African Literature

Long:

1. Evaluate Things Fall Apart as a post-colonial text.

Post-colonial as theorized by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin in their work The Empire Writes Back is
“to cover all the cultures affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day. This
is because there is a continuity of preoccupations throughout the historical process initiated by European imperial
aggression.” It is a mix of rigorous epistemological and theoretical analysis of texts and a political praxis of resistance
to neocolonial conditions.

Franz Fanon suggested a ‘national literature’, perhaps a negritude that would enable the development of a national
consciousness.

In Leela Gandhi’s words, post colonialism ‘can be seen as a theoretical resistance to the mystifying amnesia of the
colonial aftermath. It is a disciplinary project devoted to the academic task of revisiting, remembering and crucially
interrogating the colonial past.’

Bhabha analysed the fractured nature of the colonial condition where colonial power requires that the natives adopt
and internalize the forms and habits of the colonial master: the native should mimic the master. A reversal has been
achieved through the mimicry of the colonizer by the colonized. Mimicry is now active resistance.

“He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” – p 160

Interrelation between sociology and psychology between environment and character.

2. How far do you agree that there is a clash between two cultures in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Give
reasons.

Those who open this novel to find a description of noble savagery where the tensions of modern western society do
not exist, are likely to be disappointed.

3. African Apartheid in Sizwe Bansi is Dead.

Apartheid says Gary van Wyk, “is a political philosophy” introduced in South Africa by the Afrikaner Nationalist Part.
With the part’s victory, Apartheid became the official policy for South Africa. Apartheid laws, therefore, which
classified people into racial groups, determined where members of each group could live, what jobs they could hold
and what type of education they could receive.

Influx Control Act (earlier known as Pass laws) – identity cards, Hawker’s License (for doing trade), Residence Permit
(Native Areas act)

Berlin Conference 1884 (Scramble for Africa)

Turned South Africa into a Police State.

The title itself decodes as Sizwe meaning the nation and bansi meaning large or broad.

Apart from racial segregation the system also thrived on economic exploitation of the black majority for whom
menial and dangerous jobs which attract meagre remunerations are reserved.

Worse still, in such atmosphere of poverty and exploitation, the black townships were also characterized by much
violence and killings by the blacks who attack each other in desperation and hunger. (murder of Robert Zwelinzima
by hooligans) The situation in South Africa as at the time the play was written was so grim that not until the
Apartheid System became dismantled by the government of Deklerk in 1990, the black in South Africa did not live as
human being and was always forced to accept such ridiculous packages which Sizwe grabbed in the play.

Political injustice, economic exploitation.

Sizwe Bansi is Dead says, Julian Mitchell, therefore, analyses “the South African society in terms of how it affects
people’s lives.”
The cause of Apartheid in South Africa as reflected in Sizwe Bansi in Dead, was obviously furthered by the
establishment of the Ciskeian Independence; a settlement system in which blacks were meant to be confined into
separate ‘homelands’, while the whites lived in developed reserve areas. The blacks are further confined in
concentration camps. This type of pseudo-neocolonialism was practiced by a few colonial governments. It also
implanted separation and tribal segregation among the people.

The black man is not considered as a human being but rather as a number and a means of cheap labour.

Grown men are referred to as boys even by a little white boy. Blacks are ghosts. “Shit on our pride.”

Sizwe portrays the abused psyche of the abused black South African. Quta Jacob, much like Sizwe, also symbolizes
the oppressed and dehumanized black under the Apartheid System. Quta Jacob’s death only symbolizes the black
man’s real arrival and transition to peaceful home. His total freedom and release from the meaningless and
purposeless struggle of life. Styles becomes the mythic hero serving as a conduit for people’s dreams and
achievements.

Life of servitude led by blacks. They are depersonalized, debased, de-organized and dehumanized.

The play is in consonance with Bertolt Brecht’s philosophy with a reduction in the audience’s emotional involvement.

Styles, Sizwe and Buntu the major and symbolic characters, personally seek ways out for themselves and their
people in this constricted, apartheid environment.

4. Tropes in the poems of Gabriel Okara

5. Define and distinguish ‘neo-classic’ situation of Kenya and colonial hegemony. With special reference to
Ngugi’s Grain of Wheat.
6. “Kenyians history is heroic resistance by the ordinary people.” Point out your views on the above statement.

Short:

1. Okonkwo

Things Fall Apart derives its strength from the quality of author’s perception of the social forces at work in ancient
and proud society, and from his admirable knowledge of human psychology shown in the development of
Okonkwo’s character. A thorough understanding of the Umuofia society is essential for an understanding of the
character of the hero, Okonkwo. In Achebe’s case environment is the character. Okonkwo is what his society has
made him, for his most conspicuous qualities are response to the demands of his society. Okonkwo is the
personification of his society’s values, and he is determined to succeed in this rat-race. When we first meet him he
possess all the various symbol which are the marks of success; he is a wealthy farmer with two barns full of yams and
three wives. He had demonstrated his prowess in war by bringing home no less than five human heads and he had
taken two titles.

Achebe cleverly links Okonkwo’s present temperament not only with the values of his society, but also with his
revulsion against everything his father stood for, Bitterly ashamed of the father who committed the unpardonable
sin of dying without taking any titles, Okonkwo comes to associate failure and weakness with him. His character is
partly determined by the negative need to be everything that his father was not.

In a sense Okonkwo is presented as a life-denying force. By his constant nagging and bullying he stifles the life in his
son Nwoye, who develops into a sad-faced youth.

Suddenly from his exalted position as one of the most influential men in his society, Okonkwo is reduced almost to a
nonentity, after the mishap where he accidently shot a kinsman. After seven years, when he returns, the new status
quo has been so firmly entrenched that it is obvious he is fighting a lone battle, and is doomed to failure.
Disillusioned and aware that he is the only representative of a once proud order, he commits suicide.

2. Metaphor of language
3. Race, culture and identity
 4. Kihika

Concept of modernity and traditional values (being liberal is important)

Progress of language (Ch. 16)

Cultural script (sensitize our mind)

Suggestion maker (has their own master narrative)

Create alternative identity