Obaraedo: Conformity to Proppian Morphology

Abstract

Various folktales of the Igbo people contain all the thirty-one functions of Propp's Morphology. Although, no one tale is expected to have all the functions, a lot has a pretty number of the functions. One of such tales is Obaraedo. Obaraedo has some motifs which are believably in line with the sequential occurrences of the morphology. Although the motifs are not as many as the thirty-one functions, the motifs to a large extent, have the same chronology as the functions. There are up to seventeen motifs that are similar to the functions. There are some themes that are left out where the tale stops corresponding with the morphology. These themes if found frequently occurring in other tales, would be classified as motifs.