'Wherever Something Stands, Something Else Will Stand Beside It': Ambivalence in Achebe's <i>Things Fall Apart</i> and <i>Arrow of God</i>

Scafe, Suzanne

doi:10.1080/1358684022000006230

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Ezeulu's desire is to survive his power and authority through many ways (Scafe, 2002). His decision to send his son Oduche to white man's region "join these people and be my eye there", has two advantages; first as a way of managing the changes that threaten his authority, precipitate the decline of Umuaro and his power over the villages "with great power and conquest, it was necessary that some people should learn the ways of his own deity…but he also wanted to learn white man's wisdom…" (AoG, 1964, 47).…”

Section: Section II : Arrow Of God : Achebe's Treatment Of the Lost Identity Of The African Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Rootlessness in Elizabeth Bowen's the Death of the Heart, and Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God: A Comparative Study Between Anglo-Irish and African Postcolonial Literature

Al-BARZENJI¹

2021

IJEL

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Postcolonial literature views the British Empire of the nineteenth century as unique in human history and literary products for it provides writers with different subjects that deal with the idea of how to resurrect the colonized identity even after getting liberation. Postcolonial literature seems to label literature written by people living in countries formerly colonized by other colonized and other colonial powers as British. Such literature and particularly novel, emerged to focus on social, moral, and cultural influences and their interrelation with the impact of English existence upon some countries as Ireland in Europe and Nigeria in Africa. Irish novel shares its genesis with the English novel. When we write of the eighteenth century and use the phrase ' the Irish novel', we are necessarily referring to novel written by authors who, irrespective of birthplace, inhabited both England and Ireland and who thought of themselves as English or possibly both English and Irish. This fact is apparent within hands when we talk about the Anglo-Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen and her novels that show the obvious effect of her Irish identity upon her works during the period of World Wars I and II with a consideration to Ireland as a British colony. The same impact with African culture, postcolonial Nigeria, when its writers saw the changes crept to their traditions. Their literary products concentrated on questioning their nation how to keep and reserve African identity from alternations. Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian writer tried to reflect his culture in a mirror to readers and challenge them with their own strength and weakness in his novel Arrow of God. His novel tackles these weaknesses of the traditional outlook and senses for change. The research paper tackles the concept of rootlessness in postcolonialism through Anglo-Irish novel The Death of the Heart (1938) of Elizabeth Bowen ,which is tackled in the first section , and postcolonial Nigerian novel Arrow of God (1964) written by Chinua Achebe in the second section. The paper ends with conclusions and works cited.

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Section: Section II : Arrow Of God : Achebe's Treatment Of the Lost Identity Of The African Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Rootlessness in Elizabeth Bowen's the Death of the Heart, and Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God: A Comparative Study Between Anglo-Irish and African Postcolonial Literature

Al-BARZENJI¹

2021

IJEL

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“…Being set in the period between pacification and independence in Umuaro, the novel depicts slow death of Igbo culture during the colonial era. According to Suzanne Scafe (2002), the novel describes "a culture on the brink of change [wherein] … the effects of colonialism have already reached the villages" (p. 126). Ostensibly, the thematic understanding of Arrow of God has become a fulcrum for debate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Maureen Warner Lewis (1974) analyzes the social and personal conflicts existing in Umuaro; she also analyzes Ezeulu's strength, faults and doubts, claiming that they stem from his "stubborn pride" (p. 75). Suzanne Scafe (2002) examines the presence of duality and difference in Achebe's two novels, which particularly prevailed in his proverbs as "necessary conditions of existence" (p. 119). Blaise N. Machila (1981) also examines various "conflicts" (p. 119) which developed around Ezeulu.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“What a Man Does Not Know Is Greater than He”: Analyzing Noos, Thymos and Akrasia in Achebe’s Arrow of God

Mordaunt¹,

Avestan²

2021

ELLS

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This paper is an exposition of how Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God (1964) is engaged with philosophical concepts of thymos, noos, eros, and akrasia. The focus of this study is principally on Ezeulu’s thymos. To achieve this end, Francis Fukuyama’s notion of thymos or “desire for recognition” has been considered to provide a more tangible description of the term. This study explores that when a person’s body formation is mostly dominated by thymos, which has run out of control, the result is akrasia. Subsequently, it will be discussed that Ezeulu’s akrasia or “weakness in will” is the result of his ambivalent quest for self-worth. This article also seeks to examine the ways in which Ezeulu, the Chief Priest of Ulu, struggles to maintain his dignity to remain Umuaro’s cynosure. Ezeulu’s old age, his poor eyesight, his conflicts with his people, his insistence on revenge, and his desire for higher values provide some of the major sources of akrasia. By applying these aforementioned philosophical concepts to this novel, it is hoped that this article will contribute to a new conceptualization in terms of psychic disposition in Achebe’s Arrow of God.

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“A crucial part of the social and cultural fabric”: Christianity and Chinua Achebe’s “In a Village Church”

Purcell

2020

The Explicator

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'Wherever Something Stands, Something Else Will Stand Beside It': Ambivalence in Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Rootlessness in Elizabeth Bowen's the Death of the Heart, and Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God: A Comparative Study Between Anglo-Irish and African Postcolonial Literature

Rootlessness in Elizabeth Bowen's the Death of the Heart, and Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God: A Comparative Study Between Anglo-Irish and African Postcolonial Literature

“What a Man Does Not Know Is Greater than He”: Analyzing Noos, Thymos and Akrasia in Achebe’s Arrow of God

“A crucial part of the social and cultural fabric”: Christianity and Chinua Achebe’s “In a Village Church”

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