Abstract

This work ‘Protest: A Biblical Perspective of Bate Besong’s Beasts of No Nation’ seeks to show how the writer presents his case of protest in a derailed society using biblical passages. The study knits together context, use and subject matter to bring out those elements that   appeal for protest against oppression. The work also shows that the author turns history to fiction, so as to create change in the society. This led to the hypothesis that the use of bible passages in Beasts of No Nation makes the play a metaphor of the Cameroonian situation. The theories used are the New historicism literary theory which stipulates that a literary text  is formed and structured by the particular conditions of a time and place, and should be discussed in its own context,and functional theory of  linguistics which states that situational factors determine what linguistic features are used by the text producer.  The method used for analysis is the pattern of analysis postulated by Sinclair. The text was read with full critical understanding and scanned for patterns of linguistic signals. The study concludes that in his quest for national integration, Besong is in search of an avenue that can resolve the conflict between the Anglophones and Francophones in his country.  This study reveals how Bate Besong uses the Holy Bible as a moral measuring rod, from which he extracts verses that can make the masses see the source of their problems, raise their awareness and instigate them to protest, and even castigate them if they do not want to adhere to his pleas. The analysis of the work shows that the author uses the religious register and writes with the socio-political situation of his country as a backdrop. 

Key words: Cameroon, Anglophone, Francophone, protest, Holy Bible.