Africa has grown as the world has changed although it has had to deal with internal conflicts and demands for political change due to its authoritarian regimes. Chapter 2 begins with the Heritage of Colonialism. This is an important aspect for the remainder of the book. Without understanding where African politics started and how it related to the world, one would not be able to appreciate the growth the nation has had. The author of this chapter, Crawford Young begins to explain European
Abstract: Chinua Achebe, the recipient of Man Booker International Prize,2007, has one interest which is to be responsible to the fate or destiny of his people and society. Achebe as an African writer, his writing especially novels portray the various colors and texture of the post-colonial African reality. Observations such as socio-psychological impacts influence the author and so the literature. Hence, the post-colonial literature is described in The Empire Writes Back, as "what each of these literatures has in common beyond their special and distinctive regional characteristics is that they emerged in their present form out of the experience of colonization and asserted themselves by foregrounding the tension with the imperial power and by emphasizing their difference from the assumptions of the imperial center. It is this which makes them distinctively post-colonial".
Gender and Colonialism It was fascinating to see and be able to understand the comparison between Ferdinand Oyono’s Houseboy and Buchi Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood. What was more intriguing was being able to understand Africa’s history a lot more. Both books are fictional literature primary sources. Although the novels are not true, they take the audience on a historic ride. Readers get an insight of how Africans actually feel, experience everyday life, and are finally able to read something not written by the Europeans.
Critic Nahem Yousaf highlights the importance of these depictions: as it is "Around the tragic stories of Okonkwo and Ezeulu, Achebe sets about textualising Igbo cultural identity". Further he adds: "Achebe seeks to produce the effect of a pre-colonial reality as an Igbo-centric response to a Eurocentrically constructed imperial 'reality ' ". The gender roles of men and women, as well as societies ' conceptions of the associated concepts are the frequent themes in Achebe 's writing. A prevalent theme in Achebe 's novels is the intersection of African tradition (particularly Igbo varieties) and modernity, especially as embodied by European colonialism. His Awards and Honures: St. Louis Literary Award
For example, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who receives Commonwealth Prize for Literature for her first novel Purple Hibiscus also receives Orange Prize for her same novel and for her Half of a Yellow Sun. She follows tradition like Chinua Achebe, also targets issues of social and political issues directly or indirectly of the status of Nigeria. However, her Half of a Yellow sun speaks the most direct attack of Nigeria and Biafra war. Her Purple Hibiscus shows the impact of colonization of Nigeria. It visualizes the facts of ethnic tensions and political imbalance and the fear of racial injustice and cultural identity and power supremacy among the people as well as rulers.
If Things Fall Apart had been written is a different time, how and why might it differ? Chinua Achebe, the author of the post-colonial novel Things Fall Apart, founded a Nigerian literary movement which wrote about the traditional oral culture of its indigenous peoples in the 1950’s. Achebe sought to convey understanding of this culture in response to novels, such as Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which portray native Africans as primitive, socially backward and language-less. In his novel, Achebe shatters the stereotypical European litera-ture in which Africans are described as primitive and mindless savages. "The writer cannot be excused from the task of re-education and regeneration that must be done.
The purpose of this paper is to critically appraise an article entitled “The Myth of Neo-colonialism.” The author of the article is Tunde Obadina. The central theme of the article is to provide a clear, basic and well-illustrated of the legacy of colonialism and the myth of neo-colonialism. However, the article pays particular attention to African political structure, social and economic developments as well as modernization. The article portrays this and traces the development of the African societies before and during and after the colonial era. The article uses argues the reasons behind the colonization in the African societies as well as its merits and demerits.
The Emergence of written literature across Africa came with the colonial intervention. The literary genres vigorously copied from the existing genres of Europe, Portuguese, French and English became the official languages across the continent. African writings in English had dominated and defined much of the space of what is today regarded as African literature. Among the prominent African writers the contribution of Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo, Senghor are noteworthy. The landscape of English literature developed in divergent dimensions during the later half of the twentieth century.
It not only deals with a difficult time in American history, it marks an important transformation for Twain himself” (Chadwick). Slavery was rampant during the setting of the novel. All that the book does is show the situation from the eyes of a white child raised at the time. Twain depicts situations at the time just as they were. Blacks were beaten.
An Image of Africa: Comparison of Chinua Achebe and Joseph Conrad Both Joseph Conrad and Chinua Achebe have been introduced to language of ‘English’ in their later year of age. They have not been educated in the central of European countries yet they try to create their own perspective of binaries of dominant and submissive and of heard and unheard. Geographically placed, Africa is in the centre of Europe; it clearly suggests how the Europeans or the White Men subdued the Africans or the Black Men by intentionally placing Africa surrounding all the European countries to overpower them in all walks of their lives. In Chinua Achebe essay he quotes Schweitzer’s saying – ‘The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother’. Nevertheless Africa remains a part of Europe, yet they pose the superiority over Africans.