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Chinua Achebe and the Development of Igbo/African Studies

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The Igbo Intellectual Tradition

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Abstract

This chapter examines the contributions of Chinua Achebe to the development of Igbo Studies in particular, and African Studies in general.1 Conceived in the colonial context of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when very little was preserved in writing by the Africans on Igbo social life and customs, Achebe’s trilogy—Things Fall Apart (1958), No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964)—have particularly served scholars of all disciplines as a rare intellectual resource material.2 The plot of these works was primarily intended to shed light on different aspects of Igbo/African social institutions and practices as well as highlight the nature of conflicts that threatened the indigenous society as it came under alien intrusion.

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Notes

  1. This research was made possible with funds from the University of Louisville’s Project Initiation Fund, Dean’s Incentive Fund, History Department’s Dale Fund, and Pan African Studies Faculty research fund.

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  2. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart(London: Heinemann, 1958) remains the most cited and widely read historical novel in African Studies. It has sold over 8 million copies and translated into more than 40 languages worldwide.

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  3. For a cursory review of the Marxist view, see for instance, Sidney Hook, From Hegel to Marx, Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx(Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan University Press, 1968); S. Hook and Louise Snyder, World Communism: Key Documentary Material(New Jersey: Princeton Press, 1962).

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  4. W. Rodney, How Europe Under-developed Africa(Washington, DC: Harvard University Press 1972), 20–67.

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  5. Robert Knox, The Races of Men: A Fragment(1850; reprint, Philadelphia, PA: Lea and Blanchard, 1950), 149–150.

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  6. Chinua Achebe, Morning Yet on Creation Day(New York: Anchor Press and Doubleday, 1975), 83.

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  7. Chinua Achebe, “Achebe Accountable to Our Society” interview with Ernest and Pat Emenyonu, Africa Report(May 1972), 21.

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  8. Chinua Achebe, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays(New York: Anchor Books, 1988), 31–33. See also Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Introduction,” in Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart(New York: Alfred Knopf, 1992 edition), xvi; and Gordon Lewis, “Interview with Chinua Achebe” (1995), in Bernth Lindfors, ed., Conversations with Chinua Achebe(Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1997), 185–191.

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  9. Nigerian National Archives Enugu (hereafter NNAE) OP 117, ONPROF 7/12/18. “Conflict between Christian and Pagan Customs” (1925).

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  10. For a detailed read on this, see David Abernethy, The Dilemma of Popular Education(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969), 40, 62–63. As Abernethy explains, the Igbo people eventually embraced Western education for economic reasons.

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  11. NNAE, OP 2057 12/1/1351. “Maw Juju Society Amawbia, Awka Division” (1940). For expert studies on Igbo masks and masquerade traditions see the works of Simon Ottenberg, an eminent scholar of Igbo studies, compiled by Toyin Falola in T. Falola, ed., Igbo Art and Culture and Other Essays by Simon Ottenberg(Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2006).

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  12. NNAE, OP 1301 ONDIST 12/1/854. “Conflict between Christian Rites and Pagan Customs” (1935). This conflict was not peculiar to the Igbo alone. For an analysis that incorporates the whole of Africa, see John S. Mbiti, Introductionto African Religion(Oxford: Heinemann, 1991).

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  13. NNAE, OW 76, RIVPROF 8/3/29, “Christian-Pagan Conflict in” (1915). This historical reality has been analyzed by Felix K. Ekechi, Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igboland, 1857–1914(London: Frank Cass, 1972). See also Felix K. Ekechi, “Colonialism and Christianity in West Africa: The Igbo Case, 1900–1915” Journal of African History12, no. 1 (1971): 103–115.

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  14. See G. T. Basden, Among the Ibos of Nigeria(1921; reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1966); Niger Ibos: A Description of the Primitive Life, Customs, and Animistic Beliefs and Customs of the Igbo People of Nigeria(1938; reprint, London: Frank Cass, 1966).

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  15. Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Chinua Achebe: A Biography(Oxford: James Currey, 1997), 6.

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  16. Chinua Achebe, interview with Nkosi and Soyinka, in Conversation, 14.

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  17. Chinua Achebe, interview with Gordon Lewis, in Conversation, 187.

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  18. Achebe cited by Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Achebe, 13.

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  19. See C. L. Innes, Chinua Achebe(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), xv.

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  20. Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah, (1987; reprint, New York: Anchor Books, 1988), 114.

