Ingenu

Even a casual reader of the philosophic tale will have met, in the array of types on parade-an oft-repeated "naïf" (who was anything but naive), at least one famed "candide," and several "ingénus."

Swift, it might be noted, has used this technique, but with "reverse English." Instead of a fine central intelligence, he has set up at the core of his work his favorite ingénu, an "I" who egregiously identifies himself with the very abuses that Swift is attacking.

The trouble still lies, as it did in the Happy Valley, in the mental ineptitude and moral weakness of the characters. This is the target throughout the story, as mere ingénu and mere academic split time after time on the rock of reality.

You seem pleasant and harmless with your dark ingenu eyes and your nice Midwestern manners.

And ... he examines ingénus like Oliver Twist and David Copperfield whose lives Dickens renders as patterns of self-growth towards moral health.

The innocent childlike nature of the Ingenu is perhaps his most obvious and charming characteristic and has been much noted. ... But actual children are rare among the Ingenus ....

For his novel, Saro-Wiwa draws on the figure of the ingenu in order to satirise the evils and pettiness of war from an apparently naïve perspective, which conceals the biting criticism that prevails throughout the narration.