Arrow Of God Research Articles

Postcoloniality, Idiomatic Allusion and Intercultural Communication in theTranslation of Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God into German

(2015). Postcoloniality, Idiomatic Allusion and Intercultural Communication in theTranslation of Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God into German. Journal of the African Literature Association: Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 112-139.

The Language of Political Myth in Achebe?s <em>Arrow of God</em>

In this study, we discuss the theme of myth diffusion. Elsewhere, some of our colleagues dealt with the need for a political myth for the various countries in Africa. An effective political myth must be a slogan for all the people. The story must be told and retold by various members of the society so that it becomes a potent force for the whole community. It is our contention that Achebe’s <em>Arrow of God</em> demonstrates this trend which is called myth diffusion by some political theorists. The profuse use of proverbs and symbols in the novel are a means of myth diffusion because the blueprint for the proverbs and symbols is the myth of the state. Finally, the study recommends that not only should myths of state be created for our countries, the story and the language of the political myth should be so diffused that they become a slogan.

Speech Act Features of Select Extracts in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God: Leadership Perspective

Speech Act Features of Select Extracts in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God: Leadership Perspective

Leonard Woolf and the book in the jungle

This article considers the representation of the book in Leonard Woolf’s The Village in the Jungle (1913). The depiction of the book or the act of writing in the colonial context as an “event” — inspiring awe or scepticism in the illiterate native or painfully/pleasantly reminiscent of the colonial administrator’s life at “home” — is certainly not a fictional scene exclusive to Woolf. However, differently from his contemporaries, Woolf responds to the book in colonial Sri Lanka not as shorthand for modernity, but as colonial fetish. A century since its publication, it is possible — and perhaps profitable — to discuss The Village in the Jungle beyond its marked affiliations or stark disassociations with the fictions of Woolf’s peers including Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, and William Butler Yeats to name a few; rather, we can afford to take the longer view of his work. By way of gleaning particular insight into Woolf’s treatment of the book in the jungle, this article will invoke the fiction of Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, staunch anti-imperialist and also fierce critic of post-independence corruption, whose novels Things Fall Apart (1958) and Arrow of God (1964) were published in the final decade of Woolf’s life. Woolf’s affiliations with Achebe might therefore be referenced as an index of the radicality of his anti-colonial sympathies.

Literature As Tool for Sustainable Development: A Comparative Literary Analysis of Achebe’s Arrow of God and Tahir’s the Last Imam

This paper aims at a theoretical comparative textual analysis of two novels; Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God (1964) and Ibrahim Tahir’s The Last Imam ( 1984). The focus is on their similarities generally and roles played by the heroes in their different societies as political and religious leaders of the different societies and how their actions and in-actions affect their communities and the polity generally. The paper relates the portrayal these as synonymous to the current political leadership crisis in Nigeria and other African nations. The study demonstrates how this crisis hinders sustainable development in the country and other African countries. They way out of this as possible solutions the turmoil is proffer at the end.

The Tragic Hero of the Modern Period—The African Concept

There is an underlying cultural dimension in modern tragedy, in that the tragic hero differs from culture to culture in modern society. In the light of this, it is appropriate to point out that whereas the modern tragic hero in the Western culture is an anti-hero as portrayed in “The tragic hero of the modern period—The European Concept”, in cultures such as, in Asia and Africa, the tragic hero still maintains some traits of the Greek heroic figure. This paper therefore fulfils an identified need to study the concept of this period’s tragedy and shows the appendages of the traits of the Greek Classical tragic hero in the modern period of the African concept. The study provides extracts from Achebe’s Things fall Apart as the main text, Achebe’s Morning Yet on Creation Day, Achebe’s Arrow of God and Rotimi’s Kurunmi as supporting texts to present the African concept of the tragic hero.

“Dancing Masquerades:” Narrating Postcolonial Personhood in Three Novels

The title of this paper is inspired by a penetrating aphorism from Chinua Achebe's third novel, Arrow of God, uttered by Ezeulu, novel's central character: the world is like a Mask dancing, if you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place (Achebe 46). The masquerade, common in many parts of Africa, is believed in traditional religion to involve temporary incarnation of certain spirits and/or deities by whom human host of mask is possessed, and whose performance is controlled by a spiritual and supernatural force (Isichei 253). The stage for a masquerade's performance is often village square, and unlike performance of controlled actors, supernatural performer is not bound to one location but usually moves about in all directions, making it necessary for audience also to change locations constantly (see Eze 99). Achebe's instructive life simile is particularly fitting for any exploration of selfhood and constructions of identity (whether individual or collective) in contemporary times. This is even more so for postcolonial and postmodernist condition, characterized as they are by multiple subjectivities and sensibilities as well as evershifting, kaleidoscopic contexts.

