The Double Failure of the Master and the Slave Highlighted in Selected Works by Chinua Achebe and Amma Darko (original) (raw)
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Postcolonialism in Africa Based on Colonialism Analysis in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart
Diglossia: Jurnal Kajian Ilmiah Kebahasaan dan Kesusastraan, 2017
Adi YusufUniversitas Pesantren Tinggi Darul Ulum Jombangadiyusuf@fbs.unipdu.ac.id One of the interesting things in the study of literary works is to explore the representation of a literary work itself to the culture of real life. More specifically, when it is related to the history – in this case, the condition of precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial times. This article discusses postcolonialism analysis on Things fall Apart by Achebe. The method used in this study is descriptive qualitative. It is found that the novel represents “precolonial tribal” life in Africa: earning a living by farming land and keeping the cattle, diverse cultural backgrounds including belief of traditional religion. Then, the things lost as a result of colonial contact are “religious practice and government”. Then, Colonizers’ strategies in indoctrinating the native population to their way of thinking include building a school, convincing the society of the importance of education for the future genera...
Colonialism in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart: An Analytical Approach
2020
This paper studies Things Fall Apart via adopting an analytical approach that sheds light on colonialism that has different phases for African countries. They explore the land and finally give excuses for colonizing it. Through analyzing the incidents of the novel the negative role of the colonizer will be demonstrated which is obvious in causing psychological problems for the colonized people of Africa. The paper also illustrates Achebe's purpose in writing Things Fall Apart as a critique of the British, who colonized African people. His upset about colonialism is demonstrated, which ruined the core of his society, and the novelist wants to make all the people, especially Africans and British aware of the history of African people and their agonies.
Post-Colonial Literature in Africa A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe
2015
The present study seeks for investigating the manifestations of colonialism and post-colonialism movements in the African societies, and how literary works dealt with these movements either by defending and rationalizing, or by criticizing and refuting them. The first part starts with colonialism movement, and it briefly discusses the different reasons of the emergence of this movement in Europe, and how it moved to the African continent, whereas the next section addresses the legitimacy of colonialism in literary works about Africa, and mainly about Morocco and Algeria. The following part deals with the negative impacts of the colonial countries in the colonized territories, and how some writers censured this movement, and resisted against its notions. Finally, this entry draws more attention to the Africans’ reaction against colonialism, and their disillusionment after gaining the independence. The second part focuses on post-colonialism and the literary works that appeared at that time, and it starts with a brief introduction about this movement, and then, examines some post-colonial literary works that had negative perspectives towards this movement. Also, this entry addresses the post-colonial African books that view colonialism in the same negative way. The final section deals with a post-colonial novel which is A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe, and it includes a brief summary about the novel as well as it reviews the significance of its title, and finally it discusses the theme of corruption in the same book.
AFRREV IJAH: An International Journal of Arts and Humanities
This paper highlighted and analysed the portrayals of the traditional African women in selected postcolonial Anglophone African writers’ literary works such as Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon (1995). Although they are of opposite sex, different nationalities and generations they condemn the phallocentric organisation of the African societies where women are nothing but naïve, second-rank and sexually addicted people, reproducers, merecommodities and men’s appendage, just to name a few. Interestingly, Achebe and Darko are convinced that it is time to do justice to women. Therefore, post-colonial criticism offers the lenses through which female characters can regain power. This paper posited that some writers show concern for the relegation of the African woman to subordination because they are not satisfied with some African male writers’ misrepresentation of the African woman. For this reason, they decide to give proofs of the real role...
The Impact of Colonization on African Identity and Culture in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart
Mediterranean Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences (MJBAS), 2023
This research paper aims to explore the profound impact of colonization on African identity and culture as portrayed in Chinua Achebe’s seminal novel Things Fall Apart. The research examines the pre-colonial Igbo society’s rich cultural traditions, values, and belief systems, emphasizing the vitality of these aspects in shaping African identity. It delves into the arrival of European colonizers and their disruptive influence, which upends established social structures and cultural practices. Through an analysis of key events and characters, the paper investigates the erosion of African identity and the erosion of cultural norms caused by colonization. The research explores the notion of cultural assimilation and hybridity as a response to colonial dominance. It examines how the Igbo community grapples with the intrusion of Western values and the consequent fragmentation of their cultural identity. This research paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the lasting impacts of colonization on African identity and culture as reflected in Things Fall Apart. It underscores the importance of recognizing and preserving African heritage and raises critical questions about the complex dynamics between colonizers and the colonized.
AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, 2018
The article is inspired by Achebe's belief that human stories should be told from distinct perspectives to grasp all it intents. The story of Umuofia, the fictitious Igbo village, in Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958) can be read intertextually in light of the non-fictional text of Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (1897) to underline the thrust of authenticity and fidelity of Achebe that makes his fiction true to life. This juxtaposition is further staged to question the stereotypical representation of Africa and Africans through the fictional texts of 19 th c British writers such as Joseph Conrad, Rider Haggard among many others. Though it is not a purely historical text, Things Fall Apart is spearheaded against the reductive approach applied by 19 th c British writers to deny Africa history and culture wholesale, presenting it on a dire need for the enlightenment and mission civilisatrice of the Westerners. Hence, the ostensible aim to enlighten the African heathens living in utter darkness, to free the African minds from the enslavement of superstition, to liberate African women from the sexual laxity endorsed by the barbaric morals of heathenism is counterpointed in Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Chiefly, Achebe states that the cultural practices of the African people in their particular African environment down through ages have catered them with particular insights into life that are the bedrock of values and outlooks shaping contemporary African life. The same insights are confirmed in Kingsley's text Travels in West Africa.
Things Fall Apart and Chinua Achebe's Postcolonial Discourse
International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL), 2018
Chinua Achebe, the contemporary Nigerian novelist, is considered as one of the prominent figures in African anti-colonial literature. What makes his works specific is the way he approaches the issues of colonization of Africa in an objective manner and through an innovative language which aims at providing a pathology; a pathological reading meant to draw on the pre-colonial and colonial history without any presumptions so as to present the readers with possible alternative African discourses in future. His first novel Things Fall Apart can be taken as the best representative of such a penchant in Achebe. The present study seeks to approach Things Fall apart by reflecting on those discursive features which have provided the ground for constructing such a pathological reading and an alternative to the colonial discourse. To this end, some key terms introduced by Homi Bhabha and Mikhail Bakhtin such as ‘hybridity’, ‘otherness’ and ‘polyphony’, constitute the cornerstone of this study. Presumably, such an innovative reading of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is to lead to a better understanding of his discourse and the efforts made by him to help the African readers figure out how to piece together what once fell apart; what they can rely on for building an independent future in the so-called postcolonial era.
The True Face of Pre-Colonial Africa in “Things Fall Apart”
Respectus Philologicus
The Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe is known to be one of the most influential African writers and holds an important place in postcolonial studies. His main aim was to reconstructthe wrongly established beliefs, ideas, and thoughts of the Western world regarding Africa. To realize his aim, he made careful selections in his choice of language, which contributed greatly to sharing his observations, ideas, and beliefs with the rest of the world. He wrote his novels in English, believing that doing so would be more powerful in conveying the true face of pre-colonial Africa, rather than in Nigerian, which could not be as effective as the language of the colonizers. Achebe’s complaint was that the history of Africa had mainly been written by white men who did not belong to his continent and who would not judge life there fairly. With his novels, he changed the prejudices of those who had never been to Africa, and he managed to convert the negative ideas and feelings caused by the portrayal...
The Post-Colonial Reality in Chinua Achebe’s Novels
The primary concern of Chinua Achebe, the recipient of the Man Booker International Prize, 2007, was his society, more precisely, the destiny of his people. As the fundamental feature of his novels was social realism, they served as an authentic record of the changing African world. Achebe, perhaps the most authentic literary voice from Africa, wrote not only to record the African, especially Nigerian, life but to analyse the reality experienced by the native people in different times and situations. In his view, the writer must be accountable to his society. To him it was absurd to think of art as a pure and autonomous entity coming into existence by itself in an aesthetic void. Accordingly, his aim was to make his fiction an instrument of awareness seeking to elevate the social reality to a higher level. In this regard, the paper is an attempt to show Achebe’s endeavour to expose the rampant corruption and evil in Nigeria to exert a decisive and positive influence on his people. His faith in female power as an agent of traditional morality is also highlighted in the paper.