Abstract
The folktale genre is one of the oldest forms of artistic reconstruction whose expression projects the people's culture and socio-political identity. Many of the tales in Africa reflect the experiences of the people, drawing on themes which address the myriads of the people's folkways, and reinforcing their quest for an egalitarian society. Thus many of the tales with human and animal motifs, explore abuse of power and condemn hegemonic institutions as well as expose oppression and injustice. This paper focuses on the socio-politcal idealisation of class system in two African folktales.It uses two Urhobofolktale texts as analytical materials. The descriptive-analytical method is adopted in this study. This method involves an in-depth description and analysis of the selected folktales to bring out the salient themes of socio-political reconstruction and class distinction. It adopts the Marxian theory which postulate that human society is constructed upon physical organisations and modes of relationships which serve as natural base for the construction of human history and their modifications in a bid to establish an egalitarian society. Through this theory, we are able to ascertain the fact that the infrastructures of African traditional society are linked to its economics for which the superstructure of politics, law and religion are established. The paper concludes that the storyteller (s), through his story(s), not only dubs as the cultural mediator between the people and their rulers but operates as the watchdogs of societies by commenting on negative sociopolitical appurtenances that are inimical to the progress of society.
