scholarly journals Cultural Diversity in Igbo Life: A Postcolonial Response to Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (23) ◽  
pp. 69-89
Author(s):  
Sazzad Hossain Zahid
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Cohesive Force ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Cultural Genocide ◽  
Igbo People ◽  
Western Imperialism ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Indigenous Society

In his book Chinua Achebe, David Caroll (1980) describes the novel Arrow of God as a fight for dominance both on the theological and political level, as well as in the framework of Igbo philosophy. In Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe (1990), famous Achebe critics C. L. Innes and Berth Lindforts consider Arrow of God as a novel with conflicting ideas and voices inside each community with the tensions and rivalries that make it alive and vital. Another profound scholar on Achebe Chinwe Christiana Okechukwu (2001) in Achebe the Orator: The Art of Persuasion in Chinua Achebe's Novels assesses Arrow of God, which depicts a community under imminent danger of cultural genocide unleashed by agents of Western imperialism who have recently arrived in the indigenous society. However, the author in this study attempts to see Arrow of God as a postcolonial response to cultural diversity that upholds its uniting and cohesive force in Nigerian Igbo life. The goal is to look at how Achebe, in response to misleading western discourses, develops a simplistic image and appreciation that persists in Igbo life and culture even as colonization takes hold. This paper also exhibits how the Igbo people share their hardships, uphold their age-old ideals, celebrate festivals, and even battle on disagreements. This study employs postcolonial theory to reconsider aspects of cultural diversity among the African Igbo people, which are threatened by the intervention of European colonialism in the name of religion, progress, and civilization.

scholarly journals Re-Reading Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Postcolonial Perspective

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.K.M. Aminur Rashid
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
Igbo People ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
Things Fall Apart ◽  
The Individual ◽  
To Receive

Being a postcolonial narrative, Things Fall Apart experiences a wide critical acclaim. From the pen of Chinua Achebe, the Igbo cultural complexity has come into being a theme that opens up a historical account of the clash of two cultures. Okonkwo, a very well-known public figure in his community falls under the threat of a new culture brought by the white missionaries preaching the gospels of the Christianity. After the arrival of the Christian culture, the first collision that takes place is the division at the individual, and then at the societal levels. When a number of the Igbo people, including Okonkwo’s son, change their religion, it creates chaos and confusions throughout the community. Although the Igbo people have a well-established way of life, the Europeans do not understand. That is why they show no respect to the cultural practices of the Igbo people. What Achebe delivers in the novel is that Africans are not savages and their societies are not mindless. The things fall apart because Okonkwo fails at the end to take his people back to the culture they all shared once. The sentiments the whites show to the blacks regarding the Christianity clearly recap the slave treatment the blacks were used to receive from the whites in the past. Achebe shows that the picture of the Africans portrayed in literature and histories are not real, but the picture was seen through the eyes of the Europeans. Consequently, Okonkwo hangs himself when he finds his established rules and orders are completely exiled by his own people and when he sees Igbo looses its honor by falling apart.

scholarly journals “Middle Ground,” “Duality,” and “Diversimilarity” as Responses to Postcolonial and Global Challenges in Chinua Achebe’s “The Education of a British-Protected Child” and “No Longer at Ease”

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (29) ◽  
pp. 151-161
Author(s):  
Mihaela Culea
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Theoretical Data ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Human Identity ◽  
Literary Research ◽  
Igbo People ◽  
New Perspective

This paper discusses two literary works by Chinua Achebe—No Longer at Ease (1960) and The Education of a British-Protected Child (2011)—in the context of the issue of diversity in the postcolonial setting. It aims to approach Achebe’s work from a new perspective, by applying a theoretical paradigm employed in business to the study of literature and culture. The “diversimilarity” paradigm, used for managing cultural diversity in organisations, is applied and shown to be pertinent to the investigation of literature, too. The methodology employed combines theoretical data with the practical implications of the conceptual framework on Achebe’s work. The paper starts with a discussion of the diversity concept and then moves on to tackle the diversimilarity paradigm in business. Then the investigation focuses on Achebe’s “duality” and “middle ground” concepts as they assist diversimilarity, concepts which work together at the levels of mentality, ideology, and identity. Finally, the paper focuses on language and the methods proposed by Achebe to manage and solve the existing linguistic diversity problems in Nigeria. The findings show that in the works explored, the diversimilarity paradigm is assisted by other concepts as solutions for the Nigerian people to cope with diversity. Moreover, Achebe shows that the other conceptions that support diversimilarity are still effective, even though they are rooted in the ancestral values of his Igbo people. The originality of the paper results from placing Achebe’s literary work in the context of contemporary concerns related to human identity in the postcolonial globalized environment and from expanding the scope and methods of literary research by employing concepts from other areas of human activity. Thus, the intersection between the worlds of the economy and culture seems fruitful for the investigation of cultural diversity.