Interplay of Law and Equity in Chinua Achebe's 'Arrow of God'

The late literary legend, Chinua Achebe, may have been celebrated in many ways for his immense contributions to humanity through profound literary works that will perpetually remain beneficial to the world. But hardly have we appreciated his works from legal perspective. Interestingly, in many less developed academic environments, scholars tend to limit their research and academic publications to stereotypes within frameworks of fragmented subjects; fragmented subjects of study for teaching convenience. Perhaps that disposition has restricted robust interdisciplinary research and approach to exploring the real essence of literary works of scholars like Chinua Achebe. It is not peculiar to Nigeria. This paper seeks to bring to life the legal issues deducible from the trilogy of Chinua Achebe, namely 'Things Fall Apart', 'No Longer at Ease' and 'Arrow of God'. The events in the trilogy show the dilemma of the protagonists in responding appropriately to the changing circumstances of the unwritten and unspoken customary laws of their times. The challenge of choice of appropriate discretion in the face of dynamics of change has foisted on every man the need to take deep consideration of the position of law and equity, even within the shortest possible time, before making a choice. The choice made ultimately determines the fate of man. That appears to be what in literary parlance is couched in the expression 'character is fate'. The approach here begins and goes beyond socio-legal perspective to doctrinal analyses of the story in the novel. The paper concludes by using the discourse to reflect the position of a Nigerian in the context of the interplay of law and equity against his customary law requirements, the challenges and the need for reforms and repositioning of customary law in Nigeria’s legal system.

Political Myth and Achebe’s &lt;em&gt;Arrow of God&lt;/em&gt;

Many African states are in dire political distress. During the political struggle for freedom and the immediate aftermath of political independence, leaders were able to mobilize the citizenry on the banner of the myth of the common nation state, a veritable paradise on earth. The stark reality now is that a combination of factors has led to general disillusionment. One of the ways to rekindle mass political enthusiasm is for the political elite to fashion new myths of the state which the general populace can identify with. This paper suggests that modern leaders of Africa can learn valuable lessons from Achebe&#8217;s Arrow of God. Firstly, when a nation is in a crisis, a new political myth becomes necessary. This new myth should be consciously crafted by experts brought together by political leaders. Secondly, if leaders fail to give the state a new cohesive myth, the nation may disintegrate into tribal enclaves, or even worse, any passionate fringe group will fashion a political myth &#8211; positive or negative &#8211; for the state. The paper concludes that political leaders in Africa should set the process in motion to deliberately craft new political myths for the various countries.

At the crossroads: culture and cultural identity in the novels of Achebe

This article examines culture and cultural identity in the novels of the African writer Chinua Achebe (1930–). Culture may be studied from the viewpoint of Weber and Durkheim as an analysis of cultural patterns in a society or from Rosaldo's postmodernist perspective as an exploration of cultural borderlands. In Things fall apart and Arrow of God, novels set in the period before colonisation, Achebe sketches cultural patterns in social institutions to counter stereotypes of Africa. However, even as he traces these patterns, he reveals schisms in Igbo society that foreshadow change in the existing social order. Colonialism fractures the society further, accelerating change. While delineating the processes of change, Achebe outlines the complex nature of cultural identity, a result of both the intrinsic nature of Igbo society and the advent of colonialism. In the postcolonial novels, No longer at ease, A man of the people and Anthills of savannah, cultural identity becomes problematic since the margins between the centre and the periphery become indistinct and social institutions collapse. Dominant Weberian patterns now yield to Rosaldo's cultural borderlands where cultural hybrids, equally sceptical about African and western values, struggle for identity. Stationed at the crossroads of history, these characters embrace the complexities of cultural change, demonstrating the vibrancy of Igbo society as they adapt to move on.

