We are pleased to introduce to you the Royal Resort, the only one of its kind in Bangladesh. This beautiful heritage Resort located at Dhanbari, Tangail, that has the palaces of the Dhanbari Nawabs is only 80 miles from the Dhaka city on the Tangail - Jamalpur highway. The well known Jamuna Bridge is only 30 minutes drive and the famous Modhupur forest is 7 miles from Royal Resort.
The Royal Resort has been designed keeping in view the high standards required to cater to the needs of the tourists. Elaborate arrangements have been made for our overseas and local tourists ranging from Diplomats, Administrators, Businessmen, Corporate Managers, Executives, Principals, Professors and Students. Picnics, extended tours are arranged for groups or individuals at any of the three picnic spots for day trips or extended holidays. Tourists are welcome to enjoy the well-furnished rooms, serene atmosphere, and beautiful gardens, indoor and outdoor sports, angling, boating and horse riding within a secured environment. Visits from the Resort to the tribal Garos, rubber and pineapple plantations, national park, reserve forest, and the magnificent Jumuna Bridge can be an enjoyable experience and can be covered.
For our corporate clients, our special package includes facilities for holding meetings, conferences, seminars and cultural events. The Royal Resort has exclusive convention center, conference room with multimedia facilities, comfortable bedrooms and facilities for indoor and outdoor games. Our experienced Chefs prepare the most authentic Bangladeshi traditional food to cater to a large number of local and international guests. Well-trained members of the staff are ready to make your stay with us most comfortable, fascinating, and memorable.
We are offering you an exclusive corporate package in Royal Resort for your esteem organization and we hope you will accept our offer and enjoy our Royal services.
We also have special arrangements with resorts in Cox’s-Bazar, St. Martin’s Island, Rangamati, Bandarban, Sundarban and several other places of interest including Nepal, Bhutan, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and China etc.
We shall be grateful if you visit our resort with your friends and family.
We are looking forward a long term business relation with you and your esteem organization.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Disgrac a African by J.M. Coetzee
African Writing in English ENG-436
Double
Plot summary
Person constellation
Disgrace is the story of a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his cherished daughter.
The novel tells the story of David Lurie, twice-divorced and dissatisfied with his job as a professor of Communication, teaching one specialized class in Romantic literature at a technical university in Cape Town in post-apartheid South Africa. His "disgrace" comes when he seduces one of his students and he does nothing to protect himself from its consequences. Lurie was working on Lord Byron at the time of his disgrace, and the irony is that he comes to grief from an escapade that Byron would have thought distinctly timid.[2] He is dismissed from his teaching position, after which he takes refuge on his daughter's farm in the Eastern Cape. For a time, his daughter's influence and natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. Shortly after becoming comfortable with rural life, he is forced to come to terms with the aftermath of an attack on the farm in which his daughter is raped and impregnated and he is brutally assaulted. In Disgrace, those who feel disgraced are also those who are punished.
[edit] Analysis
Any novel set in post-apartheid South Africa is fated to be read as a political portrait, but the fascination of Disgrace is the way it both encourages and contests such a reading by holding extreme alternatives in tension, salvation, ruin. In the new South Africa, violence is unleashed in new ways, and Lurie and his daughter become victims. The novel presents a bleak look of the country. It took its inspiration from social and political conflict of the country.[3]
As in all of his mature novels, Coetzee here deals with the theme of exploitation. His favorite approach has been to explore the innocuous-seeming use of another person to fill one's gentler emotional needs.[4] This is a story of both regional and universal significance. The central character is a confusing person, at once an intellectual snob who is contemptuous of others and also a person who commits outrageous mistakes. His story is also local, he is a white South African male in a world where such men no longer hold the power they once did. He is forced to rethink his entire world at an age when he believes he is too old to change and, in fact, should have a right not to.[5]
This is the second book by this author (after Life and Times of Michael K) where man is broken down almost to nothing before he finds some tiny measure of redemption in his forced acceptance of the realities of life and death. Coetzee has always situated his characters in extreme situations that compel them to explore what it means to be human.[6] There are many comparisons of human and animal existence in the novel. Though the novel is sparse in style, it covers a number of topics: personal shame, changing country, animal rights, romantic poetry and its symbolism[7].
Nov. 5, 1999 | In his sober, searing and even cynical little book "Disgrace," J.M. Coetzee tells us something we all suspect and fear -- that political change can do almost nothing to eliminate human misery. What it can do, he suggests, is reorder it a little and half-accidentally introduce a few new varieties. This view should not surprise any of the great South African novelist's readers. In his early-1980s masterpieces "Waiting for the Barbarians" and "Life & Times of Michael K" -- indeed, in all of his work -- political and historical forces blow through the lives of individuals like nasty weather systems, bringing with them a destruction that is all the more cruel for being impersonal. "Disgrace" is Coetzee's first book to deal explicitly with post-apartheid South Africa, and the picture it paints is a cheerless one that will comfort no one, no matter what race, nationality or viewpoint.
Last month "Disgrace" was awarded the Booker Prize, and it has undeniable echoes of "Michael K," Coetzee's 1983 Booker winner. In both books a man is broken down almost to nothing before he finds some tiny measure of redemption in his forced acceptance of the realities of life and death. But Professor David Lurie, the protagonist of "Disgrace," has farther to fall than Michael K, an unsophisticated Cape Town gardener. And the clarity David comes to at the end grows largely from his accepting an ever-increasing portion of pain. "One gets used to things getting harder; one ceases to be surprised that what used to be as hard as hard can be grows harder yet," he reflects. That sentence also describes Coetzee's notion of life in the new South Africa, where, as he portrays it, brutal tyranny has been replaced by brutal anarchy.
Rrdytfyyrt
A middle-aged, divorced scholar of Romantic poetry, David would have undoubtedly been a pathetic figure under the old regime -- one imagines an ineffectual white liberal teaching Wordsworth to bored Afrikaners while largely ignoring the atrocities perpetrated in his name. But in the Mandela era, David has become a victim of "the great rationalization": His university has been remade into a technical college, and he teaches courses in "communication skills" that he finds nonsensical. He is such a nonentity that the prostitute he patronizes weekly -- and for whom he has begun buying gifts -- stops receiving him. He imagines her and her colleagues shuddering over him "as one shudders at a cockroach in a washbasin in the middle of the night" and wonders if he can ask his doctor to castrate him as one neuters a domestic animal.
This is the first of the many comparisons of human and animal existence in "Disgrace." Coetzee has always situated his characters in extreme situations that compel them to explore what it means to be human, and before this novel is over, David must endure both psychological abasement and physical torment. But Coetzee has never before asked so clearly what it is not to be human. Later in the novel, after David has fallen into disgrace and fled Cape Town for his daughter Lucy's remote farm, she tells him, "This is the only life there is. Which we share with animals."
If David is reduced at times almost to an animal existence and finally to becoming a caretaker for dying animals, it is the mendacity of language that leads him there. Toward the end of the story, he reflects that the language he and others use has become "tired, friable, eaten from the inside as if by termites" and that he, an expert practitioner, is also hollow, "like a fly-casing in a spiderweb." When he is hauled before an academic tribunal after a misbegotten affair with a student, he refuses to defend himself against charges of sexual harassment. At first he resists the spectacle of public "prurience and sentiment" the committee expects. When he finally blurts out an apology, members of the tribunal refuse to be satisfied, demanding to know whether it reflects his sincere feelings and comes from his heart.
Coetzee seems to be attacking the New Age tyranny of therapeutic discourse here, but David's own language doesn't seem much more trustworthy. He rashly tells his judges that his liaison with the pretty and almost totally passive Melanie transformed him, if only briefly: "I was no longer a fifty-year-old divorc� at a loose end. I became a servant of Eros." Readers may well be repelled by David's arrogance, and his conduct with Melanie has fallen only a little short of rape. But judging him is not a simple matter. He is a student of Romanticism whose unrealized ambition is to write a chamber opera about Byron's life in Italy. No matter how little of our sympathy David may command, he has a point: If he genuinely believed his passion for Melanie was the real thing, the flame he had been waiting his whole life to feel, then how could he not pursue her avidly?
There is something fundamentally cryptic and unsummarizable about "Disgrace," but I read it as an almost metaphysical journey from this Romantic variety of love to the harsher, leaner strain David eventually learns from life on and around Lucy's farm. In Coetzee's fiction the stark and beautiful South African countryside has always played a half-allegorical role as both a destructive and a regenerative environment. He certainly can't be accused of sentimentalizing rural life; shortly after David goes to live with Lucy, a stolid lesbian who, like him, seems to have been abandoned by the world, they become victims of a vicious criminal assault that may not be as random as it first appears. Their relations with Petrus, the African farmer who is their nearest neighbor, become increasingly troubled and ambiguous. David volunteers to work for Bev, a friend of Lucy's who runs the local veterinary clinic, and comes to realize that Bev's primary role, in this impoverished land, is not to heal animals but to kill them with as much love and mercy as she can summon.
In the wake of the outrages committed against him and his daughter, David still struggles with language. His angry demands for justice get no response from the overstretched police, and his attempts to confront one of the assailants -- whom Petrus is apparently protecting -- produce only stony silences and baldfaced lies. Lucy seems to understand what David cannot: that to live where she lives she must tolerate brutalization and humiliation and simply keep going. "Perhaps that is what I must learn to accept," she tells her father. "To start at ground level. With nothing ... No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity ... Like a dog." If David actually reclaims some dignity by the end of "Disgrace," it is only because he gives up everything, gives up more than a dog ever could -- his daughter, his ideas about justice and language, his dream of the opera on Byron and even the dying animals he has learned to love without reservation, without thought for himself.
salon.com | Nov. 5, 1999
"Disgrace" by J.M. Coetzee
The winner of the 1999 Booker Prize is a bleak tale of human and animal misery in post-apartheid South Africa.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
BY ANDREW O'HEHIR
In his sober, searing and even cynical little book "Disgrace," J.M. Coetzee tells us something we all suspect and fear -- that political change can do almost nothing to eliminate human misery. What it can do, he suggests, is reorder it a little and half-accidentally introduce a few new varieties. This view should not surprise any of the great South African novelist's readers. In his early-1980s masterpieces "Waiting for the Barbarians" and "Life & Times of Michael K" -- indeed, in all of his work -- political and historical forces blow through the lives of individuals like nasty weather systems, bringing with them a destruction that is all the more cruel for being impersonal. "Disgrace" is Coetzee's first book to deal explicitly with post-apartheid South Africa, and the picture it paints is a cheerless one that will comfort no one, no matter what race, nationality or viewpoint.
Last month "Disgrace" was awarded the Booker Prize, and it has undeniable echoes of "Michael K," Coetzee's 1983 Booker winner. In both books a man is broken down almost to nothing before he finds some tiny measure of redemption in his forced acceptance of the realities of life and death. But Professor David Lurie, the protagonist of "Disgrace," has farther to fall than Michael K, an unsophisticated Cape Town gardener. And the clarity David comes to at the end grows largely from his accepting an ever-increasing portion of pain. "One gets used to things getting harder; one ceases to be surprised that what used to be as hard as hard can be grows harder yet," he reflects. That sentence also describes Coetzee's notion of life in the new South Africa, where, as he portrays it, brutal tyranny has been replaced by brutal anarchy.
A middle-aged, divorced scholar of Romantic poetry, David would have undoubtedly been a pathetic figure under the old regime -- one imagines an ineffectual white liberal teaching Wordsworth to bored Afrikaners while largely ignoring the atrocities perpetrated in his name. But in the Mandela era, David has become a victim of "the great rationalization": His university has been remade into a technical college, and he teaches courses in "communication skills" that he finds nonsensical. He is such a nonentity that the prostitute he patronizes weekly -- and for whom he has begun buying gifts -- stops receiving him. He imagines her and her colleagues shuddering over him "as one shudders at a cockroach in a washbasin in the middle of the night" and wonders if he can ask his doctor to castrate him as one neuters a domestic animal.
This is the first of the many comparisons of human and animal existence in "Disgrace." Coetzee has always situated his characters in extreme situations that compel them to explore what it means to be human, and before this novel is over, David must endure both psychological abasement and physical torment. But Coetzee has never before asked so clearly what it is not to be human. Later in the novel, after David has fallen into disgrace and fled Cape Town for his daughter Lucy's remote farm, she tells him, "This is the only life there is. Which we share with animals."
If David is reduced at times almost to an animal existence and finally to becoming a caretaker for dying animals, it is the mendacity of language that leads him there. Toward the end of the story, he reflects that the language he and others use has become "tired, friable, eaten from the inside as if by termites" and that he, an expert practitioner, is also hollow, "like a fly-casing in a spiderweb." When he is hauled before an academic tribunal after a misbegotten affair with a student, he refuses to defend himself against charges of sexual harassment. At first he resists the spectacle of public "prurience and sentiment" the committee expects. When he finally blurts out an apology, members of the tribunal refuse to be satisfied, demanding to know whether it reflects his sincere feelings and comes from his heart.
Coetzee seems to be attacking the New Age tyranny of therapeutic discourse here, but David's own language doesn't seem much more trustworthy. He rashly tells his judges that his liaison with the pretty and almost totally passive Melanie transformed him, if only briefly: "I was no longer a fifty-year-old divorc� at a loose end. I became a servant of Eros." Readers may well be repelled by David's arrogance, and his conduct with Melanie has fallen only a little short of rape. But judging him is not a simple matter. He is a student of Romanticism whose unrealized ambition is to write a chamber opera about Byron's life in Italy. No matter how little of our sympathy David may command, he has a point: If he genuinely believed his passion for Melanie was the real thing, the flame he had been waiting his whole life to feel, then how could he not pursue her avidly?
There is something fundamentally cryptic and unsummarizable about "Disgrace," but I read it as an almost metaphysical journey from this Romantic variety of love to the harsher, leaner strain David eventually learns from life on and around Lucy's farm. In Coetzee's fiction the stark and beautiful South African countryside has always played a half-allegorical role as both a destructive and a regenerative environment. He certainly can't be accused of sentimentalizing rural life; shortly after David goes to live with Lucy, a stolid lesbian who, like him, seems to have been abandoned by the world, they become victims of a vicious criminal assault that may not be as random as it first appears. Their relations with Petrus, the African farmer who is their nearest neighbor, become increasingly troubled and ambiguous. David volunteers to work for Bev, a friend of Lucy's who runs the local veterinary clinic, and comes to realize that Bev's primary role, in this impoverished land, is not to heal animals but to kill them with as much love and mercy as she can summon.
In the wake of the outrages committed against him and his daughter, David still struggles with language. His angry demands for justice get no response from the overstretched police, and his attempts to confront one of the assailants -- whom Petrus is apparently protecting -- produce only stony silences and baldfaced lies. Lucy seems to understand what David cannot: that to live where she lives she must tolerate brutalization and humiliation and simply keep going. "Perhaps that is what I must learn to accept," she tells her father. "To start at ground level. With nothing ... No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity ... Like a dog." If David actually reclaims some dignity by the end of "Disgrace," it is only because he gives up everything, gives up more than a dog ever could -- his daughter, his ideas about justice and language, his dream of the opera on Byron and even the dying animals he has learned to love without reservation, without thought for himself.
salon.com |
Even before his disgrace, Professor David Lurie wasn't exactly a shining success. At age 52, he's been divorced twice and he's been demoted from professor of modern languages to adjunct professor of communications. He's a mediocre teacher specializing in Romantic poets considered obsolete when the Cape Town University College became Cape Technical University. Nevertheless, he's muddling along quite nicely. He has a weekly rendezvous with a high caliber prostitute that satisfies his sexual needs, and at least his new position still allows him to teach one poetry course a year.
But life begins to fall apart when David sees his paramour on the street one day with her two little boys. Fearing exposure, she quits her call girl life, and although he tracks her down, she rejects him. The rapport he'd felt was mere business to her. Subsequent girls sent by the "hostess service" are unsatisfying. One evening while crossing campus, he runs into Melanie Isaacs, an unremarkable young woman in his Byron class. He discovers himself "mildly smitten." They quickly become lovers. Problem is, she already has one: a young biker boy who's none too pleased about David moving in on his territory. Pressured by family and friends, Melanie reports the indiscretion and David, who refuses to apologize for his behavior---he was merely answering the call of Eros---is forced to resign.
Shunned by everyone in his small college town, he heads for his daughter's small holding. Lucy appears to enjoy her life, despite recently losing her lover, Helen. She kennels dogs, sells the flowers and vegetables she grows, and helps her African handyman become a property owner.
But just as this idyllic life begins to bore David, he sees its uglier side. Lucy convinces him to help her friend, Bev, at the local animal clinic. David, no great animal lover, finds himself face to face with the suffering of innocents---too many dogs born into a world that neither wants them nor has the means to support them. Bev's role is more executioner than veterinarian. Then, he and Lucy are attacked by three Africans, and he is helpless to prevent her being raped. Their peaceful co-existence destroyed, David struggles to understand why Lucy insists on remaining on the farm and reconcile himself to the, for him, unbelievable dynamic between her and the neighboring Africans.
Coetzee won the 1999 Booker Prize for this novel, and it's easy to see why. By chronicling the consequences of one man's abuses of and fall from power, Coetzee creates a story of both universal and regional significance. On the one hand, David is a certain type who contemptuous of others, uses his position to take what he wants and to justify the taking. But David's story is also local---he is a white South African male in a world where such men no longer hold the power they once did. He's forced to rethink his entire world at an age when he believes he's too old to change and, in fact, should have a right not to. "How are the mighty fallen!" remarks Melanie's father when he meets David. David's reply highlights the hope he's gained from this struggle: "Perhaps it does us good . . . to have a fall every now and then. As long as we don't break."
True, this story is bleak---Coetzee offers no happy quick fix for this post-apartheid South African where white men who arm themselves and build security fences are expected to get a bullet in the back eventually, and solitary white women are brutalized. And David's rise from disgrace is by no means complete. He has fallen far enough that he can no longer make a life as he did before. But the story offers a slight glimpse of self-redemption, a sense that David is not completely broken. And the tiny bit of dignity David retains implies a slight hope that if one such as David---he of the upper echelons of race and education in the old South Africa---can find meaning in life again, then perhaps the disgrace of apartheid can evolve into something better as wel
Re-reading JM Coetzee’s Disgrace
1st December 2006
Disgrace won the 1999 Booker Prize and I probably read it that year, perhaps in 2000, I don’t remember. It would certainly be among the top three novels to win that prize in the last decade.
He has not taken to Bev Shaw, a dumpy, bustling little woman with black freckles, close-cropped, wiry hair, and no neck. He does not like women who make no effort to be attractive. It is a resistance he has had to Lucy’s friends before. Nothing to be proud of; a prejudice that has settled in his mind, settled down. His mind has become a refuge for old thoughts, idle, indigent, with nowhere else to go. He ought to chase them out, sweep the premises clean. But he does not care to do so, or does not care enough.
Exiled to an isolated farm after being sacked from his professorial post at the University of Capetown, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, moves in with his daughter, Lucy. But shortly after his arrival the isolated farm is raided by three men who rape his daughter and try to burn Lurie alive. They shoot the dogs and eventually load up his car with all they can plunder from the house and make their getaway, leaving him and his daughter humiliated and in a state of extreme shock.
Political and historical forces shape our lives in a totally impersonal way. In this novel Coetzee deals with his vision of post-Apartheid South Africa embedded in the life of David Lurie and his friends and relations. We watch as Lurie is broken apart by the forces playing with his life and know that he will only find a grain of redemption when he gives up his illusions and begins to accept the reality of his situation.
David Lurie’s story is a journey mirrored by the transition of Mandela’s South Africa; the country moves from tyranny to anarchy, the man from a hazy and liberally romantic lifestyle to a hospice for unwanted dogs.
And all is rendered in a spare prose style that exactly matches the interiority of the main character.
The book won an unprecedented second Booker Prize for JM Coetzee in 1999, almost a decade after the release of Nelson Mandela and the beginning of the dismantling of Apartheid.
If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my RSS feed
Filed under art, literature, politics, quotations, reading, reviews, writing
Related Tags: apartheid, booker, coetzee, disgrace, exile, fiction, history, illusion, marginalization, modernism, novel, prose, re-reading, south africa
________________________________________
10 Replies
1. Nils
Dec 1st, 2006 at 11:31 am
I’m slightly ashamed to say that I’ve still not read anything by Coetzee. I’ve wanted to for a long time, but always something has come up. Perhaps next time I drop by the library, I’ll take one home (that’s in a few days or weeks at most). I’ve been saying this for years now. Perhaps appropriate for Coetzee – read on.
I remember seeing Coetzee interviewed in the Dutch series ‘Van de schoonheid en de troost’ (’Of Beauty and Consolation’) – a wonderful set of long talks between its presenter Wim Kayzer and several of the most amazing guests.
There’s a list of them with soundbites here (don’t know how good your Dutch is these days, but most of them speak English anyway) and the Coetzee episode can be viewed in its entirety here (you’ll see ‘video’ and a small animated logo to the centre right).
To me the Coetzee episode is amazing (as are some of the others, but it’s Coetzee who’s relevant here). The way the interview goes on and on, at different locations, but never finds focus or closure, with Coetzee always postponing, thinking, wandering off in his mind. Enough said, it’s beautiful, watch it If you liked it, do let me know what you thought of it…
PS isn’t there something wrong with your dates in this post – 1990-1999?
jb says: Yes, there was something wrong with my dates, but I’ve fixed it. Thank you for bring it to my attention. Your links were interesting, at least the parts that were in English. My Dutch is not feasible, I’m afraid. I liked what he said about the task of finding himself as an animal, locating himself outside of the prison of history. But much of what he had to say in the interview was fascinating, especially as he was extremely uncomfortable with many of the questions, describing the interview form as torture because it meant he had to answer without reflection. Thanks again, it’s good to have the link, and I’m sure I’ll look at it again quite soon.
But you really should have a look at at least one of Coetzee’s books. He is something special.
Although, on a personal level, there is something monk-like about him. He abstains from tobacco, alcohol and meat, rides over vast distances on a bike, rarely smiles, and has been known to sit through an entire dinner engagement without speaking a single word.
I was at a lecture by him recently when someone’s phone went off half-way through one of Coatzee’s readings. He stopped reading and waited. He said nothing, but looked directly at the woman concerned. I (and a couple of hundred other people in the room) said a silent prayer of thanks that it wasn’t me.
2. Lee
Dec 1st, 2006 at 3:50 pm
I must listen to these, Nils, and thanks for the links. I second JB - Coetzee is absolutely amazing, and having lived in southern Africa for many years, I can only say that he captures utterly so much of its essence and (as yet) failed promise, as well as so much more about all of us. I always like to pair Disgrace with Waiting for the Barbarians, not just thematically, but because of the range of voices he’s mastered within this context, and how his voices support what else he does.
That protracted silence at a lecture: a lesson I learned in Africa!
jb says: OK, Lee, I’ve put Waiting for the Barbarians on my reading list. It’s now several hours since I watched the video and I still have the image of Coetzee squirming at the interviewer’s questions, as if he was being physically tortured.
3. Nils
Dec 1st, 2006 at 6:45 pm
Glad you liked it. I’ve watched bits of it again this afternoon and indeed ‘love’ the way he can’t seem to fit in that blatant medium that is TV – so harsh and direct. I do understand him in that.
Then I went out for some errands and… picked up Disgrace (for 10 euro) on the way home. Can’t say when I’ll get to it, because I have still so much more in queue, but at least we’re one step further: it’s here, in the house waiting to be got to.
I almost feel Coetzee-esque (if that’s a word) in my faltering attempts to tackle the man (I won’t even start about Gravity’s Rainbow)
Thanks for the post. One man’s re-reading can become another’s discovery it seems.
jb says: Listen to them bells, Nils. The whole world, it seems, wants you to put that book on the top of your pile.
4. dharini
Apr 7th, 2007 at 6:46 am
Hi…i am a huge admirer of Coetzee’s works…in the midst of “Foe”, which i believe is among his best…Coetzee is particularly remarkable with female protagonists. I wasn’t able to open the link to the audio pieces…dunno why…it’s hard to even imagine Coetzee giving an interview…does anyone here have his email id?
DP
jb says: Hi Dharini. I also read Foe a couple of years ago, but didn’t get on with it as well as some of the others. I tried the video link again just now and works fine for me. Have you got javascript enabled on your computer?
5. Impressionist
Jul 6th, 2007 at 9:58 am
The interview is an excellent piece of information for people who admire John Coetzee. Disgrace was the first Coetzee book that I read; it raised a lot of questions about the man who had written it. So I started finding out all that was said by Coetzee; through interviews etc. Sadly there wasn’t much; the recluse that John is he hardly gives any interviews; and his explanation on the interview format being “incompatible” with him is fairly understandable as he “likes to have certain perfection in his responses”. Apart from the Dutch TV interview; which I guess is the best resource of information I have on Coetzee; there is another interesting interview and reading from Youth here. http://www.lannan.org/lf/rc/event/j-m-coetzee/
Despite the fact that John is a recluse and its difficult to extract much from him about his own life and its influence on his works; I guess if any one is interested in knowing about him, his books are the best resources. From Boyhood to Youth to Disgrace to Elizabeth Costello and now Inner Workings. I guess all of these draw heavily upon Coetzee’s own life. I have read only Youth, Disgrace and Elizabeth Costello; and I find that a lot of information about the man’s life and mind is available from there.
In a way I identify with Coetzee to a great sense; my perception is that he is a very confused man; understandably so as he is a perfectionist and instead of accepting a theory or a philosophy which can not prove itself to him; he prefers to remain confused. He doesn’t attempt to preach and provide answers in his works, as probably he understands that there are no write answers. His life seems to have been a continuous struggle with himself more than with anyone else. The world by and large does not seem to bother him after he reached a certain age. I guess, even if he does not dislike human beings; he does not have agreat amount of love for them either. This despite the fact that he is so sensitive to and aware of the human suffering. To my mind he expects a certain level of dignity for every human being irrespective of their backgrounds and political / ideological allegiences.
I guess he is recluse because he understands the futility of it all; futility of fame; because of the changes it may bring into him. There is something that this man knows and has realized which we all are not aware of as yet.
