INTIMACY, POWER AND INFORMATION ASYMMETRY IN NKA DỊ NA NTỊ AND ONYE ỌMA EMEKA
Abstract
Romantic relationships in literary texts are often represented primarily as spaces of affection, companionship and anticipated marriage. However, intimacy can also become a site where economic resources, information and agency are contested. This study examines the relationship between romantic intimacy and power in B. E. Okoro's Nka Dị Na Ntị and Mmuotulumanya J. Okafo's Onye Ọma Emeka, with particular attention to deception, informational asymmetry and economic consequences. Using Michel Foucault's relational conception of power as the theoretical framework, the study adopts a qualitative textual and comparative approach. It argues that economic capacity does not necessarily guarantee relational power. In both texts, male characters possess significant material resources, but female characters gain influence through control of information and manipulation of emotional attachment. The analysis further demonstrates that concealed knowledge compromises agency by limiting the ability of characters to make fully informed decisions. The concealed-substance motif is particularly significant in both works, although it produces different consequences: emotional and economic depletion in Onye Ọma Emeka and physical death in Nka Dị Na Ntị. The study concludes that romantic intimacy in the two texts functions as a contested site where economic, emotional and informational forms of power intersect and shift. It contributes to the study of Igbo written literature by foregrounding the relationship between intimacy, information asymmetry, economic behaviour and agency.References
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