. Fischer’s position as revealed in this comment does not go further to show how a novelist doe this in his work. He merely says that literature is born of reality without position how and where in prose (our focus), poetry or drama. However, George Eliot says that:
The novelist’s prerogative as an artist is the just representation of life in its details, for art is the nearest thing to life…(5).
Eliot it is observed, went deeper than Fischer when the former pays attention to the novel as a genre of literature, and concluded that a realistic novel must have details of life in it, as quoted above.
    Fiction writing in Nigeria particularly and Africa generally has become one which practiers of the genre have engaged in an attempt to relate their experience and thus pass critical comments on the happening around them. Many African writers have since the emergence in the 50’s tried to focus attention on socio-cultural issues, colonialism, anti-colonial struggles and socio-political ills in post-independence African status.
    Vincent Chukuemeka Ike happens to be one of the Nigerian fiction writers who tried to lend voices to the morally deteriorating post-independence Nigerian society as he creates characters to expose to degenerating social milieu. Having written many novels since he began practicing the genre in 1965, not so much seems to have been said about his literary outpourings. Ernest Emonyony gives support to this fact when he says that:
For too long, Chukuemeka Ike has remaind untouched by African and indeed Nigerian critics… Quite often, Nigerian critics have chosen to skirt around the so-called big names in African society generally referred to as the first generation of African writers namely Achebe, Soyinka, Ekwensi, Ngugi, Clark to mention but a few.(111),
This attitude of critics towards Ike applies generally to all his novels. But Ike is one writer whose artistic pen has been relentlessly influenced by his vision of society as expressed in The Search.
    According to Emenyonu:
The Search is a sequel to Our Children Are Coming, the restlessness among the young and moral decadence in society proving a scenario for the event in The Search. (5-6),
From the above quotation, it has been observed that Emenyonu arrived at his conclusion from the point of view of youth restiveness and moral decay in the society not as a reality. On the other hand, Obiwu Anyanwu Iras termed The Search “faction”. (5), he possibly takes this critical position because of the elements of fiction and reality he observes in the novel. But one notes that he does not tell his audience how Ike realizes faction and not full blown fiction. In any case, this is not the scope of this study.
    From the foregoing, it has been observed that the few available critics have made valid comments on The Search. But none has focused on the novel as a realistic work. Therefore this essay examines The Search as a work of reality as it is revealed in its setting, characteristics and style.