Chinua Achebe and the Reconstruction of African Identity in Postcolonial Literature

INTRODUCTION

AFRICAN LITERATURE AND IDENTITY DISCOURSE

African literature plays a vital role within a 20th century world literature, as it reflects a diversity of languages, cultures and colonial experiences, as well as issues of identity in colonial and postcolonial settings [1]. The biggest controversy is whether or not African literature is exclusive to African writers or comprises all literature written in Africa [2]. African literature is known to be a literature that embodies the African cultural values, problems of identity and historical consciousness arising out of the African experience [3-4]. African writing is also a way of reclaiming history’s voice that was lost during the colonial era, when the African societies were misrepresented. It is therefore a cultural redemptive and resisting space, both literarily and ideologically.

2. ACHEBE AND POSTCOLONIAL AFRICAN CONSCIOUSNESS

Chinua Achebe is a post-colonial African author who is a cornerstone of African post-colonial literature, whose works authoritatively recreate an African identity via narrative resistance and cultural affirmation. Achebe’s novels represent three historical periods in African culture before the colonial period, under the colonial period, and after the colonial period culutural systems, epistemic violence, and national crisis and failure. Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987) are all part of a series of novels that constitutes a critique of the history of colonisation and post-colonisation in Africa. Achebe’s writing makes literature an antidote to the misrepresentation and cultural distortion of the Europeans. Achebe’s story-telling not only records the changes in history, but also represents the African subjectivity from a native point of view. In his fiction he always highlights the opposition of tradition and modernity and the psychological and cultural impact of colonial encounter.

3. COLONIALISM AND CULTURAL FRAGMENTATION

Achebe’s view of colonialism is that it disrupted the social, spiritual and identity organization of Africans. This can be clearly seen in his fictional reconstruction of Nigeria’s history. The job of nation-building is also suggested as one of the creations of secular, social vision [5]. Achebe’s novels show the ability of colonial disruption to seep into other areas of life, such as cultural and psychological [7]. Achebe conveys the indigenous spirituality in Arrow of God, “If a man says yes, his chi also says yes [6].  This emphasizes the interdependency of personal fate and communal spirituality in Igbo thought (Arrow of God 27). In addition, Achebe’s juxtaposition of individuality and community power is suggested in the moral matrix of the clan, whose rules are always in conflict with personal ambition.

4. IDENTITY FORMATION: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

The notion of identity in African literature is not a natural phenomenon, but it is a creation process, a process of social, political, and cultural construction. The concept of identity is constructed in processes of representation and discourse, not essence, Stuart Hall says [8]. The construction of identity is, according to Connolly, through difference and the creation of “otherness” [9]. In the eyes of Erikson, culture is a tradition inherited and a human creation that is always being developed [10]. Such frameworks help to make sense of Achebe’s description of identity as fluid, historically relative, and socially-constructed [11-12]. As such, identity is a process that is fluid as a response to historical experiences, culture, and power dynamics in colonial and postcolonial frameworks, constantly shifting in response to changing social realities and contested meanings of belonging.

5. NIGERIA: ETHNIC FRAGMENTATION AND POSTCOLONIAL CRISIS

One of Achebe’s stylistic innovations is the blending of the literary form of English with the oral tradition of Africa. The employment of proverbs, idioms, and indigenous narrative structures speaks to the colonization of language systems. His novels are an assault on the image of Africa’s cultural absence or the cultural and historical immaturity of the continent. Rather, Achebe depicts African societies as sophisticated epistemological systems and have their own philosophy of them. This linguistic hybridity enables Achebe to “write back” to the empire and to maintain the African cultural identity ([13-14]. Achebe’s clever restructuring of English allows him to both assert a sense of African identity and to subvert the narrative, all while facilitating Africans to express themselves in the colonial language, thereby expanding the expressive capacity of English to carry indigenous experience.

6. ACHEBE’S NARRATIVE STRATEGY AND LINGUISTIC RESISTANCE

One of Achebe’s stylistic innovations is the blending of the literary form of English with the oral tradition of Africa. The employment of proverbs, idioms, and indigenous narrative structures speaks to the colonization of language systems. His novels are an assault on the image of Africa’s cultural absence or the cultural and historical immaturity of the continent. Rather, Achebe depicts African societies as sophisticated epistemological systems and have their own philosophy of them. This linguistic hybridity enables Achebe to “write back” to the empire and to maintain the African cultural identity [15-19]. Achebe’s clever restructuring of English allows him to both assert a sense of African identity and to subvert the narrative, all while facilitating Africans to express themselves in the colonial language, thereby expanding the expressive capacity of English to carry indigenous experience.

7. COLONIAL LEGACY AND CULTURAL DISLOCATION

The trauma of the colonial disruption still lingers in postcolonial Africa. Colonial education, religion, and governance were among the factors that changed African subjectivity, as emphasized by Achebe’s writings. Nigeria’s ethnic and ethnic-religious conflicts are a result of unresolved colonial contradictions, both between the ethnic majority groups and the minority groups [20-27]. These conflicts are still being expressed in the form of political uncertainty, inequitable development, and conflicting demands for resources and representation, which further underlie the process of national integration.

8. CONCLUSION

Achebe’s literary enterprise speaks of African identity being constructed through the resistance of narrative, recovery of culture, and the reimagining of history. His novels reject colonial epistemology and return agency to Africans in the construction of history. Language is Achebe’s field of innovation; culture is his realm of realism, making literature a place where identity is constituted, resisted, and postcolonial consciousness is cultivated.

References

1. Achebe, Chinua. Arrow of God. Heinemann, 1964.
2. Achebe, Chinua. A Man of the People. Heinemann, 1966.
3. Achebe, Chinua. Anthills of the Savannah. Heinemann, 1987.
4. Achebe, Chinua. No Longer at Ease. Heinemann, 1960.
5. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Heinemann, 1958.
6. Achebe, Chinua. Morning Yet on Creation Day. Heinemann, 1975.
7. Appiah, Kwame Anthony. In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. Oxford UP, 1992.
8. Carroll, David. Chinua Achebe: Novelist, Poet, Critic. Palgrave Macmillan, 1990.
9. Connolly, William E. Identity\Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox. Cornell UP, 1991.
10. Duerden, Dennis, and Cosmo Pieterse, editors. African Writers Talking. Heinemann, 1972.
11. Erikson, Erik H. Identity: Youth and Crisis. Norton, 1968.
12. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press, 1963.
13. Ghosh, Anuradha. “Nation-Building and Postcolonial Identity in Achebe’s Fiction.” (As cited in text).
14. Hall, Stuart. Questions of Cultural Identity. Sage, 1996.
15. Hendrickson, et al. “African Literature and Identity Discourse.” (As cited in text).
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18. McLeod, John. Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester UP, 2000.
19. Moyers, Bill. A World of Ideas. Doubleday, 1989.
20. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Heinemann, 1986.
21. Ojaide, Tanure. Poetic Imagination in Black Africa. Carolina Academic Press, 1996.
22. Okechukwu, Mezu. The African Writers’ Experience. (As cited in text).
23. O’Reilly, Elizabeth. Postcolonial Literature and Identity. (As cited in text).
24. Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. Vintage Books, 1993.
25. Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own. Princeton UP, 1977.
26. Thieme, John. Postcolonial Con-texts: Writing Back to the Canon. Continuum, 2001.
27. Yeats, W. B. The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Macmillan, 1956.