Chinua Achebes Bibliography - Admission/Application Essay Example

? Topic: Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe’s bibliography Chinua Achebe, one of Nigeria’s greatest novelists, is one living African writer widely acclaimed for his work in English literature written manly for African audience. He was born in eastern Nigeria and named Albert Chinualomogo Achebe to Christian evangelical parents, his father; Isaiah Achebe was a church missionary society catechist. His education in English and the Igbo traditions was at a government secondary college, Ibadan, where he entered as a medical student but turned to the study of English literature,. While a student, he published four stories in the university Herald and after graduating in 1953, he taught for a short period then went to work for the Nigerian broadcasting corporation as a producer of radio talks, (Moorehead, 2002) In 1956, he went to London for the first time for a course at the British broadcasting corporation and two years later his novel, things fall apart, was published there in London, which has brought his writing prowess to light. Things fall apart was his first novel, which is set in the fictional town of Umuofia and the story revolves around Okonkwo, a fiercely proud Igbo man whose resistance to the British colonial impositions ends with his death as he could not let his ego allow him to be judged by foreign ideologies. After his return from Britain, Achebe was appointed controller of the eastern region stations of the Nigerian broadcasting corporation and in the year 1960 when Nigeria gained its independence from the Britain, he published No Longer at Ease which follows the story of Okonkwo’s grandson, Obi Okonkwo, who has been educated in Britain and returns to Nigeria to take up a senior position in the civil service in the last years of colonial rule. In the end he is dismissed in disgrace as the demands on him from the native town lead him to corruption, corruption which is a typical African characteristic of the ruling class and the public service. For the next few years, Achebe travelled widely in east Africa, the United States, Latin America as well as in Britain and in 1964 he published Arrow of God, which fills in the story of Umuofia between the time of the first and second Okonkwo. In 1966, the year of Nigeria’s first military coup, Achebe published A man of the People that located outside of Nigeria, exploring the corruption and post-colonial society. During the Nigerian civil war, Achebe was active on behalf of Biafra, the region of Nigeria that seceded from the Nigerian federation in May 1967. In the following two decades, Achebe published a political polemic entitled The Trouble with Nigeria and it can be summed up that his Achebe revolves around the impact of western values creating social and psychological disorientation as he was one of the most prominent figures in early 50s in the Nigerian literary movement, (Moorehead, 2002) In Nigeria in 1990, Achebe has a road accident that paralysed him from the waist down and doctors recommended he go back to the United States to receive better medical care. He thus accepted various teaching positions in a New York college and later after nine years of absence, he visited his homeland where his native village honoured him for his dedication to the myths and legends of his ancestors which was culminated by his nonfiction book Home and exile in 2000 published by oxford university press. Description of the novel and its goals The novel revolves around Okonkwo, a respected leader in the Umuofia tribe of the Igbo people who lives in fear of becoming his father, a man known for his laziness and cowardice and throughout his life he to be his father’s polar opposite. From an early age, he builds his home and reputation as a precocious wrestler and hard-working farmer whose efforts pay off big time and he becomes wealthy through his crops as well as a big family, the novel reveals the hardworking nature of the traditional African society and their importance bestowed upon a man’s reputation in the society at large. Okonkwo’s life is shaken up a when an accidental murder takes place he is generous enough to adopt a boy from another village named Ikemefuna whom he comes to love like a dear son. It can be said that in fact he loves him more than his natural son, Nwoye, and after three years the tribe decides that Ikemefuna must die to appease the gods. Even though he receives warnings from elders on participating in the murder, when the men of Umuofia take Ikemefuna into the forest to slaughter him, Okonkwo actually takes the striking killing blow. He is sad that he has killed adoptive son and tries to shows no emotion because he wants to be seen as warrior and not be seen as weak like his own father was. The strict following of the traditional beliefs of the ancient African society cannot be ignored as it has its own repercussions and punishment. Okonkwo being a respected elder is not an exception. Later on, during a funeral, Okonkwo’s gun misfired and he accidentally shoots and kills a boy who is the son of the elder being buried and for his crime, the town exiles him and his family for seven years to his mother’s homeland where he learns about the coming of the white missionaries. The arrival of these missionaries signals the beginning of the end for the Igbo people as they bring Christianity and win over Igbo outcasts as their first converts thus introducing a new way of life deviating from the stooge traditions. As the Christian religion gains legitimacy among this community, people are converted and just when Okonkwo has finished his seven-year sentence and is allowed to return home, his son Nwoye converts to Christianity making Okonkwo so bent out of shape that he disowns his son due to what he sees as a betrayal of the Igbo culture. The novel shows here the resistance to change that the African communities were attributed to though with time this changed after the elimination of the few resistant forces, (Achebe & James, 1997) Further, the Igbo attempt to talk to the missionaries, but the Christians capture the Igbo leaders and jail them for several days by the new colonial administration until they pay a ransom for their freedom. Contemplating revenge, the Igbo people hold a war council and Okonkwo is one of the biggest advocates for aggressive action against the missionaries that plans to burn down the church but as the gathering went on, a court messenger from the missionaries arrives and tells the men to stop the meeting, and an enraged Okonkwo results into kills him seeing him as an advocate of the new oppressive regime by the missionaries. Realizing that his clan will not go to war against the white men, the proud, devastated Okonkwo hangs himself as he prefers not be subjected to the judgement of a foreign court in his own ancestral land. The novel is symbolic of the few resistant forces of the traditional African culture that are still native and primitive that predisposes the ego of the African man. Geography of the places in the story According to Keith (2003), the setting in Nigeria around the turn of the 19th century is extremely important in that it allows Okonkwo’s life to straddle the pre- and post-European imperial era as he experiences both periods and the readers have a window into the dramatic changes that occurred in Igbo culture and society as a