Okonkwo, Textual Closure, Colonial Conquest

The paper proposes an intertextual reading of narrative and performance closure in four Nigerian end-of-era stories about colonial conquest (Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God , Flora Nwapa’s Efuru , and Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman ), focusing mainly on the meaning of the use of suicide, or the resolution of its threat, as a strategy ofending conflicts created directly by the enforcement of colonial rule or indirectly by the effect of such new rule. The first subsection dissects the narrative positioning of the tenure of the protagonist’s life in each text. The second analyzes the meaning that each incarnation of closure-by-suicide story reveals about the place of conquest in the evolution of historical consciousness in colonized communities.

From centre-stage to the wings: the process of cultural adjustment in arrow of god and tess of the d’urbervilles

The essay examines culture and cultural adjustment in two novels—Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe and Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Using Edward Said’s theory on culture as a foundation, it compares the relative elasticity of a fictional, precolonial West African society, Umuaro, with the relative stiffness of a fictional Victorian society, Wessex. The essay pictures culture as a large cell with core elements located at the centre, like a nucleus. The study then proceeds to apply this mental picture to the texts, seeing the two protagonists as analogous of core elements in their cultures and hence as equivalent to the nuclei at the centre of their respective cells. Both protagonists are pivotal figures initially. This is expressed symbolically in terms of the centralized position of the core elements in the cultural cell. At the end of the day, however, both protagonists have become social outcasts, which again is expressed symbolically in terms of the movement of the core elements away from the centre to the periphery. The essay concludes that the symbolic reproduction of culture re-inforces the literal one, and that Achebe and Hardy equally recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the communities they are describing.

Chinua Achebe and the Politics of Form

Instead of proceeding through a reading of the text, then, I will essay a purely formal approach to the novel in order to suggest that prior to any specific content, Arrow of God already has a politics, and that Achebe achieves this politics through two generic revolutions. In the current context it is probably unnecessary to point once again to the epoch-marking significance of Things Fall Apart, whose form only seems natural today because of its tremendous influence and success. Arrow of God marks a radicalization and perfection of this form, whose outlines I would like to clarify. The first formal revolution carried out by Arrow of God is within a genre we might call the "village novel," a genre that predates Achebe in the postcolonial world by a generation, and that we can represent in a Nigerian context with Onu- ora Nzekwu's Wand of Noble Wood and Things Fall Apart itself. The key to Achebe's revolution is the rigorous suppression of the ethnographic voice. The simplest way to explain what is meant by the ethnographic voice would simply be to point to G. T. Basden's Niger Ibos, which Achebe has named on more than one occasion, along with Joyce Cary's Mister Johnson and Conrad's Heart of Darkness, as a spur

Self-Writing and Existential Alienation in African Literature: Achebe's &lt;em&gt;Arrow of God&lt;/em&gt;

While there have been many representations of existential alienation in African literature, there has as yet been no coherent attempt to explore the variety of ways in which it might be seen in operation. Taking as a starting point the damning remarks that Chinua Achebe makes on Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born , this essay extrapolates a working definition of existential alienation with reference to Foucault and Bakhtin, and to Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks and proceeds to use these as a focus for examining the theme in African literature. The essay ends on a close examination of the condition with respect to Ezeulu in Achebe’s Arrow of God . The conclusion calls for an embrace of alienation partly along the lines first suggested by Abiola Irele, but augmented with a return to Fanon.