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  21. Eckhard Breitinger, Book Review of Chinua Achebe: A Biographyby Ezenwa-Ohaeto. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997 in Research in African Literature31, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 210–213.

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  22. For a recent analysis on this, see R. C. Njoku, African Cultural Values: Igbo Political Leadership in Colonial Nigeria, 1900–1966(New York: Routledge, 2006), especially 152.

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  23. NNAE, OP 1301 ONDIST 12/1/854. “Conflict between Christian Rites and Pagan Customs” (1935).

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  24. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 124.

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  25. Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease(London: Heinemann, 1960), 81.

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  26. See NNAE, CALPROF 345/2-7/1/420 “Leopard Society, Court Cases” (1946– 1954). For a very erudite analysis on this, see A. E. Afigbo, “The Eastern Provinces under Colonial Rule,” in O. Ikime, ed., Groundwork of Nigerian History(Ibadan, Nigeria: Heinemann Educational Books, 1980), 410–428.

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  27. Lewis Nkosi and Wole Soyinka, Interview with Chinua Achebe, republished in B. Lindfors, ed., Conversationwith Chinua Achebe(Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1997), 13. For a similar comment, see Sunday Nation (Nairobi), January 15, 1967, 15–16.

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  28. See Michael J. C. Echeruo, Victorian Lagos: Aspects of Nineteenth-Century Lagos Life (London: Macmillan, 1977).

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  29. Alan Hill cited in Ezenwa-Ohaeto, Achebe, 65.

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  30. See The Times Literary Supplement, “The Centre Cannot Hold,” (London, Friday June 20, 1958), 341.

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  31. W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming,” in W. B. Yeats, ed., The Collected Poems by W. B. Yeats(1933; reprint, London: Macmillan, 1979). See also Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, cloth edition (London: Heinemann, 1958), back cover.

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  32. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 125.

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  33. Sidney Hook, The Hero in History: A Study in Limitation and Possibility(Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1955).

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  34. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 113.

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  35. Achebe, No Longer at Ease.

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  36. See C. Achebe, The Trouble with Nigeria(Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension, 1983); Anthills of the Savannah.

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  37. Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God(London: Heinemann, 1964), 215.

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  38. Ibid., 215.

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  39. NNAE, OW 68, RIVPROF 8/3/22 and RIVPROF 8/3/23, “Courts, Native – Issue of Warrants” (1915); OW 225, RIVPROF 8/9/191. “Suspension and Cancellation of Warrants” (1921); and NNAE, OWDIST 19. “Warrant Chiefs Registers,” 1906– 1947. See also A. E. Afigbo, The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in Southeastern Nigeria 1891-1929(New York: Humanities Press and London: Longmans, 1972).

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  40. The Times Literary Supplement(London, September 16, 1975), 791.

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  41. Nwando Achebe, “Balancing Male and Female Principles: Teaching about Gender in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart,” Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies29, no. 1 (2001–2002), 121–143.

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  42. For a recent analysis on this, see Clement Okafor, “Igbo Cosmology and the Parameters of Individual Accomplishments in Things Fall Apart,” in Ernest N. Emenyonu, ed., Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, vol. 1 (Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 2004), 85–96.

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  43. Achebe, interview with Ernest and Pat Emenyonu, 42.

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  44. NNAE, Degdist 7/7/1. “Captain Wauton’s Papers” (1919). See also D. C. Ohadike, The Ekumeku Movement: Western Igbo Resistance to the British Conquest of Nigeria, 1883–1914(Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1991), 30–31.

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  45. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 26.

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  46. For a detailed analysis of the role of Igbo women as culture carriers and historians, see G. Chuku, “Igbo Women and the Production of Historical Knowledge: An Examination of Unwritten and Written Sources,” in Toyin Falola and Adam Paddock, eds., Emergent Themes and Methods in African Studies: Essays in Honor of Adiele E. Afigbo (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2009), 255–278.

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  47. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 53–54, 75, 96–99.

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  48. Achebe cited in Bernth Lindfors, “Introduction,” in Lindfors, ed., Conversation with Chinua Achebe(Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1997), ix–x.

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  49. NNAE, EP 15626, CSE 1/85/7523, “Status of and Development of Women’s Organizations” (1937); C Conf. I. CALPROF 4/6/1, “Women-Husband: Steps to Stop the Practice” (1917). For more on this, see V. Uchendu, The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), especially 39–48; I. Nzimiro, Studies in Ibo Political Systems: Chieftaincy and Politics in Four Niger States(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1972), 21–133.

