| Summary: | This paper is a revised version of a 1974 essay I wrote on the novel when it was first published in the early 1970s. The changes I have made for the present publication are not substantial and in the main the original impression remains undisturbed, the primary objective of the current exercises, now as then, being to guide the reader in a generic reading of the novel. An amazing novel steeped in a complex maze of philosophies, ideologies and ideas, Why are we so blest? presents a perplexing mix of literature, history, and myth, and part of my undertaking in this article is to attempt a mining of the novel’s treasures for the benefit of the ardent reader. The focus of this paper is thematic but the approach is mainly semic; hence most of my investigation revolves round character study and the relevance of character in the semantic vision of Armah.
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