If I get to speak with him some day; what a conversation it would be!!
6. Impressionist
Jul 6th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Dharini,
i hope you have been able to access the links by now. I have downloaded version of the interview (which i was able to do after weeks of R&D). the file is pretty bulky in Real format (100+ MB). in 3gp format its around 10 MB or less. so if you can’t get to see the interview; let me know’ we can find a way to share the video.
Can somebody tell me a little about John’s latest “Inner Workings”. the book is pretty costly here in India, and i was wondering how it is…
PS - In the last post it should have been “there are no right answers” instead of “there are no write answers”.
Apologies for the same.
7. Mary McGArvey
Jul 31st, 2007 at 4:43 pm
I picked up this book “Disgrace” while housesitting for a 50′ish bachelor in California. What an excellent and spare writer this South African is! However, what struck me as a member of a very multicultural area of my own, the Bay Area of San Francisco, is the complete lack of backbone in this character, David Lurie. In the end, he has no real guts to stand up for himself, to fight for his daughter, to deal with ex-wives or colleagues with any real gumption. In this regard, I see the decline of South Africa, the giving in to chaos, anarchy, black-on-white raping and violence, destruction of the white farmers, etc. as embodied in this seemingly diffident professor. Educated man? Yes! Backbone, guts, common sense, emotional maturity, no!
SO his decline into his own despair, through volunteer work with dogs to be put down, his deigning to sleep with a woman he finds unattractive (though years younger than him…), I find the typical indulgence of an individual who has in his youth had great arrogance, a belief in his own superiority, vanity, intolerance regarding women. Only in his 50’s when no one looks at him anymore, when no woman turns her head and returns his smiles, when his students don’t listen and look through him, when his wives have left him and even his “ho” rejects him, then he begins a journey of anguish, as the white people of South Africa are now doing.
On the other hand, this story is so well written, such a metaphor for many other parts of life and parts of the world undergoing cultural decline, that anyone could enjoy reading it.
I didn’t think that 52 is considered old, but perhaps for men in South Africa, if 30 is old in a woman, then 52 is ancient in a man. I have never been there, but in some ways it sounds stuck in a timewarp, mentally, especially as regards women. His poor daughter doesn’t even try to fight back, or leave the farm, just accepts that she will have biracial children as a third wife of a former dogman! She has to give up the land as a DOWRY! She is allowed to “keep the house”! And the fact that she is lesbian, did not desire to sleep with any man, is ironic: does it represent the old South Africa, which wanted nothing really to do with the nonwhites, esp. blacks, getting forcibly raped by them, one even wrong in the head, so that the country is forced to submit to a new race’s rule!? Violence and rape will win Africa for the blacks, yippiee!
Mary
8. Hicham
Sep 13th, 2007 at 3:43 am
Lurie is a tired man. Self indulgent. One morning, he wakes up and realized abruptly that he is a man of the past. What has he done? What has he written? Since then he pursues his disgrace and when he meets it through Melanie he welcomes it like a grace. He seeks to meet Melanie’s father to thank him for the disgrace he brought him. Whithout which no redemption and without redemption, no creation, no operas, no writings.
The scenes in his daughter’s farm, the animal hospice, the black and white conflict are not central. They just operate as a catalyst.
Hicham.
9. alanna
Apr 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 am
i have just read disgrace, finally. in 2008. having been married to a brown south african man from cape town for past 3 years, i really felt i ought to!!! i loved it and agree with the learned comments above
(i am a white middle class over-educated australian, who speaks 5 languages but not dutch)
i saw coetzee here in sydney not long after he emigrated to australia (lives in adelaide hills i believe - full of german wine-growers, not unlike stellenbosch and paarl i imagine, in bygone years).
he did not read anything from his novels, but rather an essay he’d written on a children’s story (i forget which - maybe wind in the willows or alice in wonderland). he was just as weird as you guys described. not broken, but restrained.
i am now going to read his earlier books - our little local library has absolutely everything of his.
it helps now to be married to a south african - to understand bits of afrikaans slang and refs to cape town suburbs. but mostly to understand the whole mess that is “legacy of apartheid”.
the bride price/dowry thing - that is universal in black africa (not just in south africa), well-known i thought.
But even the most privileged white south africans (who moved to Sydney 15 years ago) are morally and socially at my grandparents’ level. That is, they have been stuck in a time warp since 1930s. I mean they are pre everything, certainly
pre-feminism. The flipside is, of course, that they are not confused - men known what men are supposed to do, women the same, and chidlren are allowed a childhood, unlike here in the west where 5 year old girls now dress like paris hilton. Women do not feel like they are missing anything, they “know their place”.
If I were a lesbian however I would not live there except for the mardi gras thing in Cape Town - it rivals ours here, I hear.
anyway, that’s my 2 cents’ worth!
jb says: Hi Alanna. Good to hear from you and good, also, that you enjoyed the book. It is something special. Why do I think your post is going to be a little controversial?
The Moment Before the Gun Went Off
In “The Moment Before the Gun Went Off,” Nadine Gordimer presents readers
with a poignant vignette of South African apartheid. Gordimer is not out to
blame, an instinctive tendency that would only widen the already gaping
black- white schism. In “The Moment,” Gordimer means to link the two races
as victims of the injustices of apartheid, and possibly to contribute to the
eradication of a segregationist mindset and to the reconciliation of blacks and
whites. Her vehicle is Marais Van der Vyver’s “twenty-year old farmhand,”
Lucas. In the story, Van der Vyver has taken particular interest in this “black
boy,” teaching him tractor maintenance and taking him hunting. As usual,
Lucas rode in the bed of the pickup, scouring the African grasses for game,
while Van der Vyver drove. Vand de Vyber's gun discharges and renders Lucas
a victim of freak accident, negligence, and ultimately apartheid.
In Gordimer’s South Africa, apartheid has become more than legislation; it
has become a mentality that segregates and prejudges. Lucas and Van der
Vyver were separated by more than the rear window of the truck. The narrator
is an unmistakable apartheid-sympathizer. He drops stereotypes carelessly, -
always commenting on how blacks raise their children, on how blacks waste
their money on funerals, and on “their” perceived short-comings and
idiosyncrasies in general. Lucas is not a boy; he is a “black boy.” The narrator,
wide-eyed with disbelief, remarks that “blacks can sit and drink in white
hotels” and that “blacks can sleep with whites.” These are unthinkable
liberties in the mind of the white apartheid-advocate. By speaking from the
perspective of an apartheid supporter, Gordimer manages to storm the
apartheid fortress from within, and in the process, seizes a brilliant sense of
irony and seemingly unquestionable credibility for herself. Gordimer sounds
her loudest peal of irony in the last sentence: Lucas is Van der Vyver’s son,
and therefore, both white and black. Just as Van de Vyver has failed to
acknowledge his son, the white community has refused to acknowledge the
culture of discrimination and oppression they have been supporting.
However, “the young black callously shot through the negligence of the white
man” is not only the farmer’s son; he is a symbol. Lucas, as the son of Van
der Vyver and one of his farm workers, is the intersection of the black and
white divisions. Apartheid has extinguished Lucas’ life, along with black
dignity and white moral integrity. Gordimer has slid her keystone into place
and has constructed a South Africa divided, confused, and victimized by
apartheid.
More reviews about the The Moment Before the Gun Went Off
Bibliography
The Moment Before the Gun Went Off by Nadine Gordimer
A MAN OF THE PEOPLE.(1966)CHINUA ACHEBE. A man of the people is a captivating novel that guarantees you an entertaining and breath taking time as you continue reading page by page. Chinua Achebe has used very creatively the political history of his country Nigeria to form the basis of this book, A man of the people captures the indiscretions of African leaders and their un level playing field when it comes to political issues. The book also captures the ills of the ruling class represented by Chief Nanga and his cronies in power, the likes of Chief Koko.
A man of the people starts with the now famous lines among literature students in Africa, “No one can deny that Chief the Honorable M.A. Nanga, M.P., was the most approachable politician in the country…” The book is written using the I narrator perspective and therefore, the above lines are said by Odili Samalu. Odili of course comes out strongly as being a major character in the text and the main rival of Chief Nanga. The book starts out at a function at the Anata Grammar School where Odili teaches and the functions chief guest is none other than Chief Nanga. He was due to address the staff and the students at the schools’ Assembly Hall. The villagers of course not being able to keep away from such an important visit by the area Member of Parliament thronged the Assembly Hall to capacity. In fact the narrator tells us that the Assembly hall must have carried more than thrice its capacity.
The people went out of their way to welcome the politician. We are told various dancing groups were performing at different points in the school compound as they awaited the arrival of the chief guest, Chief Nanga.
Chief Nanga was able to recognize his favorite pupil sixteen years back when he used to teach in standard three, Odili was over whelmed at Chief Nangas’ good memory. Nanga invited Odili to his home in Bori, the Capital.
Odili disagreed with Chief Nanga after he Chief Nanga shamelessly slept with Odilis’ Girlfriend Elsie in his matrimonial home. Odili could not stomach this insult to his manhood and he had a verbal spurt with Chief Nanga which led to him leaving his home and went to stay with his friend Maxwell Kulamo a lawyer.
This was the beginning of the bitter rivalry between Odili and Nanga. Maxwell Kulamo known as “Coolmax” by his friends back at the Grammar School consoled Odili and together with other of his friends formed a party called Common People’s Convention. (The C.P.C).
Maxwell was to run against Chief Koko in the next Election and Odili readily accepted to join the party and run against Chief Nanga. They went ahead to implement the plans and went the full way to the elections. However, it was not a simple affair for them as the incumbents used all that was available to their disposal to stop this new crop of politicians from humiliating them in the Elections.
Chief Nanga for example planted crude weapons on Odilis car and he was put under arrest for possession of dangerous arms. Nanga made sure that Odili naver had a chance to sign his nomination papers.
Maxwell Kulamo was killed in Abaga by Chief Koko. He was ran over by one his jeeps when alighting from his vehicle. Eunice, Max’s Girlfriend, pulled out a pistol immediately and fired two bullets into Chief Koko’s chest as revenge for felling her boyfriend.
Chinua Achebe has described what African politics is explicitly in this book and I would recommend it to any one for reading and for any one who wishes to have an insight of African dirty Political gimmicks Finnaly I end this Abstract with Odili’s final words in he book; “I say you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and shoot your murderer in the chest- without asking to be paid.”
Role of media both print and radio in “A Man of the People”
In A Man of the People Chief Nanga, is referred to by the narrator Odili, as a man of the people, and the most approachable politician in the West Africa. Role of media should be stand as an intermediately between the government and the common people but it is portryed by Achebe as an evil side of media in A Man of the People. We know each media vehicle has a significance role to play. If print generates awareness and disseminates information, radio is a vehicle to build the brand with its emotional appeal. But what we see in A Man of the People? We see media is a representative of government or we can say media are the mouth speech of government of West Africa in A Man of the people. They have no connection with common people even with the opposition. In A Man of the People we observed two kinds of media; they are the mouth speech of government. Print media, like The Daily Chronicle is an official organ of the P.O.P (People’s Organization Party) and the broadcasts media like African national radio stations main job is broadcasted government’s speech.
Print media plays very significant role in the novel A Man of the People. Achebe casts a critical eye on African politics and as well as media. Achebe shows the switching of power between the old and new styles of politicians and how the old bush politician, Chief Nanga, is becoming more and greedier as he learns the political system. He is the one of the Member of Parliament. The government is more powerful and corrupted and they know how to handle general people. They use media as a representative of government. It is really happened in third world country. All media are bound to government because government has power. Any time they can close media house. It is the big threat for media. Some time government is the big investiture for circulation or broadcasting. That is why, they are bound to make fake news that increase government image. For example, “The Daily Chronicle, an official organ of the P.O.P had pointed out in an editional that the Miscreant Gang, as the dismissed ministers were now called, were all university people and highly educated professional men.” News papers are not independent at West Africa. News paper are carried the prime Minister or Government version of the story. They can it easily because of the common men are far away from the “intellectual!” Dr Makinde the ex- Minister of Finance as he got up to speak tell, calm, sorrowful and superior. It was a most unedifying spectacle. He is called “Traitor”, “Coward”, and “Doctor of Fork your Mother” by common people. But the next morning the editor of the Daily Chronicle published news that was opposite of Dr. Makinde’s speech. Is says “a brilliant economist whose reputation was universally acclaimed in Europe”. The Daily Matchet also play same role. Another thing is important that media are not only representative of Government but also underestimate the oppositions. They have no social responsibility. They do not think about common people even they have no relation with them because of uneducated and unawareness society. It is really happening in Africa as well as third world country. Media have no role for repetitive society. They can not write down a single word without government’s authorization.
Radio also the mouth speaker of government in A Man of the People. Radio is censored by the government. It can not any play any role independently. It is far away from the common people. The government does not want the common people know true information. We know as a human being it is right to know all true information. But the real picture is totally opposite. Radio’s have no connection with common people. Oppositions are threatened by the radio but most of the time they represent there is no opposition only the government. For example Nanga says that only the powerful party is P.O.P. The government does not want the common people to hare information regarding the pipes. Hezekiah Samaluis a chairman of P.O.P. Many pipes are approved by P.O.P for a villager. It is forecasted by radio. On the other hand, when Samalu distributes it two other villages for his anti parties activities. This news does not forecast through radio because of the image of P.O.P. One day Odili is listening radio for news but he is not able to hare any news without govern activities. It is controlled by P.O.P
Everyone knows information is a form of power. The Third World countries now know this more than ever. That is why they are calling for the establishment of a new international order of information. They feel this is just as urgent as the establishment of a new international economic order. In A Man of the People we see media is like a doll of government that has no existent without other. They have no activities without government. They are bound to government because of existing.
Odili Samalu
Odili Samalu is a narrator and protagonist of A Man of the People, odili is native of Urua village, where his father Hezekiah is a wealthy man who was a district interpreter and now head of the local chapter of the People’s Organization Party (POP). Odili has graduated from the Anata Grammer School, where he is Nanga’s Favorite student and is a disaffected member of the student’s branch of POP. Odili, the narrator, represents the new intellectual generation. Odili is a kind of man who most of the times narrate the entire situation that he observes but does not take any kind of inatiative aginst that insident. We can compear him with the main character in Gallivar Travels by Jonathon Swift who always described most of the stories but did not take any kind of action against that particular insident; he took action against any particular situation whent that harms him. Odili did the same when his girl friend was taken away from you by Chief Nanga.
Chief Nanga
In A Man of the People, Chief Nanga, is referred to by the narrator, Odili, as a man of the people, and the most approachable politician in the country. He is the minister of culture and his speeches to the public represent everything that a politician should do and be. But as Odili tells the story, it becomes clear that Chief Nanga does not practice what he preaches. The money that is supposed to go towards helping his community he uses instead to build four-story buildings, which he rents out for his own profit. Chief Nanga is supposed to be standing up for the traditions and beliefs of the pre-colonial African culture by defending the common man and opposing the European-oriented post-colonial intellectuals. However, in A Man of the People Achebe focuses more on the politics of West African communities. Achebe shows the switching of power between the old and new styles of politicians and how the old style bush politician, Chief Nanga, is becoming more and more greedy as he learns the political system. Chief Nanga learns to be greedy and learns how to win elections through the corrupt system of politics he was against in the first place. The important thing for Chief Nanga is that the people trust him. He relates to them more, because he considers himself closer to the common man and far away from the intellectual, who represents a more European style of living and thinking. By representing his country after colonialism he has the incentive to stay as far away from the European style of life and politics as possible.
Odili’s Father
His father name is Hezekiah. He is a wealthy man who was a district interpreter and now head of the local chairman of the People’s Organization Party (POP). He is a perfect example of typical African man. He does not want to eccept any thing from the modern or developing world. He believes that nobody can brak the old form of rules and cannot build any thing new out of old rulers. He represents the typical African culture; he believes in poligamy, and he also married severel times and careless about his family and children. He proves that in Africa most of the people do not aware about the political situation and corruption in politics.
Double
Plot summary
Person constellation
Disgrace is the story of a South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his good looks, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his cherished daughter.
The novel tells the story of David Lurie, twice-divorced and dissatisfied with his job as a professor of Communication, teaching one specialized class in Romantic literature at a technical university in Cape Town in post-apartheid South Africa. His "disgrace" comes when he seduces one of his students and he does nothing to protect himself from its consequences. Lurie was working on Lord Byron at the time of his disgrace, and the irony is that he comes to grief from an escapade that Byron would have thought distinctly timid.[2] He is dismissed from his teaching position, after which he takes refuge on his daughter's farm in the Eastern Cape. For a time, his daughter's influence and natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. Shortly after becoming comfortable with rural life, he is forced to come to terms with the aftermath of an attack on the farm in which his daughter is raped and impregnated and he is brutally assaulted. In Disgrace, those who feel disgraced are also those who are punished.
[edit] Analysis
Any novel set in post-apartheid South Africa is fated to be read as a political portrait, but the fascination of Disgrace is the way it both encourages and contests such a reading by holding extreme alternatives in tension, salvation, ruin. In the new South Africa, violence is unleashed in new ways, and Lurie and his daughter become victims. The novel presents a bleak look of the country. It took its inspiration from social and political conflict of the country.[3]
As in all of his mature novels, Coetzee here deals with the theme of exploitation. His favorite approach has been to explore the innocuous-seeming use of another person to fill one's gentler emotional needs.[4] This is a story of both regional and universal significance. The central character is a confusing person, at once an intellectual snob who is contemptuous of others and also a person who commits outrageous mistakes. His story is also local, he is a white South African male in a world where such men no longer hold the power they once did. He is forced to rethink his entire world at an age when he believes he is too old to change and, in fact, should have a right not to.[5]
This is the second book by this author (after Life and Times of Michael K) where man is broken down almost to nothing before he finds some tiny measure of redemption in his forced acceptance of the realities of life and death. Coetzee has always situated his characters in extreme situations that compel them to explore what it means to be human.[6] There are many comparisons of human and animal existence in the novel. Though the novel is sparse in style, it covers a number of topics: personal shame, changing country, animal rights, romantic poetry and its symbolism[7].
Nov. 5, 1999 | In his sober, searing and even cynical little book "Disgrace," J.M. Coetzee tells us something we all suspect and fear -- that political change can do almost nothing to eliminate human misery. What it can do, he suggests, is reorder it a little and half-accidentally introduce a few new varieties. This view should not surprise any of the great South African novelist's readers. In his early-1980s masterpieces "Waiting for the Barbarians" and "Life & Times of Michael K" -- indeed, in all of his work -- political and historical forces blow through the lives of individuals like nasty weather systems, bringing with them a destruction that is all the more cruel for being impersonal. "Disgrace" is Coetzee's first book to deal explicitly with post-apartheid South Africa, and the picture it paints is a cheerless one that will comfort no one, no matter what race, nationality or viewpoint.
Last month "Disgrace" was awarded the Booker Prize, and it has undeniable echoes of "Michael K," Coetzee's 1983 Booker winner. In both books a man is broken down almost to nothing before he finds some tiny measure of redemption in his forced acceptance of the realities of life and death. But Professor David Lurie, the protagonist of "Disgrace," has farther to fall than Michael K, an unsophisticated Cape Town gardener. And the clarity David comes to at the end grows largely from his accepting an ever-increasing portion of pain. "One gets used to things getting harder; one ceases to be surprised that what used to be as hard as hard can be grows harder yet," he reflects. That sentence also describes Coetzee's notion of life in the new South Africa, where, as he portrays it, brutal tyranny has been replaced by brutal anarchy.
Rrdytfyyrt
A middle-aged, divorced scholar of Romantic poetry, David would have undoubtedly been a pathetic figure under the old regime -- one imagines an ineffectual white liberal teaching Wordsworth to bored Afrikaners while largely ignoring the atrocities perpetrated in his name. But in the Mandela era, David has become a victim of "the great rationalization": His university has been remade into a technical college, and he teaches courses in "communication skills" that he finds nonsensical. He is such a nonentity that the prostitute he patronizes weekly -- and for whom he has begun buying gifts -- stops receiving him. He imagines her and her colleagues shuddering over him "as one shudders at a cockroach in a washbasin in the middle of the night" and wonders if he can ask his doctor to castrate him as one neuters a domestic animal.
This is the first of the many comparisons of human and animal existence in "Disgrace." Coetzee has always situated his characters in extreme situations that compel them to explore what it means to be human, and before this novel is over, David must endure both psychological abasement and physical torment. But Coetzee has never before asked so clearly what it is not to be human. Later in the novel, after David has fallen into disgrace and fled Cape Town for his daughter Lucy's remote farm, she tells him, "This is the only life there is. Which we share with animals."
If David is reduced at times almost to an animal existence and finally to becoming a caretaker for dying animals, it is the mendacity of language that leads him there. Toward the end of the story, he reflects that the language he and others use has become "tired, friable, eaten from the inside as if by termites" and that he, an expert practitioner, is also hollow, "like a fly-casing in a spiderweb." When he is hauled before an academic tribunal after a misbegotten affair with a student, he refuses to defend himself against charges of sexual harassment. At first he resists the spectacle of public "prurience and sentiment" the committee expects. When he finally blurts out an apology, members of the tribunal refuse to be satisfied, demanding to know whether it reflects his sincere feelings and comes from his heart.
Coetzee seems to be attacking the New Age tyranny of therapeutic discourse here, but David's own language doesn't seem much more trustworthy. He rashly tells his judges that his liaison with the pretty and almost totally passive Melanie transformed him, if only briefly: "I was no longer a fifty-year-old divorc� at a loose end. I became a servant of Eros." Readers may well be repelled by David's arrogance, and his conduct with Melanie has fallen only a little short of rape. But judging him is not a simple matter. He is a student of Romanticism whose unrealized ambition is to write a chamber opera about Byron's life in Italy. No matter how little of our sympathy David may command, he has a point: If he genuinely believed his passion for Melanie was the real thing, the flame he had been waiting his whole life to feel, then how could he not pursue her avidly?
There is something fundamentally cryptic and unsummarizable about "Disgrace," but I read it as an almost metaphysical journey from this Romantic variety of love to the harsher, leaner strain David eventually learns from life on and around Lucy's farm. In Coetzee's fiction the stark and beautiful South African countryside has always played a half-allegorical role as both a destructive and a regenerative environment. He certainly can't be accused of sentimentalizing rural life; shortly after David goes to live with Lucy, a stolid lesbian who, like him, seems to have been abandoned by the world, they become victims of a vicious criminal assault that may not be as random as it first appears. Their relations with Petrus, the African farmer who is their nearest neighbor, become increasingly troubled and ambiguous. David volunteers to work for Bev, a friend of Lucy's who runs the local veterinary clinic, and comes to realize that Bev's primary role, in this impoverished land, is not to heal animals but to kill them with as much love and mercy as she can summon.
In the wake of the outrages committed against him and his daughter, David still struggles with language. His angry demands for justice get no response from the overstretched police, and his attempts to confront one of the assailants -- whom Petrus is apparently protecting -- produce only stony silences and baldfaced lies. Lucy seems to understand what David cannot: that to live where she lives she must tolerate brutalization and humiliation and simply keep going. "Perhaps that is what I must learn to accept," she tells her father. "To start at ground level. With nothing ... No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity ... Like a dog." If David actually reclaims some dignity by the end of "Disgrace," it is only because he gives up everything, gives up more than a dog ever could -- his daughter, his ideas about justice and language, his dream of the opera on Byron and even the dying animals he has learned to love without reservation, without thought for himself.
salon.com | Nov. 5, 1999
"Disgrace" by J.M. Coetzee
The winner of the 1999 Booker Prize is a bleak tale of human and animal misery in post-apartheid South Africa.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
BY ANDREW O'HEHIR
In his sober, searing and even cynical little book "Disgrace," J.M. Coetzee tells us something we all suspect and fear -- that political change can do almost nothing to eliminate human misery. What it can do, he suggests, is reorder it a little and half-accidentally introduce a few new varieties. This view should not surprise any of the great South African novelist's readers. In his early-1980s masterpieces "Waiting for the Barbarians" and "Life & Times of Michael K" -- indeed, in all of his work -- political and historical forces blow through the lives of individuals like nasty weather systems, bringing with them a destruction that is all the more cruel for being impersonal. "Disgrace" is Coetzee's first book to deal explicitly with post-apartheid South Africa, and the picture it paints is a cheerless one that will comfort no one, no matter what race, nationality or viewpoint.
Last month "Disgrace" was awarded the Booker Prize, and it has undeniable echoes of "Michael K," Coetzee's 1983 Booker winner. In both books a man is broken down almost to nothing before he finds some tiny measure of redemption in his forced acceptance of the realities of life and death. But Professor David Lurie, the protagonist of "Disgrace," has farther to fall than Michael K, an unsophisticated Cape Town gardener. And the clarity David comes to at the end grows largely from his accepting an ever-increasing portion of pain. "One gets used to things getting harder; one ceases to be surprised that what used to be as hard as hard can be grows harder yet," he reflects. That sentence also describes Coetzee's notion of life in the new South Africa, where, as he portrays it, brutal tyranny has been replaced by brutal anarchy.
A middle-aged, divorced scholar of Romantic poetry, David would have undoubtedly been a pathetic figure under the old regime -- one imagines an ineffectual white liberal teaching Wordsworth to bored Afrikaners while largely ignoring the atrocities perpetrated in his name. But in the Mandela era, David has become a victim of "the great rationalization": His university has been remade into a technical college, and he teaches courses in "communication skills" that he finds nonsensical. He is such a nonentity that the prostitute he patronizes weekly -- and for whom he has begun buying gifts -- stops receiving him. He imagines her and her colleagues shuddering over him "as one shudders at a cockroach in a washbasin in the middle of the night" and wonders if he can ask his doctor to castrate him as one neuters a domestic animal.
This is the first of the many comparisons of human and animal existence in "Disgrace." Coetzee has always situated his characters in extreme situations that compel them to explore what it means to be human, and before this novel is over, David must endure both psychological abasement and physical torment. But Coetzee has never before asked so clearly what it is not to be human. Later in the novel, after David has fallen into disgrace and fled Cape Town for his daughter Lucy's remote farm, she tells him, "This is the only life there is. Which we share with animals."