scholarly journals THE IMPACT OF THE 19TH CENTURY EUROPEAN COLONIALISM IN AFRICA, IN THE NOVEL “THINGS FALL APART” BY CHINUA ACHEBE

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Afriliyani Piola ◽  
Happy Anastasia Usman
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Things Fall Apart ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Impact

Things Fall Apart is a novel potrays the background of traditional life and primitive culture Ibo tribe in Umuofia, Nigeria, Africa and also the impact of European colonialism towards Africans’ society in the early 19th century. The research applies the qualitative method and it supported by the sociology of literature approach. The primary data are taken from the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Based on the analysis the researcher conducts, the impact of European colonialism in Africa which not only brings a positive impacts but also negative legacy. There are several points of the impact European colonialism in Africa : existence of christianity, existence of language, establishment regulation and contribution to development.

The Fate of European Colonialism and Carl Schmitt’s New World Order

2018 ◽  
pp. 87-116
Author(s):  
Peter Uwe Hohendahl
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New World ◽  
World Order ◽  
Modern History ◽  
New World Order ◽  
Global History ◽  
World War ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Western Imperialism ◽  
European Colonialism

This chapter focuses on The Nomos of the Earth, offering a comparative reading of Schmitt’s conception of European colonialism and more recent critical studies of the relevance of colonialism for the emergence of modern global history. In particular, the analysis contrasts Schmitt’s framing of colonialism as a crucial positive moment of modern history with a fundamental critique developed by liberation movements after World War II (Fanon). This analysis leads up to a discussion of recent affirmations of western imperialism in which Schmitt’s ideas seem to return.

scholarly journals When Earth Matters: Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 448-455
Author(s):  
Gerd Bayer
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
First Century ◽  
Cultural Conflict ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Agricultural Revolution ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Cultural Forms ◽  
Twenty First Century

Abstract This essay discusses Bessie Head’s When Rain Clouds Gather from an ecocritical perspective, asking how her late 1960s’ novel already anticipated some of the politics of early twenty-first-century environmental thinking in the postcolonial sphere. The alliance of various marginalized characters who, one way or another, violate against existing hegemonic structures replaces the ideological and cultural conflict over territory, which derived directly from the colonialist past, with an agricultural revolution that aims to empower those who most closely resemble the subaltern classes variously theorized in postcolonial theory. This re-turn to the physical or even Real, to the materiality of the earth, opens up an alternative to the cultural essentialism that, from its beginning, created numerous stumbling stones on the path towards decolonization. Through its turn towards farming and the land and away from cultural forms of hegemony, the novel emphasizes the materiality of reality.

scholarly journals Uncovering Identity Complication in Season of Migration to the North a Novel by Tayeb Salih

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-37
Author(s):  
Saman A. Husain
Keyword(s):  
No Value ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Identity Crisis ◽  
Frantz Fanon ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Tour Guides ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Tourist Satisfaction ◽  
The North ◽  
Tayeb Salih

The aim of this paper is to analyse and investigate the issue of identity in Tayeb Salih's novel Season of Migration to the North according to postcolonial theory.  Identity crisis refers to the context in which a person questions the whole idea of life. Philosophically, the identity crisis has been studied under the theories of existentialism. The term is coined to indicate a person, whose egoism and personality is filled with questions regarding life foundation, feeling and arguing that life has no value. in the novel by Tayeb Salih, Season of Migrating to the North, there are several instances that can be cited to indicate the existence of an identity crisis in the story. In this paper, we highlight and exemplify on such issues in an attempt to show how the theme of identity crisis has been presented in the novel. The paper considers the postcolonial theories of Edward Said, Frantz Fanon and Homi Bhabha to analyse the novel in terms of their representation of identity crisis. Keywords— tour guides, tour guide performance, tourist satisfaction, destination and customer loyalty.

