Creative Writers and Human Behaviour: An Evaluation of Rems Umeasiegbu’s The Inevitable Aftermath and End of the Road

Abstract

The debate on the environment and heredity as the causes of human behaviour is not restricted to the psychologists alone. Prior to the  developments in psychology, which is a relatively new science of mental process and behaviour, the creative writers have had interest in the sources of the behaviour of their fictive characters, which are people portrayed in the worlds of their literary texts. This research, therefore, seeks to prove that creative writers have knowledge of the sources of human behaviour by using Rems Umeasiegbu’s The Inevitable Aftermath and End of the Road to explore the potentiality of the environment and heredity, particularly the environment, as the driving force in the behaviour of youthful, fictive characters in the two novels. The finding is that the destruction of their relationships, whether marriage or friendship, leads to their development of psychopathological disorders, when their defence mechanisms have bulked under the overwhelming tensions from their environment.