If David is reduced at times almost to an animal existence and finally to becoming a caretaker for dying animals, it is the mendacity of language that leads him there. Toward the end of the story, he reflects that the language he and others use has become "tired, friable, eaten from the inside as if by termites" and that he, an expert practitioner, is also hollow, "like a fly-casing in a spiderweb." When he is hauled before an academic tribunal after a misbegotten affair with a student, he refuses to defend himself against charges of sexual harassment. At first he resists the spectacle of public "prurience and sentiment" the committee expects. When he finally blurts out an apology, members of the tribunal refuse to be satisfied, demanding to know whether it reflects his sincere feelings and comes from his heart.
Coetzee seems to be attacking the New Age tyranny of therapeutic discourse here, but David's own language doesn't seem much more trustworthy. He rashly tells his judges that his liaison with the pretty and almost totally passive Melanie transformed him, if only briefly: "I was no longer a fifty-year-old divorc� at a loose end. I became a servant of Eros." Readers may well be repelled by David's arrogance, and his conduct with Melanie has fallen only a little short of rape. But judging him is not a simple matter. He is a student of Romanticism whose unrealized ambition is to write a chamber opera about Byron's life in Italy. No matter how little of our sympathy David may command, he has a point: If he genuinely believed his passion for Melanie was the real thing, the flame he had been waiting his whole life to feel, then how could he not pursue her avidly?
There is something fundamentally cryptic and unsummarizable about "Disgrace," but I read it as an almost metaphysical journey from this Romantic variety of love to the harsher, leaner strain David eventually learns from life on and around Lucy's farm. In Coetzee's fiction the stark and beautiful South African countryside has always played a half-allegorical role as both a destructive and a regenerative environment. He certainly can't be accused of sentimentalizing rural life; shortly after David goes to live with Lucy, a stolid lesbian who, like him, seems to have been abandoned by the world, they become victims of a vicious criminal assault that may not be as random as it first appears. Their relations with Petrus, the African farmer who is their nearest neighbor, become increasingly troubled and ambiguous. David volunteers to work for Bev, a friend of Lucy's who runs the local veterinary clinic, and comes to realize that Bev's primary role, in this impoverished land, is not to heal animals but to kill them with as much love and mercy as she can summon.
In the wake of the outrages committed against him and his daughter, David still struggles with language. His angry demands for justice get no response from the overstretched police, and his attempts to confront one of the assailants -- whom Petrus is apparently protecting -- produce only stony silences and baldfaced lies. Lucy seems to understand what David cannot: that to live where she lives she must tolerate brutalization and humiliation and simply keep going. "Perhaps that is what I must learn to accept," she tells her father. "To start at ground level. With nothing ... No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity ... Like a dog." If David actually reclaims some dignity by the end of "Disgrace," it is only because he gives up everything, gives up more than a dog ever could -- his daughter, his ideas about justice and language, his dream of the opera on Byron and even the dying animals he has learned to love without reservation, without thought for himself.
salon.com |
Even before his disgrace, Professor David Lurie wasn't exactly a shining success. At age 52, he's been divorced twice and he's been demoted from professor of modern languages to adjunct professor of communications. He's a mediocre teacher specializing in Romantic poets considered obsolete when the Cape Town University College became Cape Technical University. Nevertheless, he's muddling along quite nicely. He has a weekly rendezvous with a high caliber prostitute that satisfies his sexual needs, and at least his new position still allows him to teach one poetry course a year.
But life begins to fall apart when David sees his paramour on the street one day with her two little boys. Fearing exposure, she quits her call girl life, and although he tracks her down, she rejects him. The rapport he'd felt was mere business to her. Subsequent girls sent by the "hostess service" are unsatisfying. One evening while crossing campus, he runs into Melanie Isaacs, an unremarkable young woman in his Byron class. He discovers himself "mildly smitten." They quickly become lovers. Problem is, she already has one: a young biker boy who's none too pleased about David moving in on his territory. Pressured by family and friends, Melanie reports the indiscretion and David, who refuses to apologize for his behavior---he was merely answering the call of Eros---is forced to resign.
Shunned by everyone in his small college town, he heads for his daughter's small holding. Lucy appears to enjoy her life, despite recently losing her lover, Helen. She kennels dogs, sells the flowers and vegetables she grows, and helps her African handyman become a property owner.
But just as this idyllic life begins to bore David, he sees its uglier side. Lucy convinces him to help her friend, Bev, at the local animal clinic. David, no great animal lover, finds himself face to face with the suffering of innocents---too many dogs born into a world that neither wants them nor has the means to support them. Bev's role is more executioner than veterinarian. Then, he and Lucy are attacked by three Africans, and he is helpless to prevent her being raped. Their peaceful co-existence destroyed, David struggles to understand why Lucy insists on remaining on the farm and reconcile himself to the, for him, unbelievable dynamic between her and the neighboring Africans.
Coetzee won the 1999 Booker Prize for this novel, and it's easy to see why. By chronicling the consequences of one man's abuses of and fall from power, Coetzee creates a story of both universal and regional significance. On the one hand, David is a certain type who contemptuous of others, uses his position to take what he wants and to justify the taking. But David's story is also local---he is a white South African male in a world where such men no longer hold the power they once did. He's forced to rethink his entire world at an age when he believes he's too old to change and, in fact, should have a right not to. "How are the mighty fallen!" remarks Melanie's father when he meets David. David's reply highlights the hope he's gained from this struggle: "Perhaps it does us good . . . to have a fall every now and then. As long as we don't break."
True, this story is bleak---Coetzee offers no happy quick fix for this post-apartheid South African where white men who arm themselves and build security fences are expected to get a bullet in the back eventually, and solitary white women are brutalized. And David's rise from disgrace is by no means complete. He has fallen far enough that he can no longer make a life as he did before. But the story offers a slight glimpse of self-redemption, a sense that David is not completely broken. And the tiny bit of dignity David retains implies a slight hope that if one such as David---he of the upper echelons of race and education in the old South Africa---can find meaning in life again, then perhaps the disgrace of apartheid can evolve into something better as wel
Re-reading JM Coetzee’s Disgrace
1st December 2006
Disgrace won the 1999 Booker Prize and I probably read it that year, perhaps in 2000, I don’t remember. It would certainly be among the top three novels to win that prize in the last decade.
He has not taken to Bev Shaw, a dumpy, bustling little woman with black freckles, close-cropped, wiry hair, and no neck. He does not like women who make no effort to be attractive. It is a resistance he has had to Lucy’s friends before. Nothing to be proud of; a prejudice that has settled in his mind, settled down. His mind has become a refuge for old thoughts, idle, indigent, with nowhere else to go. He ought to chase them out, sweep the premises clean. But he does not care to do so, or does not care enough.
Exiled to an isolated farm after being sacked from his professorial post at the University of Capetown, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, moves in with his daughter, Lucy. But shortly after his arrival the isolated farm is raided by three men who rape his daughter and try to burn Lurie alive. They shoot the dogs and eventually load up his car with all they can plunder from the house and make their getaway, leaving him and his daughter humiliated and in a state of extreme shock.
Political and historical forces shape our lives in a totally impersonal way. In this novel Coetzee deals with his vision of post-Apartheid South Africa embedded in the life of David Lurie and his friends and relations. We watch as Lurie is broken apart by the forces playing with his life and know that he will only find a grain of redemption when he gives up his illusions and begins to accept the reality of his situation.
David Lurie’s story is a journey mirrored by the transition of Mandela’s South Africa; the country moves from tyranny to anarchy, the man from a hazy and liberally romantic lifestyle to a hospice for unwanted dogs.
And all is rendered in a spare prose style that exactly matches the interiority of the main character.
The book won an unprecedented second Booker Prize for JM Coetzee in 1999, almost a decade after the release of Nelson Mandela and the beginning of the dismantling of Apartheid.
If you enjoyed this post, subscribe to my RSS feed
Filed under art, literature, politics, quotations, reading, reviews, writing
Related Tags: apartheid, booker, coetzee, disgrace, exile, fiction, history, illusion, marginalization, modernism, novel, prose, re-reading, south africa
________________________________________
10 Replies
1. Nils
Dec 1st, 2006 at 11:31 am
I’m slightly ashamed to say that I’ve still not read anything by Coetzee. I’ve wanted to for a long time, but always something has come up. Perhaps next time I drop by the library, I’ll take one home (that’s in a few days or weeks at most). I’ve been saying this for years now. Perhaps appropriate for Coetzee – read on.
I remember seeing Coetzee interviewed in the Dutch series ‘Van de schoonheid en de troost’ (’Of Beauty and Consolation’) – a wonderful set of long talks between its presenter Wim Kayzer and several of the most amazing guests.
There’s a list of them with soundbites here (don’t know how good your Dutch is these days, but most of them speak English anyway) and the Coetzee episode can be viewed in its entirety here (you’ll see ‘video’ and a small animated logo to the centre right).
To me the Coetzee episode is amazing (as are some of the others, but it’s Coetzee who’s relevant here). The way the interview goes on and on, at different locations, but never finds focus or closure, with Coetzee always postponing, thinking, wandering off in his mind. Enough said, it’s beautiful, watch it If you liked it, do let me know what you thought of it…
PS isn’t there something wrong with your dates in this post – 1990-1999?
jb says: Yes, there was something wrong with my dates, but I’ve fixed it. Thank you for bring it to my attention. Your links were interesting, at least the parts that were in English. My Dutch is not feasible, I’m afraid. I liked what he said about the task of finding himself as an animal, locating himself outside of the prison of history. But much of what he had to say in the interview was fascinating, especially as he was extremely uncomfortable with many of the questions, describing the interview form as torture because it meant he had to answer without reflection. Thanks again, it’s good to have the link, and I’m sure I’ll look at it again quite soon.
But you really should have a look at at least one of Coetzee’s books. He is something special.
Although, on a personal level, there is something monk-like about him. He abstains from tobacco, alcohol and meat, rides over vast distances on a bike, rarely smiles, and has been known to sit through an entire dinner engagement without speaking a single word.
I was at a lecture by him recently when someone’s phone went off half-way through one of Coatzee’s readings. He stopped reading and waited. He said nothing, but looked directly at the woman concerned. I (and a couple of hundred other people in the room) said a silent prayer of thanks that it wasn’t me.
2. Lee
Dec 1st, 2006 at 3:50 pm
I must listen to these, Nils, and thanks for the links. I second JB - Coetzee is absolutely amazing, and having lived in southern Africa for many years, I can only say that he captures utterly so much of its essence and (as yet) failed promise, as well as so much more about all of us. I always like to pair Disgrace with Waiting for the Barbarians, not just thematically, but because of the range of voices he’s mastered within this context, and how his voices support what else he does.
That protracted silence at a lecture: a lesson I learned in Africa!
jb says: OK, Lee, I’ve put Waiting for the Barbarians on my reading list. It’s now several hours since I watched the video and I still have the image of Coetzee squirming at the interviewer’s questions, as if he was being physically tortured.
3. Nils
Dec 1st, 2006 at 6:45 pm
Glad you liked it. I’ve watched bits of it again this afternoon and indeed ‘love’ the way he can’t seem to fit in that blatant medium that is TV – so harsh and direct. I do understand him in that.
Then I went out for some errands and… picked up Disgrace (for 10 euro) on the way home. Can’t say when I’ll get to it, because I have still so much more in queue, but at least we’re one step further: it’s here, in the house waiting to be got to.
I almost feel Coetzee-esque (if that’s a word) in my faltering attempts to tackle the man (I won’t even start about Gravity’s Rainbow)
Thanks for the post. One man’s re-reading can become another’s discovery it seems.
jb says: Listen to them bells, Nils. The whole world, it seems, wants you to put that book on the top of your pile.
4. dharini
Apr 7th, 2007 at 6:46 am
Hi…i am a huge admirer of Coetzee’s works…in the midst of “Foe”, which i believe is among his best…Coetzee is particularly remarkable with female protagonists. I wasn’t able to open the link to the audio pieces…dunno why…it’s hard to even imagine Coetzee giving an interview…does anyone here have his email id?
DP
jb says: Hi Dharini. I also read Foe a couple of years ago, but didn’t get on with it as well as some of the others. I tried the video link again just now and works fine for me. Have you got javascript enabled on your computer?
5. Impressionist
Jul 6th, 2007 at 9:58 am
The interview is an excellent piece of information for people who admire John Coetzee. Disgrace was the first Coetzee book that I read; it raised a lot of questions about the man who had written it. So I started finding out all that was said by Coetzee; through interviews etc. Sadly there wasn’t much; the recluse that John is he hardly gives any interviews; and his explanation on the interview format being “incompatible” with him is fairly understandable as he “likes to have certain perfection in his responses”. Apart from the Dutch TV interview; which I guess is the best resource of information I have on Coetzee; there is another interesting interview and reading from Youth here. http://www.lannan.org/lf/rc/event/j-m-coetzee/
Despite the fact that John is a recluse and its difficult to extract much from him about his own life and its influence on his works; I guess if any one is interested in knowing about him, his books are the best resources. From Boyhood to Youth to Disgrace to Elizabeth Costello and now Inner Workings. I guess all of these draw heavily upon Coetzee’s own life. I have read only Youth, Disgrace and Elizabeth Costello; and I find that a lot of information about the man’s life and mind is available from there.
In a way I identify with Coetzee to a great sense; my perception is that he is a very confused man; understandably so as he is a perfectionist and instead of accepting a theory or a philosophy which can not prove itself to him; he prefers to remain confused. He doesn’t attempt to preach and provide answers in his works, as probably he understands that there are no write answers. His life seems to have been a continuous struggle with himself more than with anyone else. The world by and large does not seem to bother him after he reached a certain age. I guess, even if he does not dislike human beings; he does not have agreat amount of love for them either. This despite the fact that he is so sensitive to and aware of the human suffering. To my mind he expects a certain level of dignity for every human being irrespective of their backgrounds and political / ideological allegiences.
I guess he is recluse because he understands the futility of it all; futility of fame; because of the changes it may bring into him. There is something that this man knows and has realized which we all are not aware of as yet.
If I get to speak with him some day; what a conversation it would be!!
6. Impressionist
Jul 6th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Dharini,
i hope you have been able to access the links by now. I have downloaded version of the interview (which i was able to do after weeks of R&D). the file is pretty bulky in Real format (100+ MB). in 3gp format its around 10 MB or less. so if you can’t get to see the interview; let me know’ we can find a way to share the video.
Can somebody tell me a little about John’s latest “Inner Workings”. the book is pretty costly here in India, and i was wondering how it is…
PS - In the last post it should have been “there are no right answers” instead of “there are no write answers”.
Apologies for the same.
7. Mary McGArvey
Jul 31st, 2007 at 4:43 pm
I picked up this book “Disgrace” while housesitting for a 50′ish bachelor in California. What an excellent and spare writer this South African is! However, what struck me as a member of a very multicultural area of my own, the Bay Area of San Francisco, is the complete lack of backbone in this character, David Lurie. In the end, he has no real guts to stand up for himself, to fight for his daughter, to deal with ex-wives or colleagues with any real gumption. In this regard, I see the decline of South Africa, the giving in to chaos, anarchy, black-on-white raping and violence, destruction of the white farmers, etc. as embodied in this seemingly diffident professor. Educated man? Yes! Backbone, guts, common sense, emotional maturity, no!
SO his decline into his own despair, through volunteer work with dogs to be put down, his deigning to sleep with a woman he finds unattractive (though years younger than him…), I find the typical indulgence of an individual who has in his youth had great arrogance, a belief in his own superiority, vanity, intolerance regarding women. Only in his 50’s when no one looks at him anymore, when no woman turns her head and returns his smiles, when his students don’t listen and look through him, when his wives have left him and even his “ho” rejects him, then he begins a journey of anguish, as the white people of South Africa are now doing.
On the other hand, this story is so well written, such a metaphor for many other parts of life and parts of the world undergoing cultural decline, that anyone could enjoy reading it.
I didn’t think that 52 is considered old, but perhaps for men in South Africa, if 30 is old in a woman, then 52 is ancient in a man. I have never been there, but in some ways it sounds stuck in a timewarp, mentally, especially as regards women. His poor daughter doesn’t even try to fight back, or leave the farm, just accepts that she will have biracial children as a third wife of a former dogman! She has to give up the land as a DOWRY! She is allowed to “keep the house”! And the fact that she is lesbian, did not desire to sleep with any man, is ironic: does it represent the old South Africa, which wanted nothing really to do with the nonwhites, esp. blacks, getting forcibly raped by them, one even wrong in the head, so that the country is forced to submit to a new race’s rule!? Violence and rape will win Africa for the blacks, yippiee!
Mary
8. Hicham
Sep 13th, 2007 at 3:43 am
Lurie is a tired man. Self indulgent. One morning, he wakes up and realized abruptly that he is a man of the past. What has he done? What has he written? Since then he pursues his disgrace and when he meets it through Melanie he welcomes it like a grace. He seeks to meet Melanie’s father to thank him for the disgrace he brought him. Whithout which no redemption and without redemption, no creation, no operas, no writings.
The scenes in his daughter’s farm, the animal hospice, the black and white conflict are not central. They just operate as a catalyst.
Hicham.
9. alanna
Apr 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 am
i have just read disgrace, finally. in 2008. having been married to a brown south african man from cape town for past 3 years, i really felt i ought to!!! i loved it and agree with the learned comments above
(i am a white middle class over-educated australian, who speaks 5 languages but not dutch)
i saw coetzee here in sydney not long after he emigrated to australia (lives in adelaide hills i believe - full of german wine-growers, not unlike stellenbosch and paarl i imagine, in bygone years).
he did not read anything from his novels, but rather an essay he’d written on a children’s story (i forget which - maybe wind in the willows or alice in wonderland). he was just as weird as you guys described. not broken, but restrained.
i am now going to read his earlier books - our little local library has absolutely everything of his.
it helps now to be married to a south african - to understand bits of afrikaans slang and refs to cape town suburbs. but mostly to understand the whole mess that is “legacy of apartheid”.
the bride price/dowry thing - that is universal in black africa (not just in south africa), well-known i thought.
But even the most privileged white south africans (who moved to Sydney 15 years ago) are morally and socially at my grandparents’ level. That is, they have been stuck in a time warp since 1930s. I mean they are pre everything, certainly
pre-feminism. The flipside is, of course, that they are not confused - men known what men are supposed to do, women the same, and chidlren are allowed a childhood, unlike here in the west where 5 year old girls now dress like paris hilton. Women do not feel like they are missing anything, they “know their place”.
If I were a lesbian however I would not live there except for the mardi gras thing in Cape Town - it rivals ours here, I hear.
anyway, that’s my 2 cents’ worth!
jb says: Hi Alanna. Good to hear from you and good, also, that you enjoyed the book. It is something special. Why do I think your post is going to be a little controversial?
The Moment Before the Gun Went Off
In “The Moment Before the Gun Went Off,” Nadine Gordimer presents readers
with a poignant vignette of South African apartheid. Gordimer is not out to
blame, an instinctive tendency that would only widen the already gaping
black- white schism. In “The Moment,” Gordimer means to link the two races
as victims of the injustices of apartheid, and possibly to contribute to the
eradication of a segregationist mindset and to the reconciliation of blacks and
whites. Her vehicle is Marais Van der Vyver’s “twenty-year old farmhand,”
Lucas. In the story, Van der Vyver has taken particular interest in this “black
boy,” teaching him tractor maintenance and taking him hunting. As usual,
Lucas rode in the bed of the pickup, scouring the African grasses for game,
while Van der Vyver drove. Vand de Vyber's gun discharges and renders Lucas
a victim of freak accident, negligence, and ultimately apartheid.
In Gordimer’s South Africa, apartheid has become more than legislation; it
has become a mentality that segregates and prejudges. Lucas and Van der
Vyver were separated by more than the rear window of the truck. The narrator
is an unmistakable apartheid-sympathizer. He drops stereotypes carelessly, -
always commenting on how blacks raise their children, on how blacks waste
their money on funerals, and on “their” perceived short-comings and
idiosyncrasies in general. Lucas is not a boy; he is a “black boy.” The narrator,
wide-eyed with disbelief, remarks that “blacks can sit and drink in white
hotels” and that “blacks can sleep with whites.” These are unthinkable
liberties in the mind of the white apartheid-advocate. By speaking from the
perspective of an apartheid supporter, Gordimer manages to storm the
apartheid fortress from within, and in the process, seizes a brilliant sense of
irony and seemingly unquestionable credibility for herself. Gordimer sounds
her loudest peal of irony in the last sentence: Lucas is Van der Vyver’s son,
and therefore, both white and black. Just as Van de Vyver has failed to
acknowledge his son, the white community has refused to acknowledge the
culture of discrimination and oppression they have been supporting.
However, “the young black callously shot through the negligence of the white
man” is not only the farmer’s son; he is a symbol. Lucas, as the son of Van
der Vyver and one of his farm workers, is the intersection of the black and
white divisions. Apartheid has extinguished Lucas’ life, along with black
dignity and white moral integrity. Gordimer has slid her keystone into place
and has constructed a South Africa divided, confused, and victimized by
apartheid.
More reviews about the The Moment Before the Gun Went Off
Bibliography
The Moment Before the Gun Went Off by Nadine Gordimer
A MAN OF THE PEOPLE.(1966)CHINUA ACHEBE. A man of the people is a captivating novel that guarantees you an entertaining and breath taking time as you continue reading page by page. Chinua Achebe has used very creatively the political history of his country Nigeria to form the basis of this book, A man of the people captures the indiscretions of African leaders and their un level playing field when it comes to political issues. The book also captures the ills of the ruling class represented by Chief Nanga and his cronies in power, the likes of Chief Koko.
A man of the people starts with the now famous lines among literature students in Africa, “No one can deny that Chief the Honorable M.A. Nanga, M.P., was the most approachable politician in the country…” The book is written using the I narrator perspective and therefore, the above lines are said by Odili Samalu. Odili of course comes out strongly as being a major character in the text and the main rival of Chief Nanga. The book starts out at a function at the Anata Grammar School where Odili teaches and the functions chief guest is none other than Chief Nanga. He was due to address the staff and the students at the schools’ Assembly Hall. The villagers of course not being able to keep away from such an important visit by the area Member of Parliament thronged the Assembly Hall to capacity. In fact the narrator tells us that the Assembly hall must have carried more than thrice its capacity.
The people went out of their way to welcome the politician. We are told various dancing groups were performing at different points in the school compound as they awaited the arrival of the chief guest, Chief Nanga.
Chief Nanga was able to recognize his favorite pupil sixteen years back when he used to teach in standard three, Odili was over whelmed at Chief Nangas’ good memory. Nanga invited Odili to his home in Bori, the Capital.
Odili disagreed with Chief Nanga after he Chief Nanga shamelessly slept with Odilis’ Girlfriend Elsie in his matrimonial home. Odili could not stomach this insult to his manhood and he had a verbal spurt with Chief Nanga which led to him leaving his home and went to stay with his friend Maxwell Kulamo a lawyer.
This was the beginning of the bitter rivalry between Odili and Nanga. Maxwell Kulamo known as “Coolmax” by his friends back at the Grammar School consoled Odili and together with other of his friends formed a party called Common People’s Convention. (The C.P.C).
Maxwell was to run against Chief Koko in the next Election and Odili readily accepted to join the party and run against Chief Nanga. They went ahead to implement the plans and went the full way to the elections. However, it was not a simple affair for them as the incumbents used all that was available to their disposal to stop this new crop of politicians from humiliating them in the Elections.
Chief Nanga for example planted crude weapons on Odilis car and he was put under arrest for possession of dangerous arms. Nanga made sure that Odili naver had a chance to sign his nomination papers.
Maxwell Kulamo was killed in Abaga by Chief Koko. He was ran over by one his jeeps when alighting from his vehicle. Eunice, Max’s Girlfriend, pulled out a pistol immediately and fired two bullets into Chief Koko’s chest as revenge for felling her boyfriend.
Chinua Achebe has described what African politics is explicitly in this book and I would recommend it to any one for reading and for any one who wishes to have an insight of African dirty Political gimmicks Finnaly I end this Abstract with Odili’s final words in he book; “I say you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and shoot your murderer in the chest- without asking to be paid.”
Role of media both print and radio in “A Man of the People”
In A Man of the People Chief Nanga, is referred to by the narrator Odili, as a man of the people, and the most approachable politician in the West Africa. Role of media should be stand as an intermediately between the government and the common people but it is portryed by Achebe as an evil side of media in A Man of the People. We know each media vehicle has a significance role to play. If print generates awareness and disseminates information, radio is a vehicle to build the brand with its emotional appeal. But what we see in A Man of the People? We see media is a representative of government or we can say media are the mouth speech of government of West Africa in A Man of the people. They have no connection with common people even with the opposition. In A Man of the People we observed two kinds of media; they are the mouth speech of government. Print media, like The Daily Chronicle is an official organ of the P.O.P (People’s Organization Party) and the broadcasts media like African national radio stations main job is broadcasted government’s speech.
Print media plays very significant role in the novel A Man of the People. Achebe casts a critical eye on African politics and as well as media. Achebe shows the switching of power between the old and new styles of politicians and how the old bush politician, Chief Nanga, is becoming more and greedier as he learns the political system. He is the one of the Member of Parliament. The government is more powerful and corrupted and they know how to handle general people. They use media as a representative of government. It is really happened in third world country. All media are bound to government because government has power. Any time they can close media house. It is the big threat for media. Some time government is the big investiture for circulation or broadcasting. That is why, they are bound to make fake news that increase government image. For example, “The Daily Chronicle, an official organ of the P.O.P had pointed out in an editional that the Miscreant Gang, as the dismissed ministers were now called, were all university people and highly educated professional men.” News papers are not independent at West Africa. News paper are carried the prime Minister or Government version of the story. They can it easily because of the common men are far away from the “intellectual!” Dr Makinde the ex- Minister of Finance as he got up to speak tell, calm, sorrowful and superior. It was a most unedifying spectacle. He is called “Traitor”, “Coward”, and “Doctor of Fork your Mother” by common people. But the next morning the editor of the Daily Chronicle published news that was opposite of Dr. Makinde’s speech. Is says “a brilliant economist whose reputation was universally acclaimed in Europe”. The Daily Matchet also play same role. Another thing is important that media are not only representative of Government but also underestimate the oppositions. They have no social responsibility. They do not think about common people even they have no relation with them because of uneducated and unawareness society. It is really happening in Africa as well as third world country. Media have no role for repetitive society. They can not write down a single word without government’s authorization.
