Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Department of English
Submitted to:
Associate Professor
Submitted by:
Nadia Sultana
ID: 11701012
Session: 2016-17
Ans:
Chinua Achebe is one of the famous and well-known African writers in the
world of literature. He was born in Nigeria in 1930 and passed his
childhood in Ogidi. In 1958, he published his first novel named Things Fall
Apart. It involves an urgent put in African literature and remains the
foremost broadly examined, instructed and perused African novel.
Achebe sought to escape the colonial perspective that predominated
African literature, and drew from the traditions of the Igbo people,
Christian influences, and the clash of Western and African values to create
a uniquely African voice. His work focuses on the themes of colonialism,
post-colonialism, and the tumultuous political atmosphere in post-colonial
Nigeria. His style relies heavily on the Igbo oral tradition, and combines
straightforward narration with representations of folk stories, proverbs, and
oratory because Achebe was very heavily influenced by his native Igbo
culture in Eastern Nigeria as well as his father’s desire for all his children
to earn their education.
Nigeria was writhed in a civil war between 1967 and 1970 as the Igbo
individuals endeavored to create their own republic, Biafra. Achebe was
dynamic in publicizing this battle internationally. After the rebellion was
crushed, Achebe left Nigeria and became a Professor of English in the
United States, first at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and later
at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. Eventually he returned to Nigeria
and taught at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
The last novel published in 1987 by Achebe was Anthills of the Savannah.
Three years later he was paralyzed in a car accident occurred in Lagos,
Nigeria and eventually, on March 22, 2013 he passed away in Boston.
15. What is the Igbo view of ‘ancestors? What idea of this life and life after
death you can figure out from their view?
Ans:
Ancestors in Igbo ontology often called Ndiichie or Ndibunze are those men and
women who led good and exemplary lives when they were in the physical world,
and are believed to continue their existence in the spiritual world. The Igbo’s
ancestors believed that good harvests and a good afterlife would come only if they
please their gods and ancestral spirits, but they could achieve this aim only with the
help of masks and masquerades.
38. Why discussion fails between the white churchmen and the Igbo leaders?
Ans: The mutual misunderstandings that are evident between the missionaries and
the people of the village are that they live different lives. By granting the
missionaries a plot in the Evil Forest, they get what they desire, but it soon
backfires.
39. What is egwugwu? How many members are there in egwugwu? Why does Achebe
mention that a member of egwugwu has a similar walk of Okonkwo? And, at the
end of the novel when a jealous convert unmasks one egwugwu, why do other
members try not to expose him? How does ‘double consciousness’ functions here
as a technique?
Ans:
According to tradition, any village ancestor who has been buried in the earth
returns during an annual ceremony is known as an egwugwu. In reality, an
egwugwu is a clansman wearing a mask representing an ancestor who has come
back from the dead. There are nine members in egwugwu. The nine egwugwu
represent the nine villages of Umofia and each village has one egwugwu as its
spokesperson.
Enoch’s unmasking of an egwugwu is portrayed as a result of unbridled fanaticism.
The Igbo believe that during this time, the human underneath the mask is not
present; the mask is transformed into the spirit. Thus, unmasking the egwugwu
kills the ancestral spirit. Enoch’s unmasking of the egwugwu and the subsequent
destruction of the church by the Igbo represent the climax of confrontation between
traditional Igbo religious beliefs and British colonial Christianity.
40. What happens after the destruction of the church by the Igbo people? How does
‘things/Igbo falls apart’?
Ans:
The church Mr. Brown built is burned to the ground, and the clan is momentarily
pacified. Reverend Smith refuses to move, but he cannot save his church. The clan
retaliates against the Christians by doing the same thing that Enoch did- they
destroy the symbol of Christianity by burning down the church. They then gather
in front of the church to confront Reverend Smith and his fellow Christians. They
tell the Christians that they only wish to destroy the church in order to cleanse their
village of Enoch’s horrible sin.
41. At the point of no return, how does Okonkwo try to keep hold of his worth and
self-respect? Does that suicidal mission work? Was there any means left to save
the Igbo? How does Achebe configure Okonkwo as a cultural/tragic hero?
Ans:
Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. He is
diminishing his self- worth by satisfying his believes of what is believed to be
right. Though his stubbornness of truth to value Ibo culture backfires on him
repeatedly. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of
eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the cat.
Okonkwo’s suicide is an unspeakable act that strips him all honor and denies him
the right to an honorable burial. Okonkwo dies an outcast, banished from the very
society he fought to protect.
Achebe configure Okonkwo as a tragic hero because he meets all of Aristotle’s
criteria. He is a tragic hero in the classical sense, although he is superior character,
his tragic flaw- the equation of manliness with rashness, anger, and violence-
brings about his own destruction.
Ans:
In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the District Commissioner is the reigning
symbol of Western imperialism, an ignorant, condescending administrator who is
brought to the area to mete out justice and impose the more enlightened culture of
the West upon these uncivilized tribes.
In here, district Commissioner uses the title The Pacification of the Primitive
Tribes of the Lower Niger to personified his contemplation of colonialism. The
District Commissioner’s role in Nigeria is to force the natives into submission
under the white rule. The word primitive is incredibly subjective. Achebe skillfully
proves that the Igbo people are far from uncivilized.
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is a work where he describes how the colonization
process manifests itself through different forms. He very meticulously refers to the
roles played by the missionaries in Umuofia. He also shows how they entire
quietly with religion and win many of his own Igbo brothers and for them how his
“clan can no longer act like one”. Because of their interference, chaos and conflicts
erupt that eventually lead to the killing one of the missionaries. Achebe also plays
the part of a non-conformist to the western propaganda and he protects the much-
narrated western portrayal of the Americans as cannibals and presents a parallel yet
completely different image of African people. He thus does not fully blame the
colonizer for their permanent settlement in Igbo society, rather than he questions
about the discrimination and differences between black and white. Achebe didn’t
judge the nature, behavior or others of black community. He just asks the question
about domination, behavior and the study of white men over black community
people, and that is the ultimate goal of Achebe to write down Things Fall Apart.