result of imperialism. For example, we see two different manners in which crimes of murdering a clansman are treated: Okonkwo is exiled for seven years under Igbo laws while another man, Aneto, is hanged by the white court for a similar crime which is a form of leniency towards a well renown elder of the society. We also see two different examples of courts and justice such that in the traditional Igbo system of justice, villagers brings their complaints to a group of nine elders dressed as masked as gods, and the group jointly and publicly settles disputes based on the norms and traditions of the community. However, when the white men arrive, they set up their own court which settles disputes in favour of the highest bidder which is a portrait of the typical elements of corruption that has been engraved in the society. On the other hand, it’s above secretly ambushing respected clansmen and elders considered as tradition preservers of the people, who come to court to have a civilized discussion as these are only a few examples of how the temporal setting allows for clear and easy comparison between the Igbo way of life before and after the arrival of Europeans due to their influence to the existing traditions. The physical setting of forest the forest villages are extremely important as the Umuofia clan has an elaborate religious system largely based on their natural environment such as the rain makers and traditional gods that need to be appeased. Surrounded by dense, dark woods, the forest is both respected and feared as a chief god, the Evil Forest while also the earth goddess is revered and feared; as farmers, the Umuofia rely completely on the produce of the land and are subject to drought and flooding in cases of their misdeeds that anger gods. The earth goddess is seen as in control of the weather and productivity of the land, so much of the clan’s social structure is set around not displeasing the earth goddess and the fear of offending the earth goddess motivates the punishment for many crimes, such as Okonkwo’s seven-year exile for killing a clansman Outcome of the story depicting the human conditions of the colonial and post-colonial experience Post colonialism in the larger sense represents not only a period but also a conflict within one’s own self as there is an effort to step outside one’s colonial self and to approach the past reality from a new perspective. The post colonial period is associated with both the traditional rigidity as wel as westernized civilization that can be said to cover all the cultures affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonisation to the present day; when a nation start conceiving and constructing ideas and practices to resist colonialism, its ways, ideologies and legacies. The seeds of post colonialism can be traced to the resistance and opposition that a nation or a people put up to the impositions of the imperial forces as Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart falls clearly in the category of a postcolonial novel that shows the strain and tension of the colonised being reflected through the character of Okonkwo, who symbolises the position of the African under pressure in a rapidly changing social situation. Through him Achebe builds a controlled tension between the general and the particular by maintaining a balance between the social and individual perspectives where at the societal level, Okonkwo symbolises the traditional Igbo past which the community wants to preserve. Okonkwo’s inflexibility, his insistence on manliness and his rigid resistance to change are as much individual traits as the traits of his culture and this makes the novel be termed as a resistance novel without being overtly political It further draws attention to the cultural imperialism of the white men that they brought to the people and portrays how a community falls apart because of the collision between the imperialist powers and the local traditions that have been in existence for a long time and rather than simply being the writing which came after Empire, Things Fall Apart is a novel which critically scrutinizes the colonial relationship brought about by the missionaries and colonialists. The novel also sets out to exhibit in one way or another the resistance to colonial perspectives as it traces the beginning of colonisation, presents conflict and generates multiple voices which makes it a multi-layered novel where Okonkwo’s downfall is not caused by the colonizers but by his own abuse of the power and responsibility he had earned as a leader within the Igbo culture, in which he had already exhibited the character flaws that led to his tragedy before the colonizers arrived Literary in developing the understanding of the region The understanding of the region is enhanced through the writings of the author in aspects that have to do with culture, politics, and civilisation as well as external influence from the missionaries. The generated critical response, critical examination and literal criticism has led to the study of the novel widely in as far as Europe and North America. The socio-political aspects of the novel brought about the confrontational welfare that existed during the times of colonialism as well as the introduction of Christianity. The African society as referenced by the Igbo community had to confront the intrusive and overpowering presence of western governments and belief as classic cross-cultural misunderstanding beliefs of the traditional African societies brings out sheer ignorance and ethnocentrism invaded by the Africans as well as the influence on civilisation in changing the primitive African values such as killing of children bringing bad omen to communities, (Bourenane, 2011) The Igbo community did not have a system of political representation such as a monarch that made the penetration of the missionaries and colonialists easy and hence the impact of their governance overcame their traditions. The governance system introduced seems to be unfair to the Africans as at times the corrupt system made the whites get away with crimes and the Africans punished severely. On the other hand, the African systems of governance although not fair had some sense of justice as seen by the exile of the protagonist Okonkwo when he killed the son of an elder. at the end of the novel, it is felt that the repression of the Igbo language contributed greatly to the destruction of the culture that existed although Achebe favours the African culture of the pre-western society. The religion, government, money system, artistic tradition and the judicial system are taken over the introduction of the new rule by the missionaries as well as the colonialists. References Keith, M. B. (2003). The Chinua Achebe Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. Accessed on dec 12, 2013. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=494944>. Achebe, C. A & James, F.P (1997). Things Fall Apart. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books. Bourenane, D.H (2011). Teaching things fall apart in winconsin, A resource guide for educators. Madison. Uiversity of Winconsin. Accessed on dec 12, 2013 http://humanities.wisc.edu/assets/misc/Things_Fall_Apart_Teachers_Guide_PRINT_VERSION.pdf Achebe, C., & Achebe, C. (1988). The African trilogy. Picador. Moorehead, A. (2000). African trilogy: The North African campaign, 1940-43. London: Cassell Read More