Radio also the mouth speaker of government in A Man of the People. Radio is censored by the government. It can not any play any role independently. It is far away from the common people. The government does not want the common people know true information. We know as a human being it is right to know all true information. But the real picture is totally opposite. Radio’s have no connection with common people. Oppositions are threatened by the radio but most of the time they represent there is no opposition only the government. For example Nanga says that only the powerful party is P.O.P. The government does not want the common people to hare information regarding the pipes. Hezekiah Samaluis a chairman of P.O.P. Many pipes are approved by P.O.P for a villager. It is forecasted by radio. On the other hand, when Samalu distributes it two other villages for his anti parties activities. This news does not forecast through radio because of the image of P.O.P. One day Odili is listening radio for news but he is not able to hare any news without govern activities. It is controlled by P.O.P
Everyone knows information is a form of power. The Third World countries now know this more than ever. That is why they are calling for the establishment of a new international order of information. They feel this is just as urgent as the establishment of a new international economic order. In A Man of the People we see media is like a doll of government that has no existent without other. They have no activities without government. They are bound to government because of existing.
Odili Samalu
Odili Samalu is a narrator and protagonist of A Man of the People, odili is native of Urua village, where his father Hezekiah is a wealthy man who was a district interpreter and now head of the local chapter of the People’s Organization Party (POP). Odili has graduated from the Anata Grammer School, where he is Nanga’s Favorite student and is a disaffected member of the student’s branch of POP. Odili, the narrator, represents the new intellectual generation. Odili is a kind of man who most of the times narrate the entire situation that he observes but does not take any kind of inatiative aginst that insident. We can compear him with the main character in Gallivar Travels by Jonathon Swift who always described most of the stories but did not take any kind of action against that particular insident; he took action against any particular situation whent that harms him. Odili did the same when his girl friend was taken away from you by Chief Nanga.
Chief Nanga
In A Man of the People, Chief Nanga, is referred to by the narrator, Odili, as a man of the people, and the most approachable politician in the country. He is the minister of culture and his speeches to the public represent everything that a politician should do and be. But as Odili tells the story, it becomes clear that Chief Nanga does not practice what he preaches. The money that is supposed to go towards helping his community he uses instead to build four-story buildings, which he rents out for his own profit. Chief Nanga is supposed to be standing up for the traditions and beliefs of the pre-colonial African culture by defending the common man and opposing the European-oriented post-colonial intellectuals. However, in A Man of the People Achebe focuses more on the politics of West African communities. Achebe shows the switching of power between the old and new styles of politicians and how the old style bush politician, Chief Nanga, is becoming more and more greedy as he learns the political system. Chief Nanga learns to be greedy and learns how to win elections through the corrupt system of politics he was against in the first place. The important thing for Chief Nanga is that the people trust him. He relates to them more, because he considers himself closer to the common man and far away from the intellectual, who represents a more European style of living and thinking. By representing his country after colonialism he has the incentive to stay as far away from the European style of life and politics as possible.
Odili’s Father
His father name is Hezekiah. He is a wealthy man who was a district interpreter and now head of the local chairman of the People’s Organization Party (POP). He is a perfect example of typical African man. He does not want to eccept any thing from the modern or developing world. He believes that nobody can brak the old form of rules and cannot build any thing new out of old rulers. He represents the typical African culture; he believes in poligamy, and he also married severel times and careless about his family and children. He proves that in Africa most of the people do not aware about the political situation and corruption in politics.
Dissertation paper written by mahamud
Acknowledgment
It is a great opportunity for me to write about subject like “Africa from Chinua Achebe’s Eyes”. Because working with this topic, I am able to acquire more knowledge about how pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial period influence Africa literature. At the time of preparing this paper I had gone through different books and websites which help me to get acquainted with new topics. I am actually focusing on those topics which are important for us to understand about this subject easily.
I really thankful to my fellow class mate; Tapas Kumar Pramanic, all the teachers in University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh and I should mention two names, because without their help I would not be able to write this paper properly; Dr. Kazi Anis Ahmed and Musarat Shameem, these two persons help me to get the primary knowledge about this topic in the course Bestseller Fiction. I acknowledge with gratitude to my Department Dean Prof. Mohit Ul Alam, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, my respective teacher, who has always been sincere and helpful to make me understand the different system of legal research and conceptual problems in my thesis paper
.
Apart from me this thesis paper will certainly be immense importance for those who are interested to know about this subject. I hope they will find it comprehensible.
I try hard and soul to gather all relevant documents regarding this subject. I do not know how far I am able to do that. Furthermore I don’t claim all the information in this term paper is included perfectly. There are may be shortcoming, factual error, mistaken opinion which all mine and I alone am responsible for those.
Thank You
Md. Hossain Mahamud
Abstract
There are as many types of African literature as there are African nations—from Northern Africa to the Cape of Good Hope. However, the oral tradition, stories passed down verbally from one generation to another, is common to all of them. These stories include folktales and songs of praise for the nations’ ancestors, but in the late nineteenth century, a European scramble to conquer Africa radically changed its literature. Trickster tales characterize pre-colonial African literature, while colonial literature tends to deal with slavery and themes of independence. Postcolonial works often deal with conflicts between the past and the future and the difficulty of maintaining an African identity in the face of globalization. Today, some of the best-known African writers are Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe; Things Fall Apart and A Man of The People.
Content
Chapter No Context Page No
01 Biography 01
02 Introduction 02
03 Things Fall Apart 03
3.1 Summary 03
3.2 Major Character Analysis 05
3.3 Analysis of the novel 07
3.4 Different Aspects of Things Fall Apart 17
4 A Man of The People 20
4.1 Summary 20
4.2 Major Character Analysis 22
4.3 Different Aspects of A Man of The People 23
05 Relation between “Things Fall Apart” and “A Man of The People” 28
06 Conclusion 29
Chapter # 1
Biography
Chinua Achebe born on November 16, 1930, is a poet, critic and novelist, is one of the most important living African writers. He is also considered one of the most original literary artists’ currentlt wirting in English.
Born Albert Chinualumogo Achebe, Chinua Achebe was raised by Christian evangelical parents in the large village Ogidi, in Igboland, Eastern Nigeria. He received early education in English, but grew up surrounded by the complex fusion of Igbo traditions and the colonial legacy. He studied literature and medicine at the University of Ibadan; after graduating, he went to work for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in lagos. Things Fall Apart (1958) was his first novel. It has been translated into at least forty-five languages, and has sold eight million copies worldwide.
Starting in the 1950s, Achebe was central to a new Nigerian literary movement that drew on the oral tradition of Nigeria’s indigenious tribes. Although Achebe writes in English, he attempts to incorporate Igbo vocabulary and narratives. Other novels include: No Longer At Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), and A Man of The People (1966).
Achebe left his career in radio in 1966, during the national unrest and violence that led to the Biafran War. He narrowly escaped harm at the hands of soldiers who believed that his novel, A Man of The People, implicated him in the country’s first military coup. He began an academic career the next year, taking a position as Senor Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria. That same year, he co-founded a publishing company with Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo. In 1971, he became an editor for Okike, a prestigious Nigerian literary magazine. He founded Iwa ndi Ibo in 1984; this bilingual publication was dedicated to Igbo cultural life. He was made Emeritus Professor at the University of Nigeria in 1985. He has taught at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Connecticut, and he has received over twenty honorary doctorates from universities around the world. He received Nigeria’s highest honor for intellectual achivement, the Nigerian Merit Award, in 1987. His novel Anthills of the Savannah was shortlisted for the Bookers Mcconnell Prize that same year.
Achebe has been active in Nigerian politica since the 1960s. many of his novels deal with the social and political problems facing his country, including the difficulty of the post-colonial legacy.
He is married and has four children. He courrently lives in the United Stats, where he holds a teaching profession at Bard College.
Chapter# 2
Introduction
Chinua Achebe is one of the most well known African authors of his generation. He is a kind of writer who always tries to bring significant issues related with his own country like a prophet. There are three aspects of Africa brought out by Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart and A Man of The People and those aspects are the period of pre-colonization, colonization and the post-colonization.
His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958) has received wide acclaim. It deals with the colonial impact on Igbo culture. Igbo society, as well as the book’s main character, Okonkwo, is unable to adapt to the arrival of the British, who impose a cash economy and Christianity on them. Eventually, this vibrant, functioning society collapses and disintegrates under these new pressures, as does Okonkwo.
A later novel, A Man of The People (1966) describes an unnamed post-colonial African country. It deals with the problems of political representation in a corrupt nation. It also deals with the problems of finding a collective will in an ethnically diverse, economically stratified nation. The main part of the story centers on the political battles between the main character, Odili, and his former teacher, Chief Nanga, the corrupt and charismatic A Man of The People.
Chapter# 3
Things Fall Apart
Chapter#3.1
Summary
One of the greatest warriors of Nigeria, Okonkwo, is a leader of the Umuofia clan. He is a highly respected man in his village; the only problem he has to face his son, Nwoye, who, in his father's eyes, is an idle and negligent young man of twelve years old.
When Okonkwo retrieves two adolescents, a boy and a girl, from another tribe in return for a great evil against his village, the girl goes to another family while the boy is left in Okonkwo's care. As the 15-year-old boy gets used to Okonkwo and his family, Okonkwo finds a perfect descendant in Ikemefuna, but because of Okonkwo's strict view of masculinity, Okonkwo cannot open his heart to the boy.
On the Week of Peace, Okonkwo breaks the "law" when he beats one of his wives, Ojiugo, because she was too negligent. This was the first case when he shocked his family and tribe.
Three years later, during a rare invasion of locusts, the Oracle makes a decision: Okonkwo's "adopted son" has to be sacrificed. A village elder tells Okonkwo not to take part in the murder since he is called "father" by Ikemefuna.
When the chosen clansmen take Ikemefuna out of the village and strike Ikemefuna, he runs towards Okonkwo for help. Since Okonkwo does not want to appear weak, he kills Ikemefuna with great cruelty. Nwoye, who had become great friends with Ikemefuna, grieves and is again afraid of Okonkwo, whom he could stand when Ikemefuna was around.
At the funeral of the old clansman, Ogbuefi Ezeudu, who warned Okonkwo about the murder of Ikemefuna, a tragedy happens: during the salvo Okonkwo’s firearm blows up and takes the life
of Ezeudu’s son.
Because of village tradition, Okonkwo must atone for his accidental killing, so he and his family are exiled from the village for seven years. Once they leave for Mbanta, the native village of Okonkwo’s mother, Ezeudu’s family destroy everything that was related to the ex-leader of the clan in order to cleanse the village of the sin.
Okonkwo and his family rebuild everything in Mbanta, the land of his mother, and reconcile themselves to their new life. They start a farm and sell yams. Everything seems to be fine and peaceful until the second year of the exile when white missionaries arrive in Mbanta who try to Christianize the villagers. Nwoye also Christianizes.
Seven years have passed and Okonkwo returns to his village where the missionaries have already converted most of the local people. When the peaceful leader of the missionaries, Mr. Brown, is followed by the brutal Reverend James Smith, the method of the conversion changes: the Reverend uses violent methods. Enoch, one of the new converts, tries to provoke the heathen villagers: during a traditional ceremony he unmasks an egwugwu, killing it. In retribution, the egwugwu burn Enoch’s house and the new Christian church the next day.
The response of the District Commissioner comes soon: the leaders of the Umuofia clan are arrested and held for ransom. After their release the village decides to start organizing an uprising. Okonkwo, attends the meeting where the village will decide whether or not to go to war. During the meeting, five court messengers arrive and tell the villagers that the white man has ordered the meeting to end. Okonkwo becomes enraged and kills the lead man. When Okonkwo kills the man, the rest of the village looks on in amazement. Okonkwo realizes that the village will not go to war, even with the threat right in front of them.
Once he sees, to his astonishment, that the clan isn’t going to go to war with him, Okonkwo hangs himself. When the District Commissioner finds out about the ironic situation, he finds it interesting enough to include it into his book about Africa: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
Chapter#3.2
Major Character Analysis
Okonkwo
Husband of three, father of eight, he is the most respected warrior and leader in his village. All his life he endeavors to get rid of the memory of his father, Unoka, who was an unmanly, idle, and lazy person.
Okonkwo is a conservative person who believes that the only thing a man has to do is to fight for his family and for his tribe. He can’t tolerate any other attitude, that’s why he worries about his 12-year-son, Nwoye, who seems to be similar to Okonkwo’s despised father.
He always wants to prove that he is a real man (not like his father) but he regularly makes big mistakes and even falls into sin as a result of excessive manliness and frustration.
He is not able to accept any change in life including the white converters and the Christianity. But when the clansmen compromise and choose peace instead of war against the white people, he is forced to realize that he has no future in the community because of his lack of ability to conform.
Okonkwo is a "classical" tragic hero: he is a superior person and his tragic flaw - the compilation of manliness with violence, arrogance, and impatience - brings about his destruction.
Obierka
Okonkwo's best friend. He takes care of Okonkwo's yams after Okonkwo is exiled for seven years. He also questions some of the tribal morals and consequences. Chinua Achebe uses this character as a foil to Okonkwo because Obierka is a man that thinks instead of acts like Okonkwo.
Nwoye
Nwoye, Okonkwo’s oldest son, struggles in the shadow of his powerful, successful, and demanding father. His interests are different from Okonkwo’s and resemble more closely those of Unoka, his grandfather. He undergoes many beatings, at a loss for how to please his father, until the arrival of Ikemefuna, who becomes like an older brother and teaches him a gentler form of successful masculinity. As a result, Okonkwo backs off, and Nwoye even starts to win his grudging approval. Nwoye remains conflicted, however: though he makes a show of scorning feminine things in order to please his father, he misses his mother’s stories.
With the unconscionable murder of Ikemefuna, however, Nwoye retreats into himself and finds himself forever changed. His reluctance to accept Okonkwo’s masculine values turns into pure embitterment toward him and his ways. When missionaries come to Mbanta, Nwoye’s hope and faith are reawakened, and he eventually joins forces with them. Although Okonkwo curses his lot for having borne so “effeminate” a son and disowns Nwoye, Nwoye appears to have found peace at last in leaving the oppressive atmosphere of his father’s tyranny.
Ezinma
Daughter of Okonkwo who has more "masculine" spirit than her brother, Nwoye. Okonkwo wishes Ezinma was a boy, and interestingly she is the only child who has won Okonkwo’s respect.
She shares an interesting relationship with her mother Ekwefi. The relationship is more like one of equals than of the typical mother-daughter seen in the tribe. This could be because Ekwefi has lost so many other children, Enzinma is her only child, and so she loves her less because she has reached the crowning achievment of a woman, motherhood, but more because she relishes the love and companionship that she finds with Ezinma.
Ezinma shows great love for her father. She constantly tries to help him, and after he is taken hostage by the white District Commissioner, she breaks the traditional 28 day stay with her husband to be's family in order to return home and wait for her father's return. And after Okonkwo gets back, she is the only one who can persuade him to eat.
Ikemefuna
Similar to Ezinma, he also confuses Okonkwo’s feelings and beliefs: though he is not a real child but a gift of another tribe, Okonkwo finds him a much better and suitable son than Nwoye. Though Ikemefuna calls Okonkwo "father", the strong leader shouldn’t show anything but masculine strength – so, in order to prove his manhood, he kills the innocent boy. The death of Ikemefuna is one of the most important incidents that will lead to the tragedy of Okonkwo.
Ekwefi
One of the wives of Okonkwo whose only aim is to protect her only child, Ezinma – from Okonkwo and even from the gods.
Mr. Brown
The first leader of the missionaries; a gentle and kind man who tries to convert the villagers only verbally and through his hospital and school, and he never uses aggressive methods.
Reverend James Smith
He is the one who uses violence in order to convert the local people. He believes that the quality and zeal of the converts counts more than Mr. Brown's large quantity of followers. He represents the typical colonizer who always try to establish his own decision on others.
Chapter#3.3
Analysis of the novel
We are introduced immediately to the complex laws and customs of Okonkwo’s clan and its commitment to harmonious relations. For example, the practice of sharing palm-wine and kola nuts is repeated throughout the book to emphasize the peacefulness of the Igbo. When Unoka’s resentful neighbor visits him to collect a debt, the neighbor does not immediately address the debt. Instead, he and Unoka share a kola nut and pray to their ancestral spirits; afterward, they converse about community affairs at great length. The customs regulating social relations emphasize their common interests and culture, diffusing possible tension. The neighbor further eases the situation by introducing the subject of debt through a series of Igbo proverbs, thus making use of a shared oral tradition, as Okonkwo does when he asks Nwakibie for some seed-yams. Through his emphasis on the harmony and complexity of the Igbo, Achebe contradicts the stereotypical, European representations of Africans as savages.
Another important way in which Achebe challenges such stereotypical representations is through his use of language. As Achebe writes in his essay on Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, colonialist Europe tended to perceive Africa as a foil or negation of Western culture and values, imagining Africa to be a primordial land of silence. But the people of Umuofia speak a complex language full of proverbs and literary and rhetorical devices. Achebe’s translation of the Igbo language into English retains the cadences, rhythms, and speech patterns of the language without making them sound, as Conrad did, “primitive.”
Okonkwo is the protagonist of Things Fall Apart, and, in addition to situating him within his society, the first few chapters of the novel offer us an understanding of his nature. He is driven by his hatred of his father, Unoka, and his fear of becoming like him. To avoid picking up Unoka’s traits, Okonkwo acts violently without thinking, often provoking avoidable fights. He has a bad temper and rules his household with fear. Okonkwo associates Unoka with weakness, and with weakness he associates femininity. Because his behavior is so markedly different from his father’s, he believes that it constitutes masculinity. However, it strains his relationship with Nwoye and leads him to sin in Chapter Four by breaking the Week of Peace. His rash behavior also causes tension within the community because he expresses disdain for less successful men. Ikemefuna later demonstrates that masculinity need not preclude kindness, gentleness, and affection, and Nwoye responds far more positively to Ikemefuna’s nurturing influence than to Okonkwo’s heavy-handedness.
Despite its focus on kinship, the Igbo social structure offers a greater chance for mobility than that of the colonizers who eventually arrive in Umuofia. Though ancestors are revered, a man’s worth is determined by his own actions. In contrast to much of continental European society during the nineteenth century, which was marked by wealth-based class divisions, Igbo culture values individual displays of prowess, as evidenced by their wrestling competitions. Okonkwo is thus able, by means of his own efforts, to attain a position of wealth and prestige, even though his father died, penniless and titleless, of a shameful illness.
Whereas the first few chapters highlight the complexity and originality of the Igbo language, in these chapters Achebe points out another aspect of Igbo culture that colonialist Europe tended to ignore: the existence of subcultures within a given African population. Each clan has its own stories, and Ikemefuna is an exciting addition to Umuofia because he brings with him new and unfamiliar folk tales. With the introduction of Ikemefuna, Achebe is able to remind us that the story we are reading is not about Africa but rather about one specific culture within Africa. He thus combats the European tendency to see all Africans as one and the same.
The religious values of the Igbo emphasize the shared benefits of peaceful, harmonious relations. The Igbo always consult the Oracle before declaring war; for they fear punishment from their gods should they declare war without just cause. Their religion also emphasizes the individual’s obligation to the community. When Okonkwo breaks the peace during the sacred week, the priest chastises him for endangering the entire community by risking the earth deity’s wrath. He refuses Okonkwo’s offer of a kola nut, expressing disagreement peacefully. This parrying of potential violence on the interpersonal level reflects the culture’s tradition of avoiding violence and war whenever possible.
Moreover, the belief in the chi, an individual’s personal god, also smooths possible tensions in the Igbo community. The chi allows individuals to attribute some portion of their failures and successes to divine influence, thus lessening the shame of the former and pride of the latter. This belief encourages respect between individuals; the men are thus able to settle a dispute between Okonkwo and a man whom he insults without resorting to personal attacks.
Although traditional Igbo culture is fairly democratic in nature, it is also profoundly patriarchal. Wife-beating is an accepted practice. Moreover, femininity is associated with weakness while masculinity is associated with strength. It is no coincidence that the word that refers to a titleless man also means “woman.” A man is not believed to be “manly” if he cannot control his women. Okonkwo frequently beats his wives, and the only emotion he allows himself to display is anger. He does not particularly like feasts, because the idleness that they involve makes him feel emasculated. Okonkwo’s frustration at this idleness causes him to act violently, breaking the spirit of the celebration.
Okonkwo’s extremely overactive desire to conquer and subdue, along with his profound hatred of all things feminine, is suggestive of impotence. Though he has children, Okonkwo is never compared to anything thriving or organic; instead, Achebe always associates him with fire, which consumes but does not beget. The incident in which he tries to shoot Ekwefi with his gun is likewise suggestive of impotence. After Ekwefi hints at Okonkwo’s inability to shoot properly, Okonkwo proves this inability, failing to hit Ekwefi. Impotence, whether or not it is an actual physical condition for him, seems to be a characteristic that is related to Okonkwo’s chauvinistic behavior.
Okonkwo disobeys the authority and advice of a clan elder in killing Ikemefuna. His actions are too close to killing a kinsman, which is a grave sin in Igbo culture. Okonkwo is so afraid of looking weak that he is willing to come close to violating tribal law in order to prove otherwise. No one would have thought that Okonkwo was weak if he had stayed in the village. In fact, Obierika’s opinion on the matter suggests that doing so would have been considered the more appropriate action. Instead, Okonkwo’s actions seriously damage both his relationship with Nwoye and Nwoye’s allegiance to Igbo society.
Nwoye shows promise because he voices chauvinist opinions, but his comments are really aimed at Okonkwo. In fact, Nwoye loves women’s stories and is pleased when his mother or Okonkwo’s other wives ask him to do things for them. He also seeks comfort in his mother’s hut after Ikemefuna’s death. Nwoye’s questioning of Ikemefuna’s death and of the practice of throwing away newborn twins is understandable: Obierika, too, frequently questions tradition. In fact, Obierika refused to accompany the other men to kill Ikemefuna, and Okonkwo points out that Obierika seems to question the Oracle. Obierika also has reservations about the village’s practice of tapping trees. Okonkwo, on the other hand, accepts all of his clan’s laws and traditions unquestioningly.
Interestingly, Obierika’s manliness is never questioned. The fact that Obierika is skeptical of some Igbo practices makes us regard Nwoye’s skepticism in a different light. We understand that, in Umuofia, manhood does not require the denigration of women. Like Nwoye, Ikemefuna is not close to his biological father. Rather, his primary emotional attachments to his natal village are to his mother and little sister.
Although he is not misogynistic like Okonkwo, Ikemefuna is the perfect clansman. He eagerly takes part in the community celebrations and integrates himself into Okonkwo’s family. Okonkwo and Ikemefuna love one another as father and son, and Ikemefuna is a good older brother to Nwoye. Most important, he is protective rather than critical. He does not allow Nwoye and his brothers to tell their mother that Obiageli broke her water pot when she was showing off—he does not want her to be punished. Ikemefuna illustrates that manliness does not preclude gentleness and affection.
In calling himself a “shivering old woman,” Okonkwo associates weakness with femininity. Although he denigrates his emotional attachment to Ikemefuna, he seeks comfort in his affectionate friendship with Obierika. Ezinma is likewise a source of great comfort to him. Because she understands him, she does not address his sorrow directly; rather, she urges him to eat. For all of Okonkwo’s chauvinism, Ezinma is his favorite child. Okonkwo’s frequently voiced desire that Ezinma were a boy seems to suggest that he secretly desires affectionate attachment with his actual sons, although he avoids admitting as much because he fears affection as a weakness. It is interesting to note that Okonkwo doesn’t wish that Ezinma were a boy because she exhibits desirable masculine traits; rather, it is their bond of sympathy and understanding that he values.
The relationship between Ekwefi and Ezinma is not a typical parent-child relationship; it is more like one between equals. Ekwefi receives a great deal of comfort and companionship from her daughter and, because she has lost so many children, she loves and respects her daughter all the more. Although motherhood is regarded as the crowning achievement of a woman’s life, Ekwefi prizes Ezinma so highly not for the status motherhood brings her but rather for the love and companionship that she offers.
Mutually supportive interaction between women receives increasing focus as the novel progresses. For example, Okonkwo’s wives frequently try to protect one another from his anger. Before Ezinma’s birth, Ekwefi was not jealous of Okonkwo’s first wife; she only expressed bitterness at her own misfortune. While Okonkwo gathers medicine for the fever, his other wives try to calm Ekwefi’s fear. Ekwefi’s friendship with Chielo, too, is an example of female bonding.
The incident with Chielo creates a real dilemma for Ekwefi, whose fear of the possible repercussions of disobeying her shows that Chielo’s role as a priestess is taken seriously—it is not just ceremonial. But Ekwefi and Okonkwo’s love for their child is strong enough that they are willing to defy religious authority. Although she has lost nine children, Ekwefi has been made strong by suffering, and when she follows Chielo, she chooses her daughter over the gods. In doing so, Ekwefi contradicts Okonkwo’s ideas of femininity and demonstrates that strength and bravery are not only masculine attributes. Okonkwo also disobeys Chielo and follows her to the caves. But he, too, is careful to show respect to Chielo. She is a woman, but, as a priestess, she can order and chastise him openly. Her authority is not to be taken lightly.
Unlike the narration of Chielo’s kidnapping of Ezinma, the narration of the egwugwu ceremony is rather ironic. The narrator makes several comments to reveal to us that the villagers know that the egwugwu are not real. For example, the narrator tells us: “Okonkwo’s wives and perhaps other women as well, might have noticed that the second egwugwu had the springy walk of Okonkwo. And they might have noticed that Okonkwo was not among the titled men and elders who sat . . . But if they thought these things they kept them within themselves.” The narration of the incident of the medicine man and the iyi-uwa seems likewise to contain a trace of irony. After discussing the iyi-uwa and egwugwu in a tone that approaches mockery on a few occasions, the narrator, remarkably, says nothing that seems to undermine the villagers’ perception of the strength of Chielo’s divine power.