scholarly journals Lexical Gaps and Ideological Shift in the Translation of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart as “Le Monde S’effondrein French”

2020 ◽  
pp. 283-297
Author(s):  
Angelinus Kwame Negedu
Keyword(s):  
French Language ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
The Novel ◽  
English Reader ◽  
Original Title ◽  
Things Fall Apart ◽  
Ideological Divergence

In translating Chinua Achebe‟s Things Fall Apart, Michel Ligny translates directly Igbo terminologies, realities and beliefs into the French language. This has contributed greatly in the preservation of the beauty and authenticity of the original text. However, the title of the novel is domesticated by Michel Ligny to present a different ideology. Within the framework of Lawrence Venuti (2004) theory of domestication and foreignization of translation, this paper examines the ideological divergence between the title of the original text and the title of the translation. The paper concludes that the ideology that the translated title projects to the French-reader is totally different from the ideology that the original title projects to the English-reader.

scholarly journals DISCRIMINATION, ASSIMILATION, and CULTURAL IDENTITY in TAHAR BEN JELLOUN'S LEAVING TANGIER

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Derya Emir
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Tahar Ben Jelloun ◽  
Life Conditions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Cost

In today's multicultural countries, cultural diversity, hybridity, assimilation, and cultural identity are key issues. By focusing on the problem of immigration and its inevitable traumatic results on the migrants, Tahar Ben Jelloun's Leaving Tangier fully presents Azel (the protagonist) and his acquaintances' search for identity in terms of history, religion, nationality and cultural identity. Tahar Ben Jelloun's Leaving Tangier is the story of a Moroccan brother and sister who are burning with the desire to migrate to Spain in order to attain better life. The accomplishment of their dreams actualizes at the cost of some compromises and sacrifices that end with the protagonists' physical, emotional failure, and annihilation. The winner of Prix Goncourt for La Nuit Sacrée (The Sacred Night) in 1987, a Moroccan novelist Tahar Ben Jelloun is one of the most prolific and important writers of the recent years. As a novelist and critic, Ben Jelloun artfully combines the fact and fiction, past and present, East and West in his works. in this respect, he creates multidimensional writings that can be read and interpreted from several perspectives. Tahar Ben Jelloun's Leaving Tangier (2006) presents the issues of "wounded childhood," "solitude," "displacement," and "alienation" both individually and collectively in the colonial history of Tangier. This study focuses on the issues of discrimination, assimilation, and cultural identity, experienced by the characters in the novel, resulting from the immigration of individuals from their homelands to Europe in order to find better life conditions.

FUGITIVE IMAGES (VISUAL CULTURE IN MICHEL TOURNIER’S NOVEL THE GOLDEN DROP)

2021 ◽  
pp. 256-279
Author(s):  
Sergey N. Zenkin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Specific Aspect ◽  
Visual Images ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Michel Tournier ◽  
Visual Objects ◽  
French Writer ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Original Concept

In the work of the French writer Michel Tournier, the novel The Golden Drop (1985) stands out for the massive presence within its plot of various visual images – photographs, drawings, mannequins, etc.; the hero, a young Algerian immigrant in France, develops in relation to those images. Their interaction can be described ideologically in the sense of postcolonial theory or through the opposition of the “symbolic” Islamic culture and the “figurative” European one; however, the author of the novel outlines his own, original concept of a visual image associated with the personality of the subject, but escaping his control due to its serial multiplicity. In this specific aspect, Tournier practically works out the problem of the intradiegetic image – a visual image included in a narrative plot. Encountering visual objects, some of which depict himself, the hero of Tournier’s novel remains unchanged, does not undergo any “education”, does not acquire, as a result of his adventures, either an ideal image or an ideal sign-symbol. Arriving from afar, he still does not recognize himself as a participant in European history, indicated in the novel by allusions to the student revolution of 1968

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