Achebe and the Negation of Independence

Udumukwu, Onyemaechi

doi:10.1353/mfs.0.0801

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 7 publications

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“…This lack of contact, Onyemaechi Udumukwu says, "has precipitated a condition of contrasts and an evenness in development." 23 The appearance of Mr. Green at the beginning and at the end of the novel is deliberate since Achebe wants to emphasize the division in Obi's nature: of the European individualism and the Umuofian tribalism. And since the emphasis from the very beginning is on duty, Achebe stresses Mr. Green's function as an example of fidelity:…”

Section: The Theme Of Corruption In the Novelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease: The Conflict of Values in Post-colonial History of Nigeria

Rustam¹

2022

JCEWU

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As a reaction to the European dominance on the African continent, African novelists showed a nationalistic feeling in their novels, and this national awareness gave them the opportunity to present the contemporary African experience. In the region that was occupied by the British, Nigeria in particular, the novelists’ interest was to show the impacts of the settlement period on the peoples of that region. Chinua Achebe was one of the most prominent Nigerian novelists who dedicated their novels to represent the psychological, social and cultural conflicts that Africans experienced as a result of the European intrusion into African life. The events and scenes of his novels were taken more from the reality of African life than from the world of imagination. His No Longer at Ease provides a critique of post-independence Nigerian life and an assessment of what it inherited from the European settler. The events of the novel deal with an African young man and the crisis he experienced as a result of the conflict between the European intellectual culture that he acquired during his studies in England and what he inherited of tribal and family traditions and values. The novel reveals the protagonist's lack of the moral courage to face the pressures of the conflict between the European materialistic ideals and the African traditions, which leads to his failure and moral downfall. The novel thus becomes an invitation, on the level of values , for an assessment of the behavior of the cultural elite that will take over the leadership of modern Nigeria and their ways to deal with the legacy of settlement.

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Section: The Theme Of Corruption In the Novelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease: The Conflict of Values in Post-colonial History of Nigeria

Rustam¹

2022

JCEWU

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A Man of the People (1966) and Girls at War (1972)

Morrison¹,

Tredell²

2007

The Fiction of Chinua Achebe

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A Picture of Africa: Frenzy, Counternarrative, Mimesis

Lawtoo¹

2013

mfs

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This article completes a trilogy of essays that reexamine the quarrel between Chinua Achebe and Joseph Conrad from the angle of mimetic theory. Moving beyond the colonial/postcolonial binary, this essay focuses on Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and argues that even with respect to the notion at the heart of the race quarrel (“frenzy”) striking mimetic continuities exist between colonial narratives and postcolonial counternarratives. Rather than adding new fire to what is already an incendiary debate, this essay articulates the narrative, anthropological, and discursive forces that have the power to generate counternarratives that are almost the opposite, but not quite.

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Achebe and the Negation of Independence

Cited by 3 publications

References 7 publications

Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease: The Conflict of Values in Post-colonial History of Nigeria

Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease: The Conflict of Values in Post-colonial History of Nigeria

A Man of the People (1966) and Girls at War (1972)

A Picture of Africa: Frenzy, Counternarrative, Mimesis

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