The story that Ekwefi tells Ezinma about Tortoise and the birds is one of the many instances in which we are exposed to Igbo folklore. The tale also seems to prepare us, like the symbolic locusts that arrive in Chapter Seven, for the colonialism that will soon descend upon Umuofia. Tortoise convinces the birds to allow him to come with them, even though he does not belong. He then appropriates all of their food. The tale presents two different ways of defeating Tortoise: first, the birds strip Tortoise of the feathers that they had lent him. This strategy involves cooperation and unity among the birds. When they refuse to concede to Tortoise’s desires, Tortoise becomes unable to overpower them. Parrot’s trick suggests a second course of action: by taking advantage of the position as translator, Parrot outwits Tortoise.
In the previous section, we see Okonkwo’s behavior the night of the incident with Chielo as it appears to Ekwefi: Okonkwo shows up with his machete and fulfills the role of the strong, manly protector. At the beginning of Chapter Twelve, though, the narrator focuses on Okonkwo’s internal state and we see his true feelings rather than his apparent ones. Because Okonkwo views affection as a sign of weakness, he forces himself to wait before following Chielo. Each time he makes the trip to the caves and finds her missing, he returns home again to wait. Not until his fourth trip does he encounter Ekwefi. Okonkwo is not the cruel, heartless man that he presents himself to be; rather, he is gravely worried about Ezinma’s welfare. His hyperbolic understanding of manliness—the result of his tragic flaw—prevents his better nature from showing itself fully. Chielo’s actions force Okonkwo to acknowledge how important his wife and child are to him.
The importance of kinship bonds in manifests itself in the ramifications of the violation of such bonds. When Ikemefuna enters Okonkwo’s family as a surrogate son, he begins to heal the tension that exists between Okonkwo and Nwoye as a result of Okonkwo’s difficulty in dealing with the memory of his father. Ikemefuna is thus presented as a possible solution to Okonkwo’s tragic flaw. But Okonkwo fails to overcome his flaw and, in killing the boy who has become his son, damages his relationship with Nwoye permanently. Moreover, he seriously injures Nwoye’s respect for, and adherence to, Igbo cultural tradition.
Okonkwo’s accidental killing of Ezeudu’s son seems more than coincidence. We sense that it is a form of punishment for his earlier violation of kinship bonds. Just before the ill-fated incident happens, the one-handed spirit calls out to Ezeudu’s corpse, “If your death was the death of nature, go in peace. But if a man caused it, do not allow him a moment’s rest.” Although the explosion of Okonkwo’s gun moments later is not evidence that Okonkwo is, in fact, responsible for Ezeudu’s death, it seems to suggest that Okonkwo’s killing of Ikemefuna has been hurtful to the well-being and solidarity of the clan and its traditions.
Okonkwo’s punishment emphasizes the importance of strong, harmonious relations within the community. Although Obierika questions the harsh punishment that Okonkwo receives for such an accident, the punishment, in a way, helps stave off anger, resentment, and, ultimately, revenge. Despite the accidental nature of the death of Ezeudu’s son, it is understandable for Ezeudu’s close relatives to be angry with Okonkwo. The burning of Okonkwo’s compound displaces this anger onto his property, while Okonkwo’s exile separates him temporarily from the offended community. Over a period of seven years, any remaining anger and resentment from Ezeudu’s close relatives will dissipate, and the offender’s place in the community will be restored.
Okonkwo’s exile forces him into his motherland. He doesn’t deal well with his misfortune because he is so intent on being as successful and influential as his father was poor and powerless. His initial lack of gratitude toward his mother’s kinsmen is a transgression of Igbo cultural values. His exile also upsets him because it forces him to spend time in a “womanly” place. He remains unwilling to admit to, or come to terms with, the feminine side of his personality.
Unoka’s words regarding the bitterness of failing alone are important considering Okonkwo’s present situation. Like Unoka, Uchendu reminds Okonkwo that he does not suffer alone. Uchendu laments the loss of five of his wives, openly expressing his strong attachment to the women who have shared his life and borne his children. He mentions that his remaining wife is a young girl who “does not know her left from her right.” Youth, beauty, and sexual attractiveness are not the only things one should value in a wife, he argues. Uchendu also values wisdom, intelligence, and experience in a wife. Each and every death has caused him pain. Although we would not know it from Okonkwo, a father grieves for lost children just as a mother does.
The introduction of the European missionaries is not presented as a tragic event—it even contains some comical elements. The villagers, for example, mock the interpreter’s dialect. They neither perceive the missionaries as a threat nor react violently like the village of Abame, even though the missionaries call their gods “false” outright. And the missionaries do not forcibly thrust Christianity on the villagers.
Considering the emphasis that the Igbo place on careful thought before violent action, Okonkwo’s belief that the people of Abame should have armed themselves and killed the white men reflects a rash, violent nature that seems to clash with fundamental Igbo values. Throughout Things Fall Apart, Igbo customs and social institutions emphasize the wisdom of seeking a peaceful solution to conflict before a violent solution. Uchendu voices this social value when he states that the killing of the first white man was foolish, for the villagers of Abame did not even know what the man’s intentions were.
The language that Achebe uses to describe the pleasure that Nwoye finds in Christianity reflects Umuofia’s seeming need to be soothed physically as well as spiritually. Achebe sets up, from the beginning of the novel, a system of images that accentuate both the dry land and the tense atmosphere in the village. The image of the words of the hymn as raindrops relieving Nwoye’s “parched soul” refers not only to relief from the arid, desertlike heat with which Africa is commonly associated but also to the act of bringing Nwoye out of his supposed ignorance and into enlightenment through Christianity. It begins to quench his thirst for answers that Igbo religion has not been able to provide him.
Nwoye is drawn to Christianity because it seems to answer his long-held doubts about his native religion, specifically the abandonment of twin newborns and Ikemefuna’s death. Furthermore, Nwoye feels himself exiled from his society because of his disbelief in its laws, and the church offers refuge to those whom society has cast out. The church’s value system will allow twins to live, for example, which offers comfort to the pregnant woman who has had to endure the casting away to die of her four sets of newborn twins. Similarly, men without titles turn to Christianity to find affirmation of their individual worth. The osu are able to discard others’ perception of them as members of an ostracized caste and enter the church as the equals of other converts.
Okonkwo, on the other hand, has good reason to reject Christianity. Should Mbanta not drive the missionaries away, his killing of Ikemefuna would lose part of its religious justification. The damage to his relationship with Nwoye also seems more pointless than before. Both matters become his mistake rather than the result of divine will. Moreover, men of high status like Okonkwo view the church as a threat because it undermines the cultural value of their accomplishments. Their titles and their positions as religious authorities and clan leaders lose force and prestige if men of lower status are not there—the great cannot be measured against the worthless if the worthless have disappeared.
Nwoye’s conversion devastates Okonkwo. Although he has always been harsh with his son, Okonkwo still believes in Nwoye’s potential to become a great clansman. Nwoye’s rejection of Igbo values, however, strikes a dire blow to Okonkwo’s hopes for him. Additionally, Nwoye’s actions undermine Okonkwo’s own status and prestige. It is, as Okonkwo thinks at the end of Chapter Seventeen, as though all of Okonkwo’s hard work to distance himself from the legacy of his father has been destroyed. He sighs and thinks to himself: “Living fire begets cold impotent ash.”
Despite the challenges that the church represents, Mbanta is committed to peace and remains tolerant of the church’s presence. Even with the converts’ blatant disrespect of Umuofia’s customs—rumor has it that a convert has killed a royal python—the clan leaders vote for a peaceful solution, deciding to ostracize rather than attack the Christians. Okonkwo is not happy with their decision and advocates a violent reaction. His mentality is somewhat ironic: he believes that the village should act against its cultural values in order to preserve them.
The arrival of the white colonists and their religion weakens the kinship bonds so central to Igbo culture. Ancestral worship plays an important role in Igbo religion, and conversion to Christianity involves a partial rejection of the Igbo structure of kinship. The Christians tell the Igbo that they are all brothers and sons of God, replacing the literal ties of kinship with a metaphorical kinship structure through God. The overjoyed response of a missionary to Nwoye’s interest in attending school in another village—“Blessed is he who forsakes his father and his mother for my sake”—illustrates that the Christian church clearly recognizes Igbo kinship bonds as the central obstacle to the success of its missionaries.
Achebe does not present a clear-cut dichotomy of the white religion as evil and the Igbo religion as good. All along, the descriptions of many of the village’s ceremonies and rituals have been tongue-in-cheek. But the Christian missionaries increasingly win converts simply by pointing out the fallacy of Igbo beliefs—for example, those about the outcasts. When the outcasts cut their hair with no negative consequence, many villagers come to believe that the Christian god is more powerful than their own. Achebe himself is the son of Nigerian Christians, and it is hard not to think of his situation, in Chapter Seventeen, when the narrator points out Okonkwo’s worry: “Suppose when he died all his male children decided to follow Nwoye’s steps and abandon their ancestors?”
Okonkwo’s status as a warrior, farmer and his clan’s perception of him has changed since his exile. His increasing loss of power and prestige brings him great anxiety. Any remaining doubt that Okonkwo is slightly crazy is quelled when we learn that he has been fantasizing about, and seriously planning for, his triumphant return to his village since his departure. Okonkwo has great expectations for himself—in Chapter Twenty we are told that, “he saw himself taking the highest title of the land.”
Although Okonkwo still wishes that Ezinma were a boy, she remains a comfort to him throughout his troubles. Ironically, she best understands the dilemma of compromised manhood that her father faces. She sees how important her marriage is to Okonkwo’s position in the community, and she has considerable influence over her sister, who quickly agrees to postpone her marriage as well. After Nwoye’s departure, Okonkwo shows no sign of changing his practice of lecturing his sons about the rash and violent nature of true masculinity, showing his continued refusal to accept the fact that aggressiveness and pensiveness are not gender-defined, mutually exclusive traits.
Already having dealt with the missionaries in Mbanta, Okonkwo is now forced to deal with them in his own village. However, Mr. Brown, their leader, is far more enlightened than the average white colonist. Although he doesn’t really understand Igbo beliefs, he is capable of respecting them, and he does not want his flock to antagonize the clan. In a rare occurrence of cross-cultural understanding, he seems to share the clan’s value of peaceful, harmonious relations, and he debates religion with Akunna without insults or violence. His influence is largely benevolent, and Achebe uses Mr. Brown as a foil for the missionary who eventually takes his place, the more radical Reverend Smith.
Things Fall Apart is not one-sided in its portrayal of colonialism. It presents the economic benefits of cross-cultural contact and reveals the villagers’ delight in the hospital’s treatment of illnesses. The sympathetic Mr. Brown urges the Igbo to send their children to school because he knows that the colonial government will rob the Igbo of self-government if they do not know the language. In essence, he urges the Igbo to adapt so that they won’t lose all autonomy.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to view colonialism in a tremendously positive light: suddenly the Igbo must relate to the colonial government on European terms. The story of Abame and the discussion of the new judicial system show how different the European frame of reference is from that of the egwugwu. The colonial government punishes individuals according to European cultural and religious values. For example, without first making an effort to understand the cultural and religious tradition behind the practice, the government pronounces the abandonment of newborn twins a punishable crime.
At the end of Chapter Twenty, Obierika points out that there is no way that the white man will be able to understand Umuofia’s customs without understanding its language. This idea mirrors one of Achebe’s purposes in writing Things Fall Apart: the book serves not only to remind the West that Africa has language and culture but also to provide an understanding of Igbo culture through language. Achebe shows us the extent to which cultural and linguistic structures and practices are intertwined, and he is able to re-create in English the cadences, images, and rhythms of the speech of the Igbo people. By the time things begin to “fall apart,” it becomes clear that what the colonialists have unraveled is the complex Igbo culture.
Reverend Smith causes a great deal of conflict between the church and the clan with his refusal to understand and respect traditional Igbo culture. Mr. Brown, by contrast, is far more lenient with the converts’ retention of some of their old beliefs and doesn’t draw as clear a line between the converts and the Igbo community. Smith, however, demands a complete rejection of the converts’ old religious beliefs. The text ironically comments that he “sees things as black and white.” While on the one hand this comment refers simply to an inability to grasp the gradations in a given situation, it also refers, of course, to race relations and colonial power. Interestingly, Achebe has named Smith’s predecessor “Brown,” as if to suggest that the latter’s practice of compromise and benevolence is in some way related to his ability to see the shades between the poles of black and white. Smith, by contrast, is a stereotypical European colonialist, as the generic quality of his name reflects. His inability to practice mutual respect and tolerance incites a dangerous zealous fervor in some of the more eager converts, such as Enoch. Smith’s attitude encourages Enoch to insult traditional Igbo culture.
That Enoch is the son of the snake-priest makes his suspected killing of the sacred python all the more dire a transgression. Enoch’s conversion and alleged attack on the python emblematize the transition from the old order to the new. The old religion, with its insistence on deism and animal worship, is overturned from within by one. In its place comes the new religion, which, for all its protestations of love and harmony, brandishes a fiery logic and fierce resolve to convert the Igbo at any cost.
Enoch figures as a double for Okonkwo, although they espouse different beliefs. They are similar in temperament, and each man rebels against the practices and legacies of his father. Like Okonkwo, Enoch feels above all others in his tradition. He also feels contempt for them—he imagines that every sermon is “preached for the benefit of his enemies,” and, in the middle of church, he gives knowing looks whenever he feels that his superiority has been affirmed. Most important, in his blind and unthinking adherence to Christianity, Enoch allows his violent desires to take over, just as Okonkwo is prone to do.
The language barrier between the colonists and the villagers enables a crucial misunderstanding to take place. Unawareness of his interpreter’s attempt to appease the villagers, Smith considers the burning of the church an open show of disrespect for the church and his authority. The power that the interpreter holds highlights the weaknesses and vulnerability created by the language gap, reinforcing Mr. Brown’s belief that reading and writing are essential skills for the villagers if
Okonkwo’s desire to respond violently to the Christian church is not completely motivated by a desire to preserve his clan’s cultural traditions. He has been fantasizing for many years about making a big splash with his return to his village, but the church has changed things so much that his return fails to incite the interest that he has anticipated. He has also hoped that his daughters’ marriages would help to bring him some reflected glory but, again, his daughters’ suitors did not cause Umuofia to notice him. The opportunity to once again be a warrior represents Okonkwo’s last chance to recapture some of his former glory. His motivations for wanting revenge, including his humiliation in the jail, are deeply personal.
It is in Okonkwo’s nature to act rashly, and his slaying of the messenger constitutes an instinctive act of self-preservation. Not to act would be to reject his values and traditional way of life. He cannot allow himself or, by extension, his clan to be viewed as cowardly. There is certainly an element of self-destructiveness in this act, a kind of martyrdom that Okonkwo willingly embraces because the alternative is to submit to a world, law, and new order with which he finds himself inexorably at odds.
Unoka’s words regarding the bitterness of failing alone come to have real significance in Okonkwo’s life. In fact, they can be seen as a fatalistic foreshadowing of the bitter losses that befall Okonkwo despite his efforts to distance himself from his father’s model of indolence and irresponsibility. He values his personal success and status over the survival of the community and, having risen to the top of the clan’s economic and political heap alone, he fails alone. Okonkwo’s lack of concern for the fate of his community is manifested when, before the clan-wide meeting, he doesn’t bother to exchange greetings with anyone. He is not interested in the fate of anyone other than himself. Despite his great success and prestige, he dies in ignominy like his titleless, penniless father. This solitude persists even after his life ends, as the supposed taking over of his body by evil spirits renders his clan unable to handle his burial.
One way of understanding Okonkwo’s suicide is as the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy regarding his fear of failure. He is so afraid of ending up precisely the way he does end up that he brings about his own end in the worst manner imaginable. No one forces his hand when he slays the messenger; rather, the act constitutes a desperate attempt to reassert his manhood. The great tragedy of the situation is that Okonkwo ignores far more effective but less masculine ways to resist the colonialists. Ultimately, Okonkwo’s sacrifice seems futile and empty.
The novel’s ending is dark and ironic. The District Commissioner is a pompous little man who thinks that he understands indigenous African cultures. Achebe uses the commissioner, who seems a character straight out of Heart of Darkness, to demonstrate the inaccuracy of accounts of Africa such as Joseph Conrad’s. The commissioner’s misinterpretations and the degree to which they are based upon his own shortcomings are evident. He comments, for example, on the villagers’ “love of superfluous words,” attempting to ridicule their beautiful and expressive language. His rumination that Okonkwo’s story could make for a good paragraph illustrates his shallowness. Whereas Achebe has written an entire book about Okonkwo, he suggests that a European account of Okonkwo would likely portray him as a grunting, cultureless savage who inexplicably and senselessly kills a messenger. Achebe also highlights one of the reasons that early ethnographic reports were often offensively inaccurate: when Obierika asks the commissioner to help him with Okonkwo’s body, the narrator tells us that “the resolute administrator in [the commissioner] gave way to the student of primitive customs.” The same people who control the natives relay the accepted accounts of colonized cultures—in a manner, of course, that best suits the colonizer’s interest.
Achebe’s novel seeks at least in part to provide an answer to such inaccurate stereotypes. Okonkwo is by no means perfect. One can argue that his tragedy is of his own making. One can also argue that his chi is to blame. But as a societal tragedy, Things Fall Apart obviously places no blame on the Igbo people for the colonialism to which they were subjected. At the same time, the traditional customs of the villagers are not glorified—they are often questioned or criticized. Achebe’s re-creation of the complexity of Okonkwo’s and Umuofia’s situations lends fairness to his writing. At the same time, his critique of colonialism and of colonial literary representations comes across loud and clear.
Chapter#3.4
Different Aspects of Things Fall Apart
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Struggle between Change and Tradition
As a story about a culture on the verge of change, Things Fall Apart deals with how the prospect and reality of change affect various characters. The tension about whether change should be privileged over tradition often involves questions of personal status. Okonkwo, for example, resists the new political and religious orders because he feels that they are not manly and that he himself will not be manly if he consents to join or even tolerate them. To some extent, Okonkwo’s resistance of cultural change is also due to his fear of losing societal status. His sense of self-worth is dependent upon the traditional standards by which society judges him. This system of evaluating the self inspires many of the clan’s outcasts to embrace Christianity. Long scorned, these outcasts find in the Christian value system a refuge from the Igbo cultural values that place them below everyone else. In their new community, these converts enjoy a more elevated status.
The villagers in general are caught between resisting and embracing change and they face the dilemma of trying to determine how best to adapt to the reality of change. Many of the villagers are excited about the new opportunities and techniques that the missionaries bring. This European influence, however, threatens to extinguish the need for the mastery of traditional methods of farming, harvesting, building, and cooking. These traditional methods, once crucial for survival, are now, to varying degrees, dispensable. Throughout the novel, Achebe shows how dependent such traditions are upon storytelling and language and thus how quickly the abandonment of the Igbo language for English could lead to the eradication of these traditions.
Varying Interpretations of Masculinity
Okonkwo’s relationship with his late father shapes much of his violent and ambitious demeanor. He wants to rise above his father’s legacy of spendthrift, indolent behavior, which he views as weak and therefore feminine. This association is inherent in the clan’s language—the narrator mentions that the word for a man who has not taken any of the expensive, prestige-indicating titles is agbala, which also means “woman.” But, for the most part, Okonkwo’s idea of manliness is not the clan’s. He associates masculinity with aggression and feels that anger is the only emotion that he should display. For this reason, he frequently beats his wives, even threatening to kill them from time to time. We are told that he does not think about things, and we see him acting rashly and impetuously. Yet others who are in no way effeminate do not behave in this way. Obierika, unlike Okonkwo, “was a man who thought about things.” Whereas Obierika refuses to accompany the men on the trip to kill Ikemefuna, Okonkwo not only volunteers to join the party that will execute his surrogate son but also violently stabs him with his machete simply because he is afraid of appearing weak.
Okonkwo’s seven-year exile from his village only reinforces his notion that men are stronger than women. While in exile, he lives among the kinsmen of his motherland but resents the period in its entirety. The exile is his opportunity to get in touch with his feminine side and to acknowledge his maternal ancestors, but he keeps reminding himself that his maternal kinsmen are not as warlike and fierce as he remembers the villagers of Umuofia to be. He faults them for their preference of negotiation, compliance, and avoidance over anger and bloodshed. In Okonkwo’s understanding, his uncle Uchendu exemplifies this pacifist (and therefore somewhat effeminate) mode.
Language as a Sign of Cultural Difference
Language is an important theme in Things Fall Apart on several levels. In demonstrating the imaginative, often formal language of the Igbo, Achebe emphasizes that Africa is not the silent or incomprehensible country that books such as Heart of Darkness made it out to be. Rather, by peppering the novel with Igbo words, Achebe shows that the Igbo language is too complex for direct translation into English. Similarly, Igbo culture cannot be understood within the framework of European colonialist values. Achebe also points out that Africa has many different languages: the villagers of Umuofia, for example, make fun of Mr. Brown’s translator because his language is slightly different from their own.
On a macroscopic level, it is extremely significant that Achebe chose to write Things Fall Apart in English—he clearly intended it to be read by the West at least as much, if not more, than by his fellow Nigerians. His goal was to critique and emend the portrait of Africa that was painted by so many writers of the colonial period. Doing so required the use of English, the language of those colonial writers. Through his inclusion of proverbs, folktales, and songs translated from the Igbo language, Achebe managed to capture and convey the rhythms, structures, cadences, and beauty of the Igbo language.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Chi
The concept of chi is discussed at various points throughout the novel and is important to our understanding of Okonkwo as a tragic hero. The chi is an individual’s personal god, whose merit is determined by the individual’s good fortune or lack thereof. Along the lines of this interpretation, one can explain Okonkwo’s tragic fate as the result of a problematic chi—a thought that occurs to Okonkwo at several points in the novel. For the clan believes, as the narrator tells us in Chapter Fourteen, a “man could not rise beyond the destiny of his chi.” But there is another understanding of chi that conflicts with this definition. In Chapter Four, the narrator relates, according to an Igbo proverb, that “when a man says yes his chi says yes also.” According to this understanding, individuals will their own destinies. Thus, depending upon our interpretation of chi, Okonkwo seems either more or less responsible for his own tragic death. Okonkwo himself shifts between these poles: when things are going well for him, he perceives himself as master and maker of his own destiny; when things go badly; however, he automatically disavows responsibility and asks why he should be so ill fated.
Animal Imagery
In their descriptions, categorizations, and explanations of human behavior and wisdom, the Igbo often use animal anecdotes to naturalize their rituals and beliefs. The presence of animals in their folklore reflects the environment in which they live—not yet “modernized” by European influence. Though the colonizers, for the most part, view the Igbo’s understanding of the world as rudimentary, the Igbo perceive these animal stories, such as the account of how the tortoise’s shell came to be bumpy, as logical explanations of natural phenomena. Another important animal image is the figure of the sacred python. Enoch’s alleged killing and eating of the python symbolizes the transition to a new form of spirituality and a new religious order. Enoch’s disrespect of the python clashes with the Igbo’s reverence for it, epitomizing the incompatibility of colonialist and indigenous values.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Locusts
Achebe depicts the locusts that descend upon the village in highly allegorical terms that prefigure the arrival of the white settlers, who will feast on and exploit the resources of the Igbo. The fact that the Igbo eat these locusts highlights how innocuous they take them to be. Similarly, those who convert to Christianity fail to realize the damage that the culture of the colonizer does to the culture of the colonized.
The language that Achebe uses to describe the locusts indicates their symbolic status. The repetition of words like “settled” and “every” emphasizes the suddenly ubiquitous presence of these insects and hints at the way in which the arrival of the white settlers takes the Igbo off guard. Furthermore, the locusts are so heavy they break the tree branches, which symbolizes the fracturing of Igbo traditions and culture under the onslaught of colonialism and white settlement. Perhaps the most explicit clue that the locusts symbolize the colonists is Obierika’s comment in Chapter Fifteen: “the Oracle . . . said that other white men were on their way. They were locusts. . . .”
Fire
Okonkwo is associated with burning, fire, and flame throughout the novel, alluding to his intense and dangerous anger—the only emotion that he allows himself to display. Yet the problem with fire, as Okonkwo acknowledges in Chapters Seventeen and Twenty-Four, is that it destroys everything it consumes. Okonkwo is both physically destructive—he kills Ikemefuna and Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s son—and emotionally destructive—he suppresses his fondness for Ikemefuna and Ezinma in favor of a colder, more masculine aura. Just as fire feeds on itself until all that is left is a pile of ash, Okonkwo eventually succumbs to his intense rage, allowing it to rule his actions until it destroys him.
Postcolonial touch
In this novel we can see some of touches of postcolonial theories.
Chapter# 4
A Man of The People
Chapter#4.1
Summary
A Man of the People is a novel about Nigeria's halting first steps to form a post-colonial nation, told by Odili Samalu, a teacher turned politician, who takes on his former teacher and now a corrupt member of the cabinet.
Odili Samalu needs to tell the story of how he leaves the teaching profession in a small village school and enters partisan politics as the opponent of powerful man, once his revered teacher. Odili resents having to stand in a reception line for Chief Nanga, with whom he has grown disillusioned since he called for the head of the Minister of Finance and denounced Western-influenced intellectuals. At university, Odili had hoped for a successful career, which his father, a wealthy and hated retired politician, identifies with government office. Odili and the old polygamist are currently observing a truce in their stormy relationship.
Nanga recognizes Odili at the reception and offers to help him get a scholarship to London, agreeing it has no strings attached. Odili has a girlfriend in the capital, and accepts Nanga's hospitality to make a meeting easier. Nanga arranges for Odili to meet important people and attend social events, one of which results in a brief affair with the wife of an American consultant to the government. Secretly, Odili is infatuated with a proper-looking young girl he first sees on the dais at Nanga's reception and learns is destined soon to become Nanga's second wife for display on occasions where his old wife is too "bush." First-wife goes home for Christmas, and Nanga swiftly brings in a mistress. Odili is allowed to bring his girlfriend home, but is so insistent the relationship is not serious that Nanga seduces her.