Homage to a Modern Literary Father

this issue of Research in African Literatures is a special one that the journal is putting out in homage and tribute to chinua Achebe. it features a cluster of essays and a commentary by leading and emerging critics of African literature on Achebe’s early novels, namely, Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960), and Arrow of God (1964). Pertinent questions for RAL might be: Why put the spotlight on Achebe? And why do so now? in answer, let us ponder the following: but for Achebe where would RAL be? Would this or any other literary journal have justified its existential self-representation as African if what Achebe represents for African literature had not occurred in (recent) history? it is thanks to the outstanding literary-creative interventions and managerial acumen of the man, beginning a half-century ago, that RAL is able continuously to draw its sustenance as a journal from, and contribute to the reproduction of, the institutional life of African literature. As for African literature’s institutional life, let us recall that it has emerged in and out of the fortuitous historical conjuncture, as occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s, of (a) determined literary creators on the African continent; (b) the promotional work of local and international publishing houses; (c) the birth and growth of Africanist traditions of literary criticism and exegesis; and (d) the pedagogical legitimizations of African studies in schools and universities both inside and outside Africa. And this is not to forget that the late 1950s was a period when decolonization in Africa was at its most intense, a period when pan-Africanist ideology and affect was widespread on the continent and made fertile ground for the cultivation of pan-African institutions of literary and scholarly culture. if these conjunctural circumstances were auspicious for the birthing of a literature qua African, it would take Achebe’s special genius to write what would immediately be acknowledged both far and near as its seminal text, Things Fall Apart; consequently a text qualified to stand at the defining head of a new tradition emergent in world literature. it would be Achebe’s good fortune also—thoroughly well-deserved—to have been chosen by the publishing house Heinemann to preside inaugurally over its influential African Writers Series, a position he occupied for ten years (1962–1972). If the Series disproportionately influenced the course of African literary canon formation, this is a development it owes in significant part to Achebe’s authoritative, able, and long-lived editorial direction. concerning the institutionalization of African literature, Achebe’s influence would not only be decisive as a seminal writer and canonizing editor; as a self-described “novelist as a teacher,” he would insinuate his writerly authority also into a determination of the literary-critical commonplaces, the exegetical unfolding, and the pedagogical framing of what was emergent in African institution as a new branch of (world)

Censuring the Praise of Alienation: Interstices of Ante-Alienation in Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, and Arrow of God

Censuring the Praise of Alienation: Interstices of Ante-Alienation in Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, and Arrow of God

Censuring the Praise of Alienation: Interstices of Ante-Alienation in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, No Longer At Ease, and Arrow of God

Interrogating Abiola Irele’s praise of alienation, this essay examines the equally dangerous externalization in Chinua Achebe’s African trilogy: social alienation preceding colonial alienation, which challenges Négritude’s paradisiacal view of Africans always being happiest within their traditional culture.

The Ethnopragmatics of Akan Compliments

The essay examines culture and cultural adjustment in Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe. Using Edward Said's theory on culture as a foundation, it explores the elasticity of a fictional, precolonial West African society, Umuaro. The essay pictures culture as a large cell with core elements located at the centre, like a nucleus. The study then proceeds to apply this mental picture to the text, seeing the protagonist as analogous to a core element in his culture and hence as equivalent to the nucleus at the centre of the cell. The protagonist is a pivotal figure initially, and this idea is expressed symbolically in terms of the centralized position of the core element in the cultural cell. At the end of the day, however, he has become a social outcast, a status which again is expressed symbolically in terms of the movement of the core element away from the centre to the periphery. The essay concludes that the symbolic reproduction of culture re-inforces the literal one, and that Achebe recognizes equally the strengths and weaknesses of the community he is describing.

