UGRC 160 – Introduction to

Literature
SESSION 5
Session Objectives
At the end of the session, the student will
1. Gain a better appreciation of what the novel is and how it works.
2. Appreciate the complexity of the novel and how it “complicates” each
element of the narrative discussed in the earlier session of Short-
Fiction.
3. Understand the Historical antecedents and implications of Achebe’s
Things Fall Apart.
4. Gain a better insight or understanding of Achebe’s arguments in “The
Novelist as Teacher.”
The Novel – Part 1 –Some Formal
Characteristics
What is a Novel?
• An invented prose narrative of considerable length and a
certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human
experience, usually through a connected sequence of events
involving a group of persons in a specific setting.
• A fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and
complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a
sequential organization of action and scenes.
Formal Characteristics of the Novel
For an understanding of the formal features or characteristics of the Novel,
please re-visit Session Slides on the Elements of Short-Fiction (i.e. Plot,
Character, Setting, Point of View, Theme, Style).

However, there is some noticeable distinction/difference in how these

elements operate in Short-Fiction and the Novel. As a comparatively longer
prose work, the Novel form complicates or shows some peculiarities in its
representation of the Prose elements.
 THE NOVEL
THINGS FALL APART
Understanding the Historical Antecedents and
Contemporary socio-cultural relevance of Chinua
Achebe’s Text
• Stereotypes and the Problem of Negative Portrayals of
the African Continent and Her Peoples
What do you think is Wrong with these Portrayals of Africa and her people?

• The colonialist agenda of stereotyping the African continent and labelling the continent and

her people as backward, starving, unenlightened people seems to recur in contemporary

depictions of the Continent. This agenda of telling the African story in a way that mutilates

or distorts Africa’s image is one of the issues that underpins Achebe’s literary production.
CONTEXT – History Meets Fiction

While it offers a certain perspective on colonial history, Things Fall

Apart is not strictly a historical novel. Historical novels, by definition,
fictionalize historic events and bring them to life with invented
details, characters, dialogue, etc.

And while Things Fall Apart does situate itself within a specific
historical context (Nigeria at the moment of colonization), it does not
attempt to recreate actual events or re-characterize historical figures.
In other words, while it is engaged with the historical theme of colonialism in Nigeria and Igbo

culture, it is wholly fiction. The novel seems to be set in the 1890’s, but was first published in

1958, 2 years before Nigeria’s Independence.

So, the novel is not wholly historical or contemporary, even though it may help us understand

issues relating to the past and what pertains in present time.

“The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of

literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason

for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery.

… This continued until the Africans themselves, in the middle of the twentieth century, took

into their own hands the telling of their story.”

(Chinua Achebe, “An African Voice”, The Atlantic)

INSERT VIDEO OF CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S “THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY
The Three “C’s”- Why They (Europeans) Came
• Commerce – One of the crucial factors that influenced the presence of Europeans in Africa was

Trade.

• Civilization – Europeans, with a preconceived notion of the superiority of their culture, felt they

had a duty to “civilize” the rest of the world.

• Christianity – Europeans assumed that everything that originated from Africa was inherently

backward and inferior to the European way. Thus, they had as an objective, “Christianizing” the

African continent, and “saving” them from their idolatrous religions.