Odili seeks refuge at the home of an old friend, Max, who is a practicing lawyer. He is present when Max's finance, Eunice, and other friends gather to establish a new political party dedicated to reform. Seeking revenge on Nanga, Odili tries to talk his intended, Edna Odo, into leaving him; swiftly Odili becomes attracted to her and wants to win him for himself. The attraction is mutual, but Edna must obey her greedy father and marry the chief. When another government scandal seems to make running candidates in the upcoming elections feasible, Odili and Max both announce their candidacy for seats in Parliament. Odili runs in Nanga's district. Edna denounces Odili as a wife-stealer and ungrateful thief.
Naively, Odili thinks to set up his campaign headquarters in Nanga's home village, but is blocked from holding a rally and fired from his teaching position in the village school. He moves to his home village of Urua, where he is joined by Max, who addresses the crowds in the family compound. Nanga shows up and bribes Odili to drop out of the race and is angrily rebuffed. Max, similarly approached, has accepted the bribe with no intention of dropping out. The friends debate political honesty and expediency. It matters little, however, because Nanga's party controls the media and other key positions. No one learns the new party exists. Odili's father is assessed new taxes and briefly jailed. His village loses the water system scheduled to go in until they renounce Odili. Utterly frustrated, Odili writes a cruel and unfair letter to Edna.
Odili foolishly disguises himself and makes his way to the foot of Nanga's stage at a mass rally. He is found out, mocked, invited to debate, and then beaten unconscious. He awakens in the hospital, and wavers in and out for days, believing he has seen his parents and Edna. Criminal charges are dropped, but Odili is maneuvered off the ballot. He learns of Max's murder on Election Day only afterwards, and of how his fiancye had avenged him. Odili contemplates how popular cynicism has made Nanga's victory and exploitation possible. Edna, however, has left the old man and stands at his bedside. The violence spawned during the election spreads until the Army steps in to restore peace. It arrests Nanga and his colleagues and indicates they will be prosecuted. Edna's father agrees to talk about letting her marry Odili. Odili concludes Max is lucky, having suffered martyrdom because Eunice has loved him enough to murder his murderer, expecting no reward for the act. Everyone else is looking out only for himself. The title A Man of the People formally applies to Chief Nanga - doubtless at his instigation - but clearly belongs to Odili (or Odili and Max) for seeking to make Nigeria a better place rather than continuing its colonial rape.
Chapter#4.2
Major Character Analysis
Odili Samalu
Odili Samalu is a narrator and protagonist of A Man of the People, odili is native of Urua village, where his father Hezekiah is a wealthy man who was a district interpreter and now head of the local chapter of the People’s Organization Party (POP). Odili has graduated from the Anata Grammer School, where he is Nanga’s Favorite student and is a disaffected member of the student’s branch of POP. Odili, the narrator, represents the new intellectual generation. Odili is a kind of man who most of the times narrate the entire situation that he observes but does not take any kind of initiative against that incident. We can compare him with the main character in Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathon Swift who always described most of the stories but did not take any kind of action against that particular incident; he took action against any particular situation when that harms him. Odili did the same when his girl friend was taken away from you by Chief Nanga.
Chief Nanga
In A Man of the People, Chief Nanga, is referred to by the narrator, Odili, as a man of the people, and the most approachable politician in the country. He is the minister of culture and his speeches to the public represent everything that a politician should do and be. But as Odili tells the story, it becomes clear that Chief Nanga does not practice what he preaches. The money that is supposed to go towards helping his community he uses instead to build four-story buildings, which he rents out for his own profit. Chief Nanga is supposed to be standing up for the traditions and beliefs of the pre-colonial African culture by defending the common man and opposing the European-oriented post-colonial intellectuals. However, in A Man of the People Achebe focuses more on the politics of West African communities. Achebe shows the switching of power between the old and new styles of politicians and how the old style bush politician, Chief Nanga, is becoming more and more greedy as he learns the political system. Chief Nanga learns to be greedy and learns how to win elections through the corrupt system of politics he was against in the first place. The important thing for Chief Nanga is that the people trust him. He relates to them more, because he considers himself closer to the common man and far away from the intellectual, who represents a more European style of living and thinking. By representing his country after colonialism he has the incentive to stay as far away from the European style of life and politics as possible.
Odili’s Father
His father name is Hezekiah. He is a wealthy man who was a district interpreter and now head of the local chairman of the People’s Organization Party (POP). He is a perfect example of typical African man. He does not want to accept any thing from the modern or developing world. He believes that nobody can break the old form of rules and cannot build any thing new out of old rulers. He represents the typical African culture; he believes in polygamy, and he also married several times and careless about his family and children. He proves that in Africa most of the people do not aware about the political situation and corruption in politics.
Chapter#4.3
Different Aspects of A Man of The People
Role of Mass People
Role of Money
A Man of the People is the novel where Chinua Achebe showed political picture of Africa in a very realistic way. He introduced some people who are related with politics and some general people who are the victims of this filthy politics and their situation after a certain period of time. He portrayed how a country and its people are suppressed by all these political figures only by their power and money. In this novel one thing is sure that the root of all these power relationship and domination is money. As it is true that money can make a person’s life happy as well as can make others life hell. Here Achebe showed the dark side of money in politics. He showed that how people try to buy relationship by money and try to buy others trust, life and dreams by the help of the money.
In the novel the author demonstrate the use of money in a country’s politics and how it can make people’s life easy and evil. There are two major characters that have shown the situation of subaltern and suppressor. Odili the protagonist and the political figure Chief Nanga played these two roles, Odili played the subaltern’s role and Chief Nanga played the Suppressor’s role. Money is the element that makes these two persons subaltern and suppressor. We have seen the use of money in different sections in this novel, like; politics, different person’s life and media.
Media is the sector which is the most important section for any politician in any country, because this is the most effective way through which they do most of their promotion, propaganda, control people and also control the country. They almost dominate the media and it happens because of power of money. In the novel we can see how the newspapers changed the interview of the chief Nanga. Radio played a important role when all the corrupted politician proved that some politicians are trying to do harm to this country with the foreign faculty, because they have degree from different foreign countries, for this kind of propaganda some politician died on the road.
Odili the protagonist lost his girl friend only because he did not have any kind of power to take back of his girl friend, and money is the element that makes people powerful. Chief Nanga is the person who had money and power and that is why he was able to take away Odili’s girl friend in front of his eyes and he was silent. It is true that in the real world people are helpless in front of money and this is the thing had happened with Odili.
It is all about money and it is money that creates power in the politics and politicians. Chief Nanga bought some buses and to make money out of that he wanted to made some road and he was able to do that only because of money power, he was not at all scare about any kind of problem because they means the politicians do not need to explain all these to any one. It is money that polluted all the sections of politics, its all about money and because of this people is being corrupted in different sectors of their life; even in real world we are watching these kinds of activities.
Only because of money Chief Nanga was able to show the guts to marry his parlor wife Edna. He took the chance of their weakness of money. Her family was not able to continue her education and not able to run their family in a well to do way and it w3as the Chief Nanga who helped them by taking all the responsibility but he did not do that out of humanity, he had a evil intention, he had interest in Edna and that was the reason he helped her family, end of the Edna’s father was bound to accept his proposal because he did not have any other option rather accepting Chief Nanga’s encrusted proposal. Edna herself was not that much strong to deny the proposal because she also aware of her family’s financial condition, she knew that very well that if she denied the offer of Chief Nanga then her family would have died without food and shelter.
When Odili totally busted by Chief Nanga, he went to his friend Maxwell’s house and their he decide that he will take part in next election. It was Maxwell’s party where he worked and his party finances him to fight against Chief Nanga’s party. Odili’s father was also happy, only when he saw Odili’s party was giving him smart amount of money and provided a car. So you can say every steps of this novel money played a very vital role. Every body thinks that without money nobody can win any election, money is necessary to win an election. Even Odili’s bodyguard gave this impression to Odili that he cannot win this election if he cannot spend handful amount of money. His bodyguard said;
“You think say na so so talk talk you go take win Chief Nanga. If Government no give you plenty money for election make you go tell them no be sand sand we de take do am. ….”
When Chief Nanga saw that Odili is stand against him from his own place, from where he always won without any kind of hassle and any opposition. For that reason he went to Odili to offer him a certain amount of money and scholarship so that he can go abroad for his higher studies and can fulfill his dream, but the thing is that he wanted to buy Odili so that he does go for that election and Chief Nanga can win that without any opposition. He also offered the same thing to Maxwell but he did not accept that but when nobody accept his proposal the consequence was not good. Chief Nanga used his power and he sent Odili in hospital and killed Maxwell.
It is true that human beings need money to survive in their life. Money is a very vita element in human beings life but it does not mean that you have to die for it or kill your humanity and morality. It is you who earn money; it is not money who earns you, so it is you who use money not money who should use you or control you. But in this novel we can see that it was money that was regulating all the characters life. It was money which helps people turn into an animal. Money was all over the novel and directing all the characters, somehow money was related with each and every character. So we can say it was money which played a very crucial role in this novel.
Role of Media
In this novel Chief Nanga, is referred to by the narrator Odili, as a man of the people, and the most approachable politician in the West Africa. Role of media should be stand as an intermediately between the government and the common people but it is ported by Achebe as an evil side of media in A Man of the People. We know each media vehicle has a significance role to play. If print generates awareness and disseminates information, radio is a vehicle to build the brand with its emotional appeal. But what we see in A Man of the People? We see media is a representative of government or we can say media are the mouth speech of government of West Africa in A Man of the people. They have no connection with common people even with the opposition. In the novel we observed two kinds of media; they are the mouth speech of government. Print media, like The Daily Chronicle is an official organ of the P.O.P (People’s Organization Party) and the broadcasts media like African national radio stations main job is broadcasted government’s speech.
Print media plays very significant role in the novel A Man of the People. Achebe casts a critical eye on African politics and as well as media. Achebe shows the switching of power between the old and new styles of politicians and how the old bush politician, Chief Nanga, is becoming more and greedier as he learns the political system. He is the one of the Member of Parliament. The government is more powerful and corrupted and they know how to handle general people. They use media as a representative of government. It is really happened in third world country. All media are bound to government because government has power. Any time they can close media house. It is the big threat for media. Some time government is the big investiture for circulation or broadcasting. That is why, they are bound to make fake news that increase government image. For example, “The Daily Chronicle, an official organ of the P.O.P had pointed out in an editional that the Miscreant Gang, as the dismissed ministers were now called, was all university people and highly educated professional men.” News papers are not independent at West Africa. News paper are carried the prime Minister or Government version of the story. They can it easily because of the common men are far away from the “intellectual!” Dr Makinde the ex- Minister of Finance as he got up to speak tell, calm, sorrowful and superior. It was a most unedifying spectacle. He is called “Traitor”, “Coward”, and “Doctor of Fork your Mother” by common people. But the next morning the editor of the Daily Chronicle published news that was opposite of Dr. Makinde’s speech. Is says “a brilliant economist whose reputation was universally acclaimed in Europe”. The Daily Matchet also play same role. Another thing is important that media are not only representative of Government but also underestimate the oppositions. They have no social responsibility. They do not think about common people even they have no relation with them because of uneducated and unawareness society. It is really happening in Africa as well as third world country. Media have no role for repetitive society. They can not write down a single word without government’s authorization.
Radio also the mouth speaker of government in A Man of the People. Radio is censored by the government. It can not any play any role independently. It is far away from the common people. The government does not want the common people know true information. We know as a human being it is right to know all true information. But the real picture is totally opposite. Radio’s have no connection with common people. Oppositions are threatened by the radio but most of the time they represent there is no opposition only the government. For example Nanga says that only the powerful party is P.O.P. The government does not want the common people to hare information regarding the pipes. Hezekiah Samaluis a chairman of P.O.P. Many pipes are approved by P.O.P for the villager. It is forecasted by radio. On the other hand, when Samalu distributes it two other villages for his anti parties activities. This news does not forecast through radio because of the image of P.O.P. One day Odili is listening radio for news but he is not able to hare any news without govern activities. It is controlled by P.O.P
Everyone knows information is a form of power. The Third World countries now know this more than ever. That is why they are calling for the establishment of a new international order of information. They feel this is just as urgent as the establishment of a new international economic order. In A Man of the People we see media is like a doll of government that has no existent without other. They have no activities without government. They are bound to government because of existing.
Chapter# 5
Relation between “Things Fall Apart” and “A Man of The People”
These two novels are kind of sequel novels, now you will think why I am saying so, yes there are some reasons behind this. If we analyze theses two novels we will see that the first novel “Things Fall Apart” shows us the pre-colonial and the colonial period and “A Man of The People” shows us the postcolonial period situation of Africa. In “Things Fall Apart” Achebe portrayed the social and religious structure of the African society, and many of their activities, he also showed how people lead life at the time of pre-colonization and how they take the colonization period. In this novel many people take it positively to have a better life but for that reason they had to change their religion where as the main character of the novel, Okonkow, did not able to take that like others and as a result at the end of the story he had to sacrifice his life. According to Lilah Gandhi “Subaltern can’t speak”, she wanted to mean by the term “Subaltern” that who cannot speak, means who are oppressed by other. In “Things fall Apart” Ikemefuna was the subaltern and Okonkow was the suppressor. On the other hand some times suppressor becomes the subaltern, for example; Okonkow was the subaltern and his society and religion was the suppressor. This was the pre-colonial situation when African people were confined by the social and religious super-structure. In the colonial period there are many changes came and that time there are many people were oppressed by the white people and many white people were also oppressed by the local people. In this period the term “Subaltern” introduced but it is true that the use of this term started many years back when colonization started and we also saw the situation related with this term.
On the other hand “A Man of The People” shows the situation of pos colonization. What is going on in Africa after the colonization is over. Still people are deprived from their basic human needs and rights but this time their own people are doing this with them. Powerful people are oppressing the powerless people. This novel describes the political unrest in Africa. Chief Nanga is the representative of the political leader and Odili is representing the ordinary people in Africa. This novel shows how African people are confined in the hand of country’s political leaders and also shows the inactive activities of the people. As I said Odili the protagonist is representing the ordinary people in Africa, in the very beginning he was kind of a inactive man he just narrate all the incidents that he encountered but did not do any thing to stop that or protect the people. When he was attacked by the political leader that time he reacted and he reacted very badly. So we can say that African people are kind of selfish when they sees any kind of harm is coming towards them that time they react other wise the do not even care about any thing.
So we can say it is very clear that the situation African people have not change yet. The only thing has changed the ruling party or else every thing is same still they are oppressed by the rulers, the powerful people. Still they are not realizing about their own benefits. They are just living like refuge in their own country. These two novels portrait the situation of Africa from the pre-colonial period to post-colonial period, shows how African people are depriving from their basic rights and needs for their own inactive attitude. It proves that still African people are ruled by the superior power.
Chapter# 6
Conclusion
It is a great opportunity for me to write about subject like “Africa from Chinua Achebe’s Eyes”. Because working with this topic, I am able to acquire more knowledge about how pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial period influence Africa literature. At the time of preparing this paper I had gone through different books and websites which help me to get acquainted with new topics. I am actually focusing on those topics which are important for us to understand about this subject easily.
I really thankful to my fellow class mate; Tapas Kumar Pramanic, all the teachers in University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh and I should mention two names, because without their help I would not be able to write this paper properly; Dr. Kazi Anis Ahmed and Musarat Shameem, these two persons help me to get the primary knowledge about this topic in the course Bestseller Fiction. I acknowledge with gratitude to my Department Dean Prof. Mohit Ul Alam, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, my respective teacher, who has always been sincere and helpful to make me understand the different system of legal research and conceptual problems in my thesis paper
.
Apart from me this thesis paper will certainly be immense importance for those who are interested to know about this subject. I hope they will find it comprehensible.
I try hard and soul to gather all relevant documents regarding this subject. I do not know how far I am able to do that. Furthermore I don’t claim all the information in this term paper is included perfectly. There are may be shortcoming, factual error, mistaken opinion which all mine and I alone am responsible for those.
Thank You
Md. Hossain Mahamud
Abstract
There are as many types of African literature as there are African nations—from Northern Africa to the Cape of Good Hope. However, the oral tradition, stories passed down verbally from one generation to another, is common to all of them. These stories include folktales and songs of praise for the nations’ ancestors, but in the late nineteenth century, a European scramble to conquer Africa radically changed its literature. Trickster tales characterize pre-colonial African literature, while colonial literature tends to deal with slavery and themes of independence. Postcolonial works often deal with conflicts between the past and the future and the difficulty of maintaining an African identity in the face of globalization. Today, some of the best-known African writers are Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe; Things Fall Apart and A Man of The People.
Content
Chapter No Context Page No
01 Biography 01
02 Introduction 02
03 Things Fall Apart 03
3.1 Summary 03
3.2 Major Character Analysis 05
3.3 Analysis of the novel 07
3.4 Different Aspects of Things Fall Apart 17
4 A Man of The People 20
4.1 Summary 20
4.2 Major Character Analysis 22
4.3 Different Aspects of A Man of The People 23
05 Relation between “Things Fall Apart” and “A Man of The People” 28
06 Conclusion 29
Chapter # 1
Biography
Chinua Achebe born on November 16, 1930, is a poet, critic and novelist, is one of the most important living African writers. He is also considered one of the most original literary artists’ currentlt wirting in English.
Born Albert Chinualumogo Achebe, Chinua Achebe was raised by Christian evangelical parents in the large village Ogidi, in Igboland, Eastern Nigeria. He received early education in English, but grew up surrounded by the complex fusion of Igbo traditions and the colonial legacy. He studied literature and medicine at the University of Ibadan; after graduating, he went to work for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in lagos. Things Fall Apart (1958) was his first novel. It has been translated into at least forty-five languages, and has sold eight million copies worldwide.
Starting in the 1950s, Achebe was central to a new Nigerian literary movement that drew on the oral tradition of Nigeria’s indigenious tribes. Although Achebe writes in English, he attempts to incorporate Igbo vocabulary and narratives. Other novels include: No Longer At Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), and A Man of The People (1966).
Achebe left his career in radio in 1966, during the national unrest and violence that led to the Biafran War. He narrowly escaped harm at the hands of soldiers who believed that his novel, A Man of The People, implicated him in the country’s first military coup. He began an academic career the next year, taking a position as Senor Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria. That same year, he co-founded a publishing company with Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo. In 1971, he became an editor for Okike, a prestigious Nigerian literary magazine. He founded Iwa ndi Ibo in 1984; this bilingual publication was dedicated to Igbo cultural life. He was made Emeritus Professor at the University of Nigeria in 1985. He has taught at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Connecticut, and he has received over twenty honorary doctorates from universities around the world. He received Nigeria’s highest honor for intellectual achivement, the Nigerian Merit Award, in 1987. His novel Anthills of the Savannah was shortlisted for the Bookers Mcconnell Prize that same year.
Achebe has been active in Nigerian politica since the 1960s. many of his novels deal with the social and political problems facing his country, including the difficulty of the post-colonial legacy.
He is married and has four children. He courrently lives in the United Stats, where he holds a teaching profession at Bard College.
Chapter# 2
Introduction
Chinua Achebe is one of the most well known African authors of his generation. He is a kind of writer who always tries to bring significant issues related with his own country like a prophet. There are three aspects of Africa brought out by Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart and A Man of The People and those aspects are the period of pre-colonization, colonization and the post-colonization.
His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958) has received wide acclaim. It deals with the colonial impact on Igbo culture. Igbo society, as well as the book’s main character, Okonkwo, is unable to adapt to the arrival of the British, who impose a cash economy and Christianity on them. Eventually, this vibrant, functioning society collapses and disintegrates under these new pressures, as does Okonkwo.
A later novel, A Man of The People (1966) describes an unnamed post-colonial African country. It deals with the problems of political representation in a corrupt nation. It also deals with the problems of finding a collective will in an ethnically diverse, economically stratified nation. The main part of the story centers on the political battles between the main character, Odili, and his former teacher, Chief Nanga, the corrupt and charismatic A Man of The People.
Chapter# 3
Things Fall Apart
Chapter#3.1
Summary
One of the greatest warriors of Nigeria, Okonkwo, is a leader of the Umuofia clan. He is a highly respected man in his village; the only problem he has to face his son, Nwoye, who, in his father's eyes, is an idle and negligent young man of twelve years old.
When Okonkwo retrieves two adolescents, a boy and a girl, from another tribe in return for a great evil against his village, the girl goes to another family while the boy is left in Okonkwo's care. As the 15-year-old boy gets used to Okonkwo and his family, Okonkwo finds a perfect descendant in Ikemefuna, but because of Okonkwo's strict view of masculinity, Okonkwo cannot open his heart to the boy.
On the Week of Peace, Okonkwo breaks the "law" when he beats one of his wives, Ojiugo, because she was too negligent. This was the first case when he shocked his family and tribe.
Three years later, during a rare invasion of locusts, the Oracle makes a decision: Okonkwo's "adopted son" has to be sacrificed. A village elder tells Okonkwo not to take part in the murder since he is called "father" by Ikemefuna.
When the chosen clansmen take Ikemefuna out of the village and strike Ikemefuna, he runs towards Okonkwo for help. Since Okonkwo does not want to appear weak, he kills Ikemefuna with great cruelty. Nwoye, who had become great friends with Ikemefuna, grieves and is again afraid of Okonkwo, whom he could stand when Ikemefuna was around.
At the funeral of the old clansman, Ogbuefi Ezeudu, who warned Okonkwo about the murder of Ikemefuna, a tragedy happens: during the salvo Okonkwo’s firearm blows up and takes the life
of Ezeudu’s son.
Because of village tradition, Okonkwo must atone for his accidental killing, so he and his family are exiled from the village for seven years. Once they leave for Mbanta, the native village of Okonkwo’s mother, Ezeudu’s family destroy everything that was related to the ex-leader of the clan in order to cleanse the village of the sin.
Okonkwo and his family rebuild everything in Mbanta, the land of his mother, and reconcile themselves to their new life. They start a farm and sell yams. Everything seems to be fine and peaceful until the second year of the exile when white missionaries arrive in Mbanta who try to Christianize the villagers. Nwoye also Christianizes.
Seven years have passed and Okonkwo returns to his village where the missionaries have already converted most of the local people. When the peaceful leader of the missionaries, Mr. Brown, is followed by the brutal Reverend James Smith, the method of the conversion changes: the Reverend uses violent methods. Enoch, one of the new converts, tries to provoke the heathen villagers: during a traditional ceremony he unmasks an egwugwu, killing it. In retribution, the egwugwu burn Enoch’s house and the new Christian church the next day.
The response of the District Commissioner comes soon: the leaders of the Umuofia clan are arrested and held for ransom. After their release the village decides to start organizing an uprising. Okonkwo, attends the meeting where the village will decide whether or not to go to war. During the meeting, five court messengers arrive and tell the villagers that the white man has ordered the meeting to end. Okonkwo becomes enraged and kills the lead man. When Okonkwo kills the man, the rest of the village looks on in amazement. Okonkwo realizes that the village will not go to war, even with the threat right in front of them.
Once he sees, to his astonishment, that the clan isn’t going to go to war with him, Okonkwo hangs himself. When the District Commissioner finds out about the ironic situation, he finds it interesting enough to include it into his book about Africa: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
Chapter#3.2
Major Character Analysis
Okonkwo
Husband of three, father of eight, he is the most respected warrior and leader in his village. All his life he endeavors to get rid of the memory of his father, Unoka, who was an unmanly, idle, and lazy person.
Okonkwo is a conservative person who believes that the only thing a man has to do is to fight for his family and for his tribe. He can’t tolerate any other attitude, that’s why he worries about his 12-year-son, Nwoye, who seems to be similar to Okonkwo’s despised father.
He always wants to prove that he is a real man (not like his father) but he regularly makes big mistakes and even falls into sin as a result of excessive manliness and frustration.
He is not able to accept any change in life including the white converters and the Christianity. But when the clansmen compromise and choose peace instead of war against the white people, he is forced to realize that he has no future in the community because of his lack of ability to conform.
Okonkwo is a "classical" tragic hero: he is a superior person and his tragic flaw - the compilation of manliness with violence, arrogance, and impatience - brings about his destruction.
Obierka
Okonkwo's best friend. He takes care of Okonkwo's yams after Okonkwo is exiled for seven years. He also questions some of the tribal morals and consequences. Chinua Achebe uses this character as a foil to Okonkwo because Obierka is a man that thinks instead of acts like Okonkwo.
Nwoye
Nwoye, Okonkwo’s oldest son, struggles in the shadow of his powerful, successful, and demanding father. His interests are different from Okonkwo’s and resemble more closely those of Unoka, his grandfather. He undergoes many beatings, at a loss for how to please his father, until the arrival of Ikemefuna, who becomes like an older brother and teaches him a gentler form of successful masculinity. As a result, Okonkwo backs off, and Nwoye even starts to win his grudging approval. Nwoye remains conflicted, however: though he makes a show of scorning feminine things in order to please his father, he misses his mother’s stories.
With the unconscionable murder of Ikemefuna, however, Nwoye retreats into himself and finds himself forever changed. His reluctance to accept Okonkwo’s masculine values turns into pure embitterment toward him and his ways. When missionaries come to Mbanta, Nwoye’s hope and faith are reawakened, and he eventually joins forces with them. Although Okonkwo curses his lot for having borne so “effeminate” a son and disowns Nwoye, Nwoye appears to have found peace at last in leaving the oppressive atmosphere of his father’s tyranny.
Ezinma
Daughter of Okonkwo who has more "masculine" spirit than her brother, Nwoye. Okonkwo wishes Ezinma was a boy, and interestingly she is the only child who has won Okonkwo’s respect.
She shares an interesting relationship with her mother Ekwefi. The relationship is more like one of equals than of the typical mother-daughter seen in the tribe. This could be because Ekwefi has lost so many other children, Enzinma is her only child, and so she loves her less because she has reached the crowning achievment of a woman, motherhood, but more because she relishes the love and companionship that she finds with Ezinma.