Roman Chinua Achebeja razpad kot odgovor na negativno prezentacijo afričanov

Marx’s adage »Th ey cannot represent themselves, they must be represented « (»Sie konnen sich nicht vertreten, sie mussen vertreten werden«) in »Th e 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,« which Edward Said in turn quoted at the beginning of his book Orientalism, still held for colonial Africa up to 1952. At the time, a class of Nigerian students at Ibadan University, including Chinua Achebe, were discussing Joyce Cary’s latest book Mister Johnson. Cary’s work, together with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, epitomized a tradition more than a century long of negative portrayals of Africans. Th e slave trade from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century spawned a »literature of degradation« in relation to Africa, which represented Africans as objects devoid of any personality, removed from the world of reason or time. Essentialized texts of an invented Other, which travelers would read before encountering the unknown, the threatening, and the remote, generally acquired a greater credibility than the description of an actual reality. In time, the dominant narrative gave rise to a tradition, or what Foucault terms a »discourse.« Given that Achebe’s fi rst novel, whose publication sparked an incident at Ibadan University in 1952, was in itself an act of rebellion and a form of rejoinder to the colonial representation of Africans, it is understandable that the absence of personality, historicity, and understanding are integral to his novels. Writing an »African« novel or »anti-novel« meant transcending the »objectivity« of colonial discourse and drawing into one’s consciousness the history and culture of the Igbo people (primarily from southeast Nigeria), although the description of pre-colonial society at the moment of its fi rst contact with the white man does not imply a nostalgic return to the past, as is notable for instance in the negritude movement. Th e potency of Achebe’s novel lies in the fact that by invoking Igbo culture he has turned the colonial perception of Africans as inferior on its head, although the anti-colonial dialectics are intimately bound up with his representation of the African woman. Achebe’s women are marginalized just as in Fanon’s work – the novel Th ings Fall Apart is in some ways a response to Fanon’s theoretical work Th e Wretched of the Earth. Women in Achebe’s trilogy Th ings Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, and Arrow of God have above all a symbolic and metaphorical role, being represented as the mother of the land, whereas men are individual fi gures. Th is representation of women is linked to the fact that the fi rst two novels, which were written before the independence of Nigeria in 1960, develop the idea of the national struggle for liberation, which reaffi rms the humanity and manhood of the colonized, whereas colonialism only assigned to Africans the attributes of children or at best those of women. In Achebe’s favor, one can say that Okunkwo, as the reincarnation of the social ideal of manhood, is continually fi ghting with the basic tenet of both the preceding (i.e., his father’s) and future (i.e., his son’s) generation, and that of women, no less, which is only fully realized in Achebe’s last novel Th e Anthills of the Savanna. Many African women writers, including Flora Mwapa, Ama Ata Aidoo, Buchi Emecheta, Mariama Bâ, and Mabel Segun, later »corrected« Achebe’s representation of women.

Roman Chinua Achebeja razpad kot odgovor na negativno prezentacijo afričanov

Marx’s adage »Th ey cannot represent themselves, they must be represented « (»Sie können sich nicht vertreten, sie müssen vertreten werden«) in »Th e 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,« which Edward Said in turn quoted at the beginning of his book Orientalism, still held for colonial Africa up to 1952. At the time, a class of Nigerian students at Ibadan University, including Chinua Achebe, were discussing Joyce Cary’s latest book Mister Johnson. Cary’s work, together with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, epitomized a tradition more than a century long of negative portrayals of Africans. Th e slave trade from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century spawned a »literature of degradation« in relation to Africa, which represented Africans as objects devoid of any personality, removed from the world of reason or time. Essentialized texts of an invented Other, which travelers would read before encountering the unknown, the threatening, and the remote, generally acquired a greater credibility than the description of an actual reality. In time, the dominant narrative gave rise to a tradition, or what Foucault terms a »discourse.« Given that Achebe’s fi rst novel, whose publication sparked an incident at Ibadan University in 1952, was in itself an act of rebellion and a form of rejoinder to the colonial representation of Africans, it is understandable that the absence of personality, historicity, and understanding are integral to his novels. Writing an »African« novel or »anti-novel« meant transcending the »objectivity« of colonial discourse and drawing into one’s consciousness the history and culture of the Igbo people (primarily from southeast Nigeria), although the description of pre-colonial society at the moment of its fi rst contact with the white man does not imply a nostalgic return to the past, as is notable for instance in the négritude movement. Th e potency of Achebe’s novel lies in the fact that by invoking Igbo culture he has turned the colonial perception of Africans as inferior on its head, although the anti-colonial dialectics are intimately bound up with his representation of the African woman. Achebe’s women are marginalized just as in Fanon’s work – the novel Th ings Fall Apart is in some ways a response to Fanon’s theoretical work Th e Wretched of the Earth. Women in Achebe’s trilogy Th ings Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, and Arrow of God have above all a symbolic and metaphorical role, being represented as the mother of the land, whereas men are individual fi gures. Th is representation of women is linked to the fact that the fi rst two novels, which were written before the independence of Nigeria in 1960, develop the idea of the national struggle for liberation, which reaffi rms the humanity and manhood of the colonized, whereas colonialism only assigned to Africans the attributes of children or at best those of women. In Achebe’s favor, one can say that Okunkwo, as the reincarnation of the social ideal of manhood, is continually fi ghting with the basic tenet of both the preceding (i.e., his father’s) and future (i.e., his son’s) generation, and that of women, no less, which is only fully realized in Achebe’s last novel Th e Anthills of the Savanna. Many African women writers, including Flora Mwapa, Ama Ata Aidoo, Buchi Emecheta, Mariama Bâ, and Mabel Segun, later »corrected« Achebe’s representation of women.