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  50. See G. Chuku, Igbo Women and Economic Transformation in Southeastern Nigeria, 1900–1960(New York: Routledge, 2005), 21.

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  51. Achebe, “Balancing Male and Female Principles,” 131. For details on this culture, see K. Okonjo, “The Dual-Sex Political System in Operation: Igbo Women and Community Politics in Midwestern Nigeria,” in N. Hafkin and E. G. Bay, eds., Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976), 47–51.

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  52. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 132.

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  53. Lindfors has identified this liberal use of proverbs in other works by Achebe. See Bernth Lindfors, “Achebe’s African Parable,” in Emenyonu, ed., Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, vol. 1 (Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 2004), 277–292.

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  54. Chinua Achebe, interview with Kalu Ogbaa in 1980, published in Research in African Literature12 (1981), 1–13.

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  55. Emeka Nwabueze, “Theoretical Construction and Constructive Theorizing on the Execution of Ikemefuna in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Study in Critical Dualism,” Research in African Literature31, no. 2 (2000), 163.

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  56. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 4.

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  57. Adiele Afigbo, “Towards a Study of Weaponry in Traditional Igbo,” in Toyin Falola, ed., Igbo History and Society: Essays of Adiele Afigbo(Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 2005), 307–319.

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  58. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 6–9.

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  59. Achebe, Arrow of God, 105.

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  60. See Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 124; Ode Ogede, Achebe and the Politics of Representation(Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 2001), 21.

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  61. Achebe, Arrow of God, 104–105.

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  62. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 124–125.

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  63. G. I. C. Eluwa, “African Nationalist Movements: An Analytical Survey,” Alvana Journal of the Social Sciences1 no. 1 (1981): 29.

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  64. For primary sources on Jaja, see NNAE, CALPROF 53/1/1: “Regarding the Accounts of,” 1819; EP 19230, CSE 1/85/9515, 1942.

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  65. Terrence O. Ranger, “African Initiatives and Resistance in the Face of Partition and Conquest,” in Adu Boahen, ed., Africa under Colonial Domination: 1880–1935(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985), 45–62.

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  66. Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 143.

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  67. Ibid., 137.

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  68. Achebe, Arrow of God, 68.

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  69. Achebe, “Balancing Male and Female Principles,” 125.

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  70. Achebe, interview with Ernest and Pat Emenyonu, 31.

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  71. See Patrick Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830– 1914(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988).

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  72. Sir Henry Johnston, British Central Africa(London: Methuen, 1897), cited in Robert Kimbrough, ed., The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad – an Authoritative Text Background and Source Essays in Criticism(New York: WW Norton and Company Inc, 1963), 272.

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  73. See E. Isichei, The Ibo People and the Europeans: The Genesis of a Relationship To 1906(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973), 109–112; A History of the Igbo People(London: Macmillan, 1976), 119.

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  74. Achebe, Arrow of God, 85–86.

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  75. Ogede, Politics of Representation, 20, 24.

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  76. The Times Literary Supplement, “The Centre Cannot Hold,” (London, Friday June 20, 1958), 341.

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  77. Achebe, interview with Ernest and Pat Emenyonu, 43.

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  78. Achebe, interview with Nkosi and Sonyinka, Conversations, 16.

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  79. In his subsequent works he continued to analyze the modern Nigerian society in fictional style. For instance, see Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah.

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  80. Francis Ibe Mogu, “Beyond the Igbo Cosmos: Achebe’s Things Fall Apartas a Cross- Cultural Novel,” in Emenyonu, ed., Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, vol. 1 (Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 2004), 25.

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  81. Michael Ondaatje, cited on the back cover of Achebe, Arrow of God; 1989 impression.

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  1. Raphael Njoku
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA

    Gloria Chuku (associate professor of Africana Studies with a specialty in African history, affiliate associate professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, and affiliate associate professor of Language, Literacy and Culture PhD Program) (associate professor of Africana Studies with a specialty in African history, affiliate associate professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, and affiliate associate professor of Language, Literacy and Culture PhD Program)

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© 2013 Gloria Chuku

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Njoku, R. (2013). Chinua Achebe and the Development of Igbo/African Studies. In: Chuku, G. (eds) The Igbo Intellectual Tradition. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137311290_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137311290_10

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-31129-0

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