Ezinma shows great love for her father. She constantly tries to help him, and after he is taken hostage by the white District Commissioner, she breaks the traditional 28 day stay with her husband to be's family in order to return home and wait for her father's return. And after Okonkwo gets back, she is the only one who can persuade him to eat.
Ikemefuna
Similar to Ezinma, he also confuses Okonkwo’s feelings and beliefs: though he is not a real child but a gift of another tribe, Okonkwo finds him a much better and suitable son than Nwoye. Though Ikemefuna calls Okonkwo "father", the strong leader shouldn’t show anything but masculine strength – so, in order to prove his manhood, he kills the innocent boy. The death of Ikemefuna is one of the most important incidents that will lead to the tragedy of Okonkwo.
Ekwefi
One of the wives of Okonkwo whose only aim is to protect her only child, Ezinma – from Okonkwo and even from the gods.
Mr. Brown
The first leader of the missionaries; a gentle and kind man who tries to convert the villagers only verbally and through his hospital and school, and he never uses aggressive methods.
Reverend James Smith
He is the one who uses violence in order to convert the local people. He believes that the quality and zeal of the converts counts more than Mr. Brown's large quantity of followers. He represents the typical colonizer who always try to establish his own decision on others.
Chapter#3.3
Analysis of the novel
We are introduced immediately to the complex laws and customs of Okonkwo’s clan and its commitment to harmonious relations. For example, the practice of sharing palm-wine and kola nuts is repeated throughout the book to emphasize the peacefulness of the Igbo. When Unoka’s resentful neighbor visits him to collect a debt, the neighbor does not immediately address the debt. Instead, he and Unoka share a kola nut and pray to their ancestral spirits; afterward, they converse about community affairs at great length. The customs regulating social relations emphasize their common interests and culture, diffusing possible tension. The neighbor further eases the situation by introducing the subject of debt through a series of Igbo proverbs, thus making use of a shared oral tradition, as Okonkwo does when he asks Nwakibie for some seed-yams. Through his emphasis on the harmony and complexity of the Igbo, Achebe contradicts the stereotypical, European representations of Africans as savages.
Another important way in which Achebe challenges such stereotypical representations is through his use of language. As Achebe writes in his essay on Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, colonialist Europe tended to perceive Africa as a foil or negation of Western culture and values, imagining Africa to be a primordial land of silence. But the people of Umuofia speak a complex language full of proverbs and literary and rhetorical devices. Achebe’s translation of the Igbo language into English retains the cadences, rhythms, and speech patterns of the language without making them sound, as Conrad did, “primitive.”
Okonkwo is the protagonist of Things Fall Apart, and, in addition to situating him within his society, the first few chapters of the novel offer us an understanding of his nature. He is driven by his hatred of his father, Unoka, and his fear of becoming like him. To avoid picking up Unoka’s traits, Okonkwo acts violently without thinking, often provoking avoidable fights. He has a bad temper and rules his household with fear. Okonkwo associates Unoka with weakness, and with weakness he associates femininity. Because his behavior is so markedly different from his father’s, he believes that it constitutes masculinity. However, it strains his relationship with Nwoye and leads him to sin in Chapter Four by breaking the Week of Peace. His rash behavior also causes tension within the community because he expresses disdain for less successful men. Ikemefuna later demonstrates that masculinity need not preclude kindness, gentleness, and affection, and Nwoye responds far more positively to Ikemefuna’s nurturing influence than to Okonkwo’s heavy-handedness.
Despite its focus on kinship, the Igbo social structure offers a greater chance for mobility than that of the colonizers who eventually arrive in Umuofia. Though ancestors are revered, a man’s worth is determined by his own actions. In contrast to much of continental European society during the nineteenth century, which was marked by wealth-based class divisions, Igbo culture values individual displays of prowess, as evidenced by their wrestling competitions. Okonkwo is thus able, by means of his own efforts, to attain a position of wealth and prestige, even though his father died, penniless and titleless, of a shameful illness.
Whereas the first few chapters highlight the complexity and originality of the Igbo language, in these chapters Achebe points out another aspect of Igbo culture that colonialist Europe tended to ignore: the existence of subcultures within a given African population. Each clan has its own stories, and Ikemefuna is an exciting addition to Umuofia because he brings with him new and unfamiliar folk tales. With the introduction of Ikemefuna, Achebe is able to remind us that the story we are reading is not about Africa but rather about one specific culture within Africa. He thus combats the European tendency to see all Africans as one and the same.
The religious values of the Igbo emphasize the shared benefits of peaceful, harmonious relations. The Igbo always consult the Oracle before declaring war; for they fear punishment from their gods should they declare war without just cause. Their religion also emphasizes the individual’s obligation to the community. When Okonkwo breaks the peace during the sacred week, the priest chastises him for endangering the entire community by risking the earth deity’s wrath. He refuses Okonkwo’s offer of a kola nut, expressing disagreement peacefully. This parrying of potential violence on the interpersonal level reflects the culture’s tradition of avoiding violence and war whenever possible.
Moreover, the belief in the chi, an individual’s personal god, also smooths possible tensions in the Igbo community. The chi allows individuals to attribute some portion of their failures and successes to divine influence, thus lessening the shame of the former and pride of the latter. This belief encourages respect between individuals; the men are thus able to settle a dispute between Okonkwo and a man whom he insults without resorting to personal attacks.
Although traditional Igbo culture is fairly democratic in nature, it is also profoundly patriarchal. Wife-beating is an accepted practice. Moreover, femininity is associated with weakness while masculinity is associated with strength. It is no coincidence that the word that refers to a titleless man also means “woman.” A man is not believed to be “manly” if he cannot control his women. Okonkwo frequently beats his wives, and the only emotion he allows himself to display is anger. He does not particularly like feasts, because the idleness that they involve makes him feel emasculated. Okonkwo’s frustration at this idleness causes him to act violently, breaking the spirit of the celebration.
Okonkwo’s extremely overactive desire to conquer and subdue, along with his profound hatred of all things feminine, is suggestive of impotence. Though he has children, Okonkwo is never compared to anything thriving or organic; instead, Achebe always associates him with fire, which consumes but does not beget. The incident in which he tries to shoot Ekwefi with his gun is likewise suggestive of impotence. After Ekwefi hints at Okonkwo’s inability to shoot properly, Okonkwo proves this inability, failing to hit Ekwefi. Impotence, whether or not it is an actual physical condition for him, seems to be a characteristic that is related to Okonkwo’s chauvinistic behavior.
Okonkwo disobeys the authority and advice of a clan elder in killing Ikemefuna. His actions are too close to killing a kinsman, which is a grave sin in Igbo culture. Okonkwo is so afraid of looking weak that he is willing to come close to violating tribal law in order to prove otherwise. No one would have thought that Okonkwo was weak if he had stayed in the village. In fact, Obierika’s opinion on the matter suggests that doing so would have been considered the more appropriate action. Instead, Okonkwo’s actions seriously damage both his relationship with Nwoye and Nwoye’s allegiance to Igbo society.
Nwoye shows promise because he voices chauvinist opinions, but his comments are really aimed at Okonkwo. In fact, Nwoye loves women’s stories and is pleased when his mother or Okonkwo’s other wives ask him to do things for them. He also seeks comfort in his mother’s hut after Ikemefuna’s death. Nwoye’s questioning of Ikemefuna’s death and of the practice of throwing away newborn twins is understandable: Obierika, too, frequently questions tradition. In fact, Obierika refused to accompany the other men to kill Ikemefuna, and Okonkwo points out that Obierika seems to question the Oracle. Obierika also has reservations about the village’s practice of tapping trees. Okonkwo, on the other hand, accepts all of his clan’s laws and traditions unquestioningly.
Interestingly, Obierika’s manliness is never questioned. The fact that Obierika is skeptical of some Igbo practices makes us regard Nwoye’s skepticism in a different light. We understand that, in Umuofia, manhood does not require the denigration of women. Like Nwoye, Ikemefuna is not close to his biological father. Rather, his primary emotional attachments to his natal village are to his mother and little sister.
Although he is not misogynistic like Okonkwo, Ikemefuna is the perfect clansman. He eagerly takes part in the community celebrations and integrates himself into Okonkwo’s family. Okonkwo and Ikemefuna love one another as father and son, and Ikemefuna is a good older brother to Nwoye. Most important, he is protective rather than critical. He does not allow Nwoye and his brothers to tell their mother that Obiageli broke her water pot when she was showing off—he does not want her to be punished. Ikemefuna illustrates that manliness does not preclude gentleness and affection.
In calling himself a “shivering old woman,” Okonkwo associates weakness with femininity. Although he denigrates his emotional attachment to Ikemefuna, he seeks comfort in his affectionate friendship with Obierika. Ezinma is likewise a source of great comfort to him. Because she understands him, she does not address his sorrow directly; rather, she urges him to eat. For all of Okonkwo’s chauvinism, Ezinma is his favorite child. Okonkwo’s frequently voiced desire that Ezinma were a boy seems to suggest that he secretly desires affectionate attachment with his actual sons, although he avoids admitting as much because he fears affection as a weakness. It is interesting to note that Okonkwo doesn’t wish that Ezinma were a boy because she exhibits desirable masculine traits; rather, it is their bond of sympathy and understanding that he values.
The relationship between Ekwefi and Ezinma is not a typical parent-child relationship; it is more like one between equals. Ekwefi receives a great deal of comfort and companionship from her daughter and, because she has lost so many children, she loves and respects her daughter all the more. Although motherhood is regarded as the crowning achievement of a woman’s life, Ekwefi prizes Ezinma so highly not for the status motherhood brings her but rather for the love and companionship that she offers.
Mutually supportive interaction between women receives increasing focus as the novel progresses. For example, Okonkwo’s wives frequently try to protect one another from his anger. Before Ezinma’s birth, Ekwefi was not jealous of Okonkwo’s first wife; she only expressed bitterness at her own misfortune. While Okonkwo gathers medicine for the fever, his other wives try to calm Ekwefi’s fear. Ekwefi’s friendship with Chielo, too, is an example of female bonding.
The incident with Chielo creates a real dilemma for Ekwefi, whose fear of the possible repercussions of disobeying her shows that Chielo’s role as a priestess is taken seriously—it is not just ceremonial. But Ekwefi and Okonkwo’s love for their child is strong enough that they are willing to defy religious authority. Although she has lost nine children, Ekwefi has been made strong by suffering, and when she follows Chielo, she chooses her daughter over the gods. In doing so, Ekwefi contradicts Okonkwo’s ideas of femininity and demonstrates that strength and bravery are not only masculine attributes. Okonkwo also disobeys Chielo and follows her to the caves. But he, too, is careful to show respect to Chielo. She is a woman, but, as a priestess, she can order and chastise him openly. Her authority is not to be taken lightly.
Unlike the narration of Chielo’s kidnapping of Ezinma, the narration of the egwugwu ceremony is rather ironic. The narrator makes several comments to reveal to us that the villagers know that the egwugwu are not real. For example, the narrator tells us: “Okonkwo’s wives and perhaps other women as well, might have noticed that the second egwugwu had the springy walk of Okonkwo. And they might have noticed that Okonkwo was not among the titled men and elders who sat . . . But if they thought these things they kept them within themselves.” The narration of the incident of the medicine man and the iyi-uwa seems likewise to contain a trace of irony. After discussing the iyi-uwa and egwugwu in a tone that approaches mockery on a few occasions, the narrator, remarkably, says nothing that seems to undermine the villagers’ perception of the strength of Chielo’s divine power.
The story that Ekwefi tells Ezinma about Tortoise and the birds is one of the many instances in which we are exposed to Igbo folklore. The tale also seems to prepare us, like the symbolic locusts that arrive in Chapter Seven, for the colonialism that will soon descend upon Umuofia. Tortoise convinces the birds to allow him to come with them, even though he does not belong. He then appropriates all of their food. The tale presents two different ways of defeating Tortoise: first, the birds strip Tortoise of the feathers that they had lent him. This strategy involves cooperation and unity among the birds. When they refuse to concede to Tortoise’s desires, Tortoise becomes unable to overpower them. Parrot’s trick suggests a second course of action: by taking advantage of the position as translator, Parrot outwits Tortoise.
In the previous section, we see Okonkwo’s behavior the night of the incident with Chielo as it appears to Ekwefi: Okonkwo shows up with his machete and fulfills the role of the strong, manly protector. At the beginning of Chapter Twelve, though, the narrator focuses on Okonkwo’s internal state and we see his true feelings rather than his apparent ones. Because Okonkwo views affection as a sign of weakness, he forces himself to wait before following Chielo. Each time he makes the trip to the caves and finds her missing, he returns home again to wait. Not until his fourth trip does he encounter Ekwefi. Okonkwo is not the cruel, heartless man that he presents himself to be; rather, he is gravely worried about Ezinma’s welfare. His hyperbolic understanding of manliness—the result of his tragic flaw—prevents his better nature from showing itself fully. Chielo’s actions force Okonkwo to acknowledge how important his wife and child are to him.
The importance of kinship bonds in manifests itself in the ramifications of the violation of such bonds. When Ikemefuna enters Okonkwo’s family as a surrogate son, he begins to heal the tension that exists between Okonkwo and Nwoye as a result of Okonkwo’s difficulty in dealing with the memory of his father. Ikemefuna is thus presented as a possible solution to Okonkwo’s tragic flaw. But Okonkwo fails to overcome his flaw and, in killing the boy who has become his son, damages his relationship with Nwoye permanently. Moreover, he seriously injures Nwoye’s respect for, and adherence to, Igbo cultural tradition.
Okonkwo’s accidental killing of Ezeudu’s son seems more than coincidence. We sense that it is a form of punishment for his earlier violation of kinship bonds. Just before the ill-fated incident happens, the one-handed spirit calls out to Ezeudu’s corpse, “If your death was the death of nature, go in peace. But if a man caused it, do not allow him a moment’s rest.” Although the explosion of Okonkwo’s gun moments later is not evidence that Okonkwo is, in fact, responsible for Ezeudu’s death, it seems to suggest that Okonkwo’s killing of Ikemefuna has been hurtful to the well-being and solidarity of the clan and its traditions.
Okonkwo’s punishment emphasizes the importance of strong, harmonious relations within the community. Although Obierika questions the harsh punishment that Okonkwo receives for such an accident, the punishment, in a way, helps stave off anger, resentment, and, ultimately, revenge. Despite the accidental nature of the death of Ezeudu’s son, it is understandable for Ezeudu’s close relatives to be angry with Okonkwo. The burning of Okonkwo’s compound displaces this anger onto his property, while Okonkwo’s exile separates him temporarily from the offended community. Over a period of seven years, any remaining anger and resentment from Ezeudu’s close relatives will dissipate, and the offender’s place in the community will be restored.
Okonkwo’s exile forces him into his motherland. He doesn’t deal well with his misfortune because he is so intent on being as successful and influential as his father was poor and powerless. His initial lack of gratitude toward his mother’s kinsmen is a transgression of Igbo cultural values. His exile also upsets him because it forces him to spend time in a “womanly” place. He remains unwilling to admit to, or come to terms with, the feminine side of his personality.
Unoka’s words regarding the bitterness of failing alone are important considering Okonkwo’s present situation. Like Unoka, Uchendu reminds Okonkwo that he does not suffer alone. Uchendu laments the loss of five of his wives, openly expressing his strong attachment to the women who have shared his life and borne his children. He mentions that his remaining wife is a young girl who “does not know her left from her right.” Youth, beauty, and sexual attractiveness are not the only things one should value in a wife, he argues. Uchendu also values wisdom, intelligence, and experience in a wife. Each and every death has caused him pain. Although we would not know it from Okonkwo, a father grieves for lost children just as a mother does.
The introduction of the European missionaries is not presented as a tragic event—it even contains some comical elements. The villagers, for example, mock the interpreter’s dialect. They neither perceive the missionaries as a threat nor react violently like the village of Abame, even though the missionaries call their gods “false” outright. And the missionaries do not forcibly thrust Christianity on the villagers.
Considering the emphasis that the Igbo place on careful thought before violent action, Okonkwo’s belief that the people of Abame should have armed themselves and killed the white men reflects a rash, violent nature that seems to clash with fundamental Igbo values. Throughout Things Fall Apart, Igbo customs and social institutions emphasize the wisdom of seeking a peaceful solution to conflict before a violent solution. Uchendu voices this social value when he states that the killing of the first white man was foolish, for the villagers of Abame did not even know what the man’s intentions were.
The language that Achebe uses to describe the pleasure that Nwoye finds in Christianity reflects Umuofia’s seeming need to be soothed physically as well as spiritually. Achebe sets up, from the beginning of the novel, a system of images that accentuate both the dry land and the tense atmosphere in the village. The image of the words of the hymn as raindrops relieving Nwoye’s “parched soul” refers not only to relief from the arid, desertlike heat with which Africa is commonly associated but also to the act of bringing Nwoye out of his supposed ignorance and into enlightenment through Christianity. It begins to quench his thirst for answers that Igbo religion has not been able to provide him.
Nwoye is drawn to Christianity because it seems to answer his long-held doubts about his native religion, specifically the abandonment of twin newborns and Ikemefuna’s death. Furthermore, Nwoye feels himself exiled from his society because of his disbelief in its laws, and the church offers refuge to those whom society has cast out. The church’s value system will allow twins to live, for example, which offers comfort to the pregnant woman who has had to endure the casting away to die of her four sets of newborn twins. Similarly, men without titles turn to Christianity to find affirmation of their individual worth. The osu are able to discard others’ perception of them as members of an ostracized caste and enter the church as the equals of other converts.
Okonkwo, on the other hand, has good reason to reject Christianity. Should Mbanta not drive the missionaries away, his killing of Ikemefuna would lose part of its religious justification. The damage to his relationship with Nwoye also seems more pointless than before. Both matters become his mistake rather than the result of divine will. Moreover, men of high status like Okonkwo view the church as a threat because it undermines the cultural value of their accomplishments. Their titles and their positions as religious authorities and clan leaders lose force and prestige if men of lower status are not there—the great cannot be measured against the worthless if the worthless have disappeared.
Nwoye’s conversion devastates Okonkwo. Although he has always been harsh with his son, Okonkwo still believes in Nwoye’s potential to become a great clansman. Nwoye’s rejection of Igbo values, however, strikes a dire blow to Okonkwo’s hopes for him. Additionally, Nwoye’s actions undermine Okonkwo’s own status and prestige. It is, as Okonkwo thinks at the end of Chapter Seventeen, as though all of Okonkwo’s hard work to distance himself from the legacy of his father has been destroyed. He sighs and thinks to himself: “Living fire begets cold impotent ash.”
Despite the challenges that the church represents, Mbanta is committed to peace and remains tolerant of the church’s presence. Even with the converts’ blatant disrespect of Umuofia’s customs—rumor has it that a convert has killed a royal python—the clan leaders vote for a peaceful solution, deciding to ostracize rather than attack the Christians. Okonkwo is not happy with their decision and advocates a violent reaction. His mentality is somewhat ironic: he believes that the village should act against its cultural values in order to preserve them.
The arrival of the white colonists and their religion weakens the kinship bonds so central to Igbo culture. Ancestral worship plays an important role in Igbo religion, and conversion to Christianity involves a partial rejection of the Igbo structure of kinship. The Christians tell the Igbo that they are all brothers and sons of God, replacing the literal ties of kinship with a metaphorical kinship structure through God. The overjoyed response of a missionary to Nwoye’s interest in attending school in another village—“Blessed is he who forsakes his father and his mother for my sake”—illustrates that the Christian church clearly recognizes Igbo kinship bonds as the central obstacle to the success of its missionaries.
Achebe does not present a clear-cut dichotomy of the white religion as evil and the Igbo religion as good. All along, the descriptions of many of the village’s ceremonies and rituals have been tongue-in-cheek. But the Christian missionaries increasingly win converts simply by pointing out the fallacy of Igbo beliefs—for example, those about the outcasts. When the outcasts cut their hair with no negative consequence, many villagers come to believe that the Christian god is more powerful than their own. Achebe himself is the son of Nigerian Christians, and it is hard not to think of his situation, in Chapter Seventeen, when the narrator points out Okonkwo’s worry: “Suppose when he died all his male children decided to follow Nwoye’s steps and abandon their ancestors?”
Okonkwo’s status as a warrior, farmer and his clan’s perception of him has changed since his exile. His increasing loss of power and prestige brings him great anxiety. Any remaining doubt that Okonkwo is slightly crazy is quelled when we learn that he has been fantasizing about, and seriously planning for, his triumphant return to his village since his departure. Okonkwo has great expectations for himself—in Chapter Twenty we are told that, “he saw himself taking the highest title of the land.”
Although Okonkwo still wishes that Ezinma were a boy, she remains a comfort to him throughout his troubles. Ironically, she best understands the dilemma of compromised manhood that her father faces. She sees how important her marriage is to Okonkwo’s position in the community, and she has considerable influence over her sister, who quickly agrees to postpone her marriage as well. After Nwoye’s departure, Okonkwo shows no sign of changing his practice of lecturing his sons about the rash and violent nature of true masculinity, showing his continued refusal to accept the fact that aggressiveness and pensiveness are not gender-defined, mutually exclusive traits.
Already having dealt with the missionaries in Mbanta, Okonkwo is now forced to deal with them in his own village. However, Mr. Brown, their leader, is far more enlightened than the average white colonist. Although he doesn’t really understand Igbo beliefs, he is capable of respecting them, and he does not want his flock to antagonize the clan. In a rare occurrence of cross-cultural understanding, he seems to share the clan’s value of peaceful, harmonious relations, and he debates religion with Akunna without insults or violence. His influence is largely benevolent, and Achebe uses Mr. Brown as a foil for the missionary who eventually takes his place, the more radical Reverend Smith.
Things Fall Apart is not one-sided in its portrayal of colonialism. It presents the economic benefits of cross-cultural contact and reveals the villagers’ delight in the hospital’s treatment of illnesses. The sympathetic Mr. Brown urges the Igbo to send their children to school because he knows that the colonial government will rob the Igbo of self-government if they do not know the language. In essence, he urges the Igbo to adapt so that they won’t lose all autonomy.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to view colonialism in a tremendously positive light: suddenly the Igbo must relate to the colonial government on European terms. The story of Abame and the discussion of the new judicial system show how different the European frame of reference is from that of the egwugwu. The colonial government punishes individuals according to European cultural and religious values. For example, without first making an effort to understand the cultural and religious tradition behind the practice, the government pronounces the abandonment of newborn twins a punishable crime.
At the end of Chapter Twenty, Obierika points out that there is no way that the white man will be able to understand Umuofia’s customs without understanding its language. This idea mirrors one of Achebe’s purposes in writing Things Fall Apart: the book serves not only to remind the West that Africa has language and culture but also to provide an understanding of Igbo culture through language. Achebe shows us the extent to which cultural and linguistic structures and practices are intertwined, and he is able to re-create in English the cadences, images, and rhythms of the speech of the Igbo people. By the time things begin to “fall apart,” it becomes clear that what the colonialists have unraveled is the complex Igbo culture.
Reverend Smith causes a great deal of conflict between the church and the clan with his refusal to understand and respect traditional Igbo culture. Mr. Brown, by contrast, is far more lenient with the converts’ retention of some of their old beliefs and doesn’t draw as clear a line between the converts and the Igbo community. Smith, however, demands a complete rejection of the converts’ old religious beliefs. The text ironically comments that he “sees things as black and white.” While on the one hand this comment refers simply to an inability to grasp the gradations in a given situation, it also refers, of course, to race relations and colonial power. Interestingly, Achebe has named Smith’s predecessor “Brown,” as if to suggest that the latter’s practice of compromise and benevolence is in some way related to his ability to see the shades between the poles of black and white. Smith, by contrast, is a stereotypical European colonialist, as the generic quality of his name reflects. His inability to practice mutual respect and tolerance incites a dangerous zealous fervor in some of the more eager converts, such as Enoch. Smith’s attitude encourages Enoch to insult traditional Igbo culture.
That Enoch is the son of the snake-priest makes his suspected killing of the sacred python all the more dire a transgression. Enoch’s conversion and alleged attack on the python emblematize the transition from the old order to the new. The old religion, with its insistence on deism and animal worship, is overturned from within by one. In its place comes the new religion, which, for all its protestations of love and harmony, brandishes a fiery logic and fierce resolve to convert the Igbo at any cost.
Enoch figures as a double for Okonkwo, although they espouse different beliefs. They are similar in temperament, and each man rebels against the practices and legacies of his father. Like Okonkwo, Enoch feels above all others in his tradition. He also feels contempt for them—he imagines that every sermon is “preached for the benefit of his enemies,” and, in the middle of church, he gives knowing looks whenever he feels that his superiority has been affirmed. Most important, in his blind and unthinking adherence to Christianity, Enoch allows his violent desires to take over, just as Okonkwo is prone to do.
The language barrier between the colonists and the villagers enables a crucial misunderstanding to take place. Unawareness of his interpreter’s attempt to appease the villagers, Smith considers the burning of the church an open show of disrespect for the church and his authority. The power that the interpreter holds highlights the weaknesses and vulnerability created by the language gap, reinforcing Mr. Brown’s belief that reading and writing are essential skills for the villagers if
Okonkwo’s desire to respond violently to the Christian church is not completely motivated by a desire to preserve his clan’s cultural traditions. He has been fantasizing for many years about making a big splash with his return to his village, but the church has changed things so much that his return fails to incite the interest that he has anticipated. He has also hoped that his daughters’ marriages would help to bring him some reflected glory but, again, his daughters’ suitors did not cause Umuofia to notice him. The opportunity to once again be a warrior represents Okonkwo’s last chance to recapture some of his former glory. His motivations for wanting revenge, including his humiliation in the jail, are deeply personal.
It is in Okonkwo’s nature to act rashly, and his slaying of the messenger constitutes an instinctive act of self-preservation. Not to act would be to reject his values and traditional way of life. He cannot allow himself or, by extension, his clan to be viewed as cowardly. There is certainly an element of self-destructiveness in this act, a kind of martyrdom that Okonkwo willingly embraces because the alternative is to submit to a world, law, and new order with which he finds himself inexorably at odds.
Unoka’s words regarding the bitterness of failing alone come to have real significance in Okonkwo’s life. In fact, they can be seen as a fatalistic foreshadowing of the bitter losses that befall Okonkwo despite his efforts to distance himself from his father’s model of indolence and irresponsibility. He values his personal success and status over the survival of the community and, having risen to the top of the clan’s economic and political heap alone, he fails alone. Okonkwo’s lack of concern for the fate of his community is manifested when, before the clan-wide meeting, he doesn’t bother to exchange greetings with anyone. He is not interested in the fate of anyone other than himself. Despite his great success and prestige, he dies in ignominy like his titleless, penniless father. This solitude persists even after his life ends, as the supposed taking over of his body by evil spirits renders his clan unable to handle his burial.
One way of understanding Okonkwo’s suicide is as the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy regarding his fear of failure. He is so afraid of ending up precisely the way he does end up that he brings about his own end in the worst manner imaginable. No one forces his hand when he slays the messenger; rather, the act constitutes a desperate attempt to reassert his manhood. The great tragedy of the situation is that Okonkwo ignores far more effective but less masculine ways to resist the colonialists. Ultimately, Okonkwo’s sacrifice seems futile and empty.
The novel’s ending is dark and ironic. The District Commissioner is a pompous little man who thinks that he understands indigenous African cultures. Achebe uses the commissioner, who seems a character straight out of Heart of Darkness, to demonstrate the inaccuracy of accounts of Africa such as Joseph Conrad’s. The commissioner’s misinterpretations and the degree to which they are based upon his own shortcomings are evident. He comments, for example, on the villagers’ “love of superfluous words,” attempting to ridicule their beautiful and expressive language. His rumination that Okonkwo’s story could make for a good paragraph illustrates his shallowness. Whereas Achebe has written an entire book about Okonkwo, he suggests that a European account of Okonkwo would likely portray him as a grunting, cultureless savage who inexplicably and senselessly kills a messenger. Achebe also highlights one of the reasons that early ethnographic reports were often offensively inaccurate: when Obierika asks the commissioner to help him with Okonkwo’s body, the narrator tells us that “the resolute administrator in [the commissioner] gave way to the student of primitive customs.” The same people who control the natives relay the accepted accounts of colonized cultures—in a manner, of course, that best suits the colonizer’s interest.
Achebe’s novel seeks at least in part to provide an answer to such inaccurate stereotypes. Okonkwo is by no means perfect. One can argue that his tragedy is of his own making. One can also argue that his chi is to blame. But as a societal tragedy, Things Fall Apart obviously places no blame on the Igbo people for the colonialism to which they were subjected. At the same time, the traditional customs of the villagers are not glorified—they are often questioned or criticized. Achebe’s re-creation of the complexity of Okonkwo’s and Umuofia’s situations lends fairness to his writing. At the same time, his critique of colonialism and of colonial literary representations comes across loud and clear.
Chapter#3.4
Different Aspects of Things Fall Apart
Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Struggle between Change and Tradition
As a story about a culture on the verge of change, Things Fall Apart deals with how the prospect and reality of change affect various characters. The tension about whether change should be privileged over tradition often involves questions of personal status. Okonkwo, for example, resists the new political and religious orders because he feels that they are not manly and that he himself will not be manly if he consents to join or even tolerate them. To some extent, Okonkwo’s resistance of cultural change is also due to his fear of losing societal status. His sense of self-worth is dependent upon the traditional standards by which society judges him. This system of evaluating the self inspires many of the clan’s outcasts to embrace Christianity. Long scorned, these outcasts find in the Christian value system a refuge from the Igbo cultural values that place them below everyone else. In their new community, these converts enjoy a more elevated status.
The villagers in general are caught between resisting and embracing change and they face the dilemma of trying to determine how best to adapt to the reality of change. Many of the villagers are excited about the new opportunities and techniques that the missionaries bring. This European influence, however, threatens to extinguish the need for the mastery of traditional methods of farming, harvesting, building, and cooking. These traditional methods, once crucial for survival, are now, to varying degrees, dispensable. Throughout the novel, Achebe shows how dependent such traditions are upon storytelling and language and thus how quickly the abandonment of the Igbo language for English could lead to the eradication of these traditions.
Varying Interpretations of Masculinity
Okonkwo’s relationship with his late father shapes much of his violent and ambitious demeanor. He wants to rise above his father’s legacy of spendthrift, indolent behavior, which he views as weak and therefore feminine. This association is inherent in the clan’s language—the narrator mentions that the word for a man who has not taken any of the expensive, prestige-indicating titles is agbala, which also means “woman.” But, for the most part, Okonkwo’s idea of manliness is not the clan’s. He associates masculinity with aggression and feels that anger is the only emotion that he should display. For this reason, he frequently beats his wives, even threatening to kill them from time to time. We are told that he does not think about things, and we see him acting rashly and impetuously. Yet others who are in no way effeminate do not behave in this way. Obierika, unlike Okonkwo, “was a man who thought about things.” Whereas Obierika refuses to accompany the men on the trip to kill Ikemefuna, Okonkwo not only volunteers to join the party that will execute his surrogate son but also violently stabs him with his machete simply because he is afraid of appearing weak.
Okonkwo’s seven-year exile from his village only reinforces his notion that men are stronger than women. While in exile, he lives among the kinsmen of his motherland but resents the period in its entirety. The exile is his opportunity to get in touch with his feminine side and to acknowledge his maternal ancestors, but he keeps reminding himself that his maternal kinsmen are not as warlike and fierce as he remembers the villagers of Umuofia to be. He faults them for their preference of negotiation, compliance, and avoidance over anger and bloodshed. In Okonkwo’s understanding, his uncle Uchendu exemplifies this pacifist (and therefore somewhat effeminate) mode.
Language as a Sign of Cultural Difference
Language is an important theme in Things Fall Apart on several levels. In demonstrating the imaginative, often formal language of the Igbo, Achebe emphasizes that Africa is not the silent or incomprehensible country that books such as Heart of Darkness made it out to be. Rather, by peppering the novel with Igbo words, Achebe shows that the Igbo language is too complex for direct translation into English. Similarly, Igbo culture cannot be understood within the framework of European colonialist values. Achebe also points out that Africa has many different languages: the villagers of Umuofia, for example, make fun of Mr. Brown’s translator because his language is slightly different from their own.
On a macroscopic level, it is extremely significant that Achebe chose to write Things Fall Apart in English—he clearly intended it to be read by the West at least as much, if not more, than by his fellow Nigerians. His goal was to critique and emend the portrait of Africa that was painted by so many writers of the colonial period. Doing so required the use of English, the language of those colonial writers. Through his inclusion of proverbs, folktales, and songs translated from the Igbo language, Achebe managed to capture and convey the rhythms, structures, cadences, and beauty of the Igbo language.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Chi
The concept of chi is discussed at various points throughout the novel and is important to our understanding of Okonkwo as a tragic hero. The chi is an individual’s personal god, whose merit is determined by the individual’s good fortune or lack thereof. Along the lines of this interpretation, one can explain Okonkwo’s tragic fate as the result of a problematic chi—a thought that occurs to Okonkwo at several points in the novel. For the clan believes, as the narrator tells us in Chapter Fourteen, a “man could not rise beyond the destiny of his chi.” But there is another understanding of chi that conflicts with this definition. In Chapter Four, the narrator relates, according to an Igbo proverb, that “when a man says yes his chi says yes also.” According to this understanding, individuals will their own destinies. Thus, depending upon our interpretation of chi, Okonkwo seems either more or less responsible for his own tragic death. Okonkwo himself shifts between these poles: when things are going well for him, he perceives himself as master and maker of his own destiny; when things go badly; however, he automatically disavows responsibility and asks why he should be so ill fated.
Animal Imagery
In their descriptions, categorizations, and explanations of human behavior and wisdom, the Igbo often use animal anecdotes to naturalize their rituals and beliefs. The presence of animals in their folklore reflects the environment in which they live—not yet “modernized” by European influence. Though the colonizers, for the most part, view the Igbo’s understanding of the world as rudimentary, the Igbo perceive these animal stories, such as the account of how the tortoise’s shell came to be bumpy, as logical explanations of natural phenomena. Another important animal image is the figure of the sacred python. Enoch’s alleged killing and eating of the python symbolizes the transition to a new form of spirituality and a new religious order. Enoch’s disrespect of the python clashes with the Igbo’s reverence for it, epitomizing the incompatibility of colonialist and indigenous values.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
Locusts
Achebe depicts the locusts that descend upon the village in highly allegorical terms that prefigure the arrival of the white settlers, who will feast on and exploit the resources of the Igbo. The fact that the Igbo eat these locusts highlights how innocuous they take them to be. Similarly, those who convert to Christianity fail to realize the damage that the culture of the colonizer does to the culture of the colonized.
The language that Achebe uses to describe the locusts indicates their symbolic status. The repetition of words like “settled” and “every” emphasizes the suddenly ubiquitous presence of these insects and hints at the way in which the arrival of the white settlers takes the Igbo off guard. Furthermore, the locusts are so heavy they break the tree branches, which symbolizes the fracturing of Igbo traditions and culture under the onslaught of colonialism and white settlement. Perhaps the most explicit clue that the locusts symbolize the colonists is Obierika’s comment in Chapter Fifteen: “the Oracle . . . said that other white men were on their way. They were locusts. . . .”
Fire
Okonkwo is associated with burning, fire, and flame throughout the novel, alluding to his intense and dangerous anger—the only emotion that he allows himself to display. Yet the problem with fire, as Okonkwo acknowledges in Chapters Seventeen and Twenty-Four, is that it destroys everything it consumes. Okonkwo is both physically destructive—he kills Ikemefuna and Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s son—and emotionally destructive—he suppresses his fondness for Ikemefuna and Ezinma in favor of a colder, more masculine aura. Just as fire feeds on itself until all that is left is a pile of ash, Okonkwo eventually succumbs to his intense rage, allowing it to rule his actions until it destroys him.
Postcolonial touch
In this novel we can see some of touches of postcolonial theories.
Chapter# 4
A Man of The People
Chapter#4.1
Summary
A Man of the People is a novel about Nigeria's halting first steps to form a post-colonial nation, told by Odili Samalu, a teacher turned politician, who takes on his former teacher and now a corrupt member of the cabinet.
Odili Samalu needs to tell the story of how he leaves the teaching profession in a small village school and enters partisan politics as the opponent of powerful man, once his revered teacher. Odili resents having to stand in a reception line for Chief Nanga, with whom he has grown disillusioned since he called for the head of the Minister of Finance and denounced Western-influenced intellectuals. At university, Odili had hoped for a successful career, which his father, a wealthy and hated retired politician, identifies with government office. Odili and the old polygamist are currently observing a truce in their stormy relationship.
Nanga recognizes Odili at the reception and offers to help him get a scholarship to London, agreeing it has no strings attached. Odili has a girlfriend in the capital, and accepts Nanga's hospitality to make a meeting easier. Nanga arranges for Odili to meet important people and attend social events, one of which results in a brief affair with the wife of an American consultant to the government. Secretly, Odili is infatuated with a proper-looking young girl he first sees on the dais at Nanga's reception and learns is destined soon to become Nanga's second wife for display on occasions where his old wife is too "bush." First-wife goes home for Christmas, and Nanga swiftly brings in a mistress. Odili is allowed to bring his girlfriend home, but is so insistent the relationship is not serious that Nanga seduces her.
Odili seeks refuge at the home of an old friend, Max, who is a practicing lawyer. He is present when Max's finance, Eunice, and other friends gather to establish a new political party dedicated to reform. Seeking revenge on Nanga, Odili tries to talk his intended, Edna Odo, into leaving him; swiftly Odili becomes attracted to her and wants to win him for himself. The attraction is mutual, but Edna must obey her greedy father and marry the chief. When another government scandal seems to make running candidates in the upcoming elections feasible, Odili and Max both announce their candidacy for seats in Parliament. Odili runs in Nanga's district. Edna denounces Odili as a wife-stealer and ungrateful thief.
Naively, Odili thinks to set up his campaign headquarters in Nanga's home village, but is blocked from holding a rally and fired from his teaching position in the village school. He moves to his home village of Urua, where he is joined by Max, who addresses the crowds in the family compound. Nanga shows up and bribes Odili to drop out of the race and is angrily rebuffed. Max, similarly approached, has accepted the bribe with no intention of dropping out. The friends debate political honesty and expediency. It matters little, however, because Nanga's party controls the media and other key positions. No one learns the new party exists. Odili's father is assessed new taxes and briefly jailed. His village loses the water system scheduled to go in until they renounce Odili. Utterly frustrated, Odili writes a cruel and unfair letter to Edna.
Odili foolishly disguises himself and makes his way to the foot of Nanga's stage at a mass rally. He is found out, mocked, invited to debate, and then beaten unconscious. He awakens in the hospital, and wavers in and out for days, believing he has seen his parents and Edna. Criminal charges are dropped, but Odili is maneuvered off the ballot. He learns of Max's murder on Election Day only afterwards, and of how his fiancye had avenged him. Odili contemplates how popular cynicism has made Nanga's victory and exploitation possible. Edna, however, has left the old man and stands at his bedside. The violence spawned during the election spreads until the Army steps in to restore peace. It arrests Nanga and his colleagues and indicates they will be prosecuted. Edna's father agrees to talk about letting her marry Odili. Odili concludes Max is lucky, having suffered martyrdom because Eunice has loved him enough to murder his murderer, expecting no reward for the act. Everyone else is looking out only for himself. The title A Man of the People formally applies to Chief Nanga - doubtless at his instigation - but clearly belongs to Odili (or Odili and Max) for seeking to make Nigeria a better place rather than continuing its colonial rape.
Chapter#4.2
Major Character Analysis
Odili Samalu
Odili Samalu is a narrator and protagonist of A Man of the People, odili is native of Urua village, where his father Hezekiah is a wealthy man who was a district interpreter and now head of the local chapter of the People’s Organization Party (POP). Odili has graduated from the Anata Grammer School, where he is Nanga’s Favorite student and is a disaffected member of the student’s branch of POP. Odili, the narrator, represents the new intellectual generation. Odili is a kind of man who most of the times narrate the entire situation that he observes but does not take any kind of initiative against that incident. We can compare him with the main character in Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathon Swift who always described most of the stories but did not take any kind of action against that particular incident; he took action against any particular situation when that harms him. Odili did the same when his girl friend was taken away from you by Chief Nanga.
Chief Nanga
In A Man of the People, Chief Nanga, is referred to by the narrator, Odili, as a man of the people, and the most approachable politician in the country. He is the minister of culture and his speeches to the public represent everything that a politician should do and be. But as Odili tells the story, it becomes clear that Chief Nanga does not practice what he preaches. The money that is supposed to go towards helping his community he uses instead to build four-story buildings, which he rents out for his own profit. Chief Nanga is supposed to be standing up for the traditions and beliefs of the pre-colonial African culture by defending the common man and opposing the European-oriented post-colonial intellectuals. However, in A Man of the People Achebe focuses more on the politics of West African communities. Achebe shows the switching of power between the old and new styles of politicians and how the old style bush politician, Chief Nanga, is becoming more and more greedy as he learns the political system. Chief Nanga learns to be greedy and learns how to win elections through the corrupt system of politics he was against in the first place. The important thing for Chief Nanga is that the people trust him. He relates to them more, because he considers himself closer to the common man and far away from the intellectual, who represents a more European style of living and thinking. By representing his country after colonialism he has the incentive to stay as far away from the European style of life and politics as possible.
Odili’s Father
His father name is Hezekiah. He is a wealthy man who was a district interpreter and now head of the local chairman of the People’s Organization Party (POP). He is a perfect example of typical African man. He does not want to accept any thing from the modern or developing world. He believes that nobody can break the old form of rules and cannot build any thing new out of old rulers. He represents the typical African culture; he believes in polygamy, and he also married several times and careless about his family and children. He proves that in Africa most of the people do not aware about the political situation and corruption in politics.
Chapter#4.3
Different Aspects of A Man of The People
Role of Mass People
Role of Money
A Man of the People is the novel where Chinua Achebe showed political picture of Africa in a very realistic way. He introduced some people who are related with politics and some general people who are the victims of this filthy politics and their situation after a certain period of time. He portrayed how a country and its people are suppressed by all these political figures only by their power and money. In this novel one thing is sure that the root of all these power relationship and domination is money. As it is true that money can make a person’s life happy as well as can make others life hell. Here Achebe showed the dark side of money in politics. He showed that how people try to buy relationship by money and try to buy others trust, life and dreams by the help of the money.
In the novel the author demonstrate the use of money in a country’s politics and how it can make people’s life easy and evil. There are two major characters that have shown the situation of subaltern and suppressor. Odili the protagonist and the political figure Chief Nanga played these two roles, Odili played the subaltern’s role and Chief Nanga played the Suppressor’s role. Money is the element that makes these two persons subaltern and suppressor. We have seen the use of money in different sections in this novel, like; politics, different person’s life and media.
Media is the sector which is the most important section for any politician in any country, because this is the most effective way through which they do most of their promotion, propaganda, control people and also control the country. They almost dominate the media and it happens because of power of money. In the novel we can see how the newspapers changed the interview of the chief Nanga. Radio played a important role when all the corrupted politician proved that some politicians are trying to do harm to this country with the foreign faculty, because they have degree from different foreign countries, for this kind of propaganda some politician died on the road.
Odili the protagonist lost his girl friend only because he did not have any kind of power to take back of his girl friend, and money is the element that makes people powerful. Chief Nanga is the person who had money and power and that is why he was able to take away Odili’s girl friend in front of his eyes and he was silent. It is true that in the real world people are helpless in front of money and this is the thing had happened with Odili.
It is all about money and it is money that creates power in the politics and politicians. Chief Nanga bought some buses and to make money out of that he wanted to made some road and he was able to do that only because of money power, he was not at all scare about any kind of problem because they means the politicians do not need to explain all these to any one. It is money that polluted all the sections of politics, its all about money and because of this people is being corrupted in different sectors of their life; even in real world we are watching these kinds of activities.
Only because of money Chief Nanga was able to show the guts to marry his parlor wife Edna. He took the chance of their weakness of money. Her family was not able to continue her education and not able to run their family in a well to do way and it w3as the Chief Nanga who helped them by taking all the responsibility but he did not do that out of humanity, he had a evil intention, he had interest in Edna and that was the reason he helped her family, end of the Edna’s father was bound to accept his proposal because he did not have any other option rather accepting Chief Nanga’s encrusted proposal. Edna herself was not that much strong to deny the proposal because she also aware of her family’s financial condition, she knew that very well that if she denied the offer of Chief Nanga then her family would have died without food and shelter.
When Odili totally busted by Chief Nanga, he went to his friend Maxwell’s house and their he decide that he will take part in next election. It was Maxwell’s party where he worked and his party finances him to fight against Chief Nanga’s party. Odili’s father was also happy, only when he saw Odili’s party was giving him smart amount of money and provided a car. So you can say every steps of this novel money played a very vital role. Every body thinks that without money nobody can win any election, money is necessary to win an election. Even Odili’s bodyguard gave this impression to Odili that he cannot win this election if he cannot spend handful amount of money. His bodyguard said;
“You think say na so so talk talk you go take win Chief Nanga. If Government no give you plenty money for election make you go tell them no be sand sand we de take do am. ….”
When Chief Nanga saw that Odili is stand against him from his own place, from where he always won without any kind of hassle and any opposition. For that reason he went to Odili to offer him a certain amount of money and scholarship so that he can go abroad for his higher studies and can fulfill his dream, but the thing is that he wanted to buy Odili so that he does go for that election and Chief Nanga can win that without any opposition. He also offered the same thing to Maxwell but he did not accept that but when nobody accept his proposal the consequence was not good. Chief Nanga used his power and he sent Odili in hospital and killed Maxwell.
It is true that human beings need money to survive in their life. Money is a very vita element in human beings life but it does not mean that you have to die for it or kill your humanity and morality. It is you who earn money; it is not money who earns you, so it is you who use money not money who should use you or control you. But in this novel we can see that it was money that was regulating all the characters life. It was money which helps people turn into an animal. Money was all over the novel and directing all the characters, somehow money was related with each and every character. So we can say it was money which played a very crucial role in this novel.
Role of Media
In this novel Chief Nanga, is referred to by the narrator Odili, as a man of the people, and the most approachable politician in the West Africa. Role of media should be stand as an intermediately between the government and the common people but it is ported by Achebe as an evil side of media in A Man of the People. We know each media vehicle has a significance role to play. If print generates awareness and disseminates information, radio is a vehicle to build the brand with its emotional appeal. But what we see in A Man of the People? We see media is a representative of government or we can say media are the mouth speech of government of West Africa in A Man of the people. They have no connection with common people even with the opposition. In the novel we observed two kinds of media; they are the mouth speech of government. Print media, like The Daily Chronicle is an official organ of the P.O.P (People’s Organization Party) and the broadcasts media like African national radio stations main job is broadcasted government’s speech.
Print media plays very significant role in the novel A Man of the People. Achebe casts a critical eye on African politics and as well as media. Achebe shows the switching of power between the old and new styles of politicians and how the old bush politician, Chief Nanga, is becoming more and greedier as he learns the political system. He is the one of the Member of Parliament. The government is more powerful and corrupted and they know how to handle general people. They use media as a representative of government. It is really happened in third world country. All media are bound to government because government has power. Any time they can close media house. It is the big threat for media. Some time government is the big investiture for circulation or broadcasting. That is why, they are bound to make fake news that increase government image. For example, “The Daily Chronicle, an official organ of the P.O.P had pointed out in an editional that the Miscreant Gang, as the dismissed ministers were now called, was all university people and highly educated professional men.” News papers are not independent at West Africa. News paper are carried the prime Minister or Government version of the story. They can it easily because of the common men are far away from the “intellectual!” Dr Makinde the ex- Minister of Finance as he got up to speak tell, calm, sorrowful and superior. It was a most unedifying spectacle. He is called “Traitor”, “Coward”, and “Doctor of Fork your Mother” by common people. But the next morning the editor of the Daily Chronicle published news that was opposite of Dr. Makinde’s speech. Is says “a brilliant economist whose reputation was universally acclaimed in Europe”. The Daily Matchet also play same role. Another thing is important that media are not only representative of Government but also underestimate the oppositions. They have no social responsibility. They do not think about common people even they have no relation with them because of uneducated and unawareness society. It is really happening in Africa as well as third world country. Media have no role for repetitive society. They can not write down a single word without government’s authorization.
Radio also the mouth speaker of government in A Man of the People. Radio is censored by the government. It can not any play any role independently. It is far away from the common people. The government does not want the common people know true information. We know as a human being it is right to know all true information. But the real picture is totally opposite. Radio’s have no connection with common people. Oppositions are threatened by the radio but most of the time they represent there is no opposition only the government. For example Nanga says that only the powerful party is P.O.P. The government does not want the common people to hare information regarding the pipes. Hezekiah Samaluis a chairman of P.O.P. Many pipes are approved by P.O.P for the villager. It is forecasted by radio. On the other hand, when Samalu distributes it two other villages for his anti parties activities. This news does not forecast through radio because of the image of P.O.P. One day Odili is listening radio for news but he is not able to hare any news without govern activities. It is controlled by P.O.P
Everyone knows information is a form of power. The Third World countries now know this more than ever. That is why they are calling for the establishment of a new international order of information. They feel this is just as urgent as the establishment of a new international economic order. In A Man of the People we see media is like a doll of government that has no existent without other. They have no activities without government. They are bound to government because of existing.
Chapter# 5
Relation between “Things Fall Apart” and “A Man of The People”
These two novels are kind of sequel novels, now you will think why I am saying so, yes there are some reasons behind this. If we analyze theses two novels we will see that the first novel “Things Fall Apart” shows us the pre-colonial and the colonial period and “A Man of The People” shows us the postcolonial period situation of Africa. In “Things Fall Apart” Achebe portrayed the social and religious structure of the African society, and many of their activities, he also showed how people lead life at the time of pre-colonization and how they take the colonization period. In this novel many people take it positively to have a better life but for that reason they had to change their religion where as the main character of the novel, Okonkow, did not able to take that like others and as a result at the end of the story he had to sacrifice his life. According to Lilah Gandhi “Subaltern can’t speak”, she wanted to mean by the term “Subaltern” that who cannot speak, means who are oppressed by other. In “Things fall Apart” Ikemefuna was the subaltern and Okonkow was the suppressor. On the other hand some times suppressor becomes the subaltern, for example; Okonkow was the subaltern and his society and religion was the suppressor. This was the pre-colonial situation when African people were confined by the social and religious super-structure. In the colonial period there are many changes came and that time there are many people were oppressed by the white people and many white people were also oppressed by the local people. In this period the term “Subaltern” introduced but it is true that the use of this term started many years back when colonization started and we also saw the situation related with this term.
On the other hand “A Man of The People” shows the situation of pos colonization. What is going on in Africa after the colonization is over. Still people are deprived from their basic human needs and rights but this time their own people are doing this with them. Powerful people are oppressing the powerless people. This novel describes the political unrest in Africa. Chief Nanga is the representative of the political leader and Odili is representing the ordinary people in Africa. This novel shows how African people are confined in the hand of country’s political leaders and also shows the inactive activities of the people. As I said Odili the protagonist is representing the ordinary people in Africa, in the very beginning he was kind of a inactive man he just narrate all the incidents that he encountered but did not do any thing to stop that or protect the people. When he was attacked by the political leader that time he reacted and he reacted very badly. So we can say that African people are kind of selfish when they sees any kind of harm is coming towards them that time they react other wise the do not even care about any thing.
So we can say it is very clear that the situation African people have not change yet. The only thing has changed the ruling party or else every thing is same still they are oppressed by the rulers, the powerful people. Still they are not realizing about their own benefits. They are just living like refuge in their own country. These two novels portrait the situation of Africa from the pre-colonial period to post-colonial period, shows how African people are depriving from their basic rights and needs for their own inactive attitude. It proves that still African people are ruled by the superior power.
Chapter# 6
Conclusion
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)