Arrow of God

1
Arrow of God

• Chinua Achebe

2
If you went to school in Africa at the
beginning of the 20th century, how would you
learn about African culture?
3

• As a young boy the 'African literature' he was
  taught consisted entirely of works by Europeans
  about Africa, such as Conrad's Heart of Darkness
  and Joyce Cary's Mister Johnson, which portrays a
  comic African who slavishly adores his white
  colonist boss, to the point of gladly being shot
  to death by him.

4
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899)

• Europeans are affected by Africa
• Africa drives Europeans mad
• critique of European imperialism
• but African signification does not exist
• "Africa" only a foil for Western self-inspection
• Africa as a "jungle" of the European mind

5
How would you feel about these images?
6
What effect does it have that they are being
taught at school?
7
What would you do?
8
The "Mission" of a Writer

• set the colonial "misrepresentation" of African
  culture straight

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How would you correct this misrepresentation?
10
Chinua Achebe

• "My aim is to help my society regain belief in
  itself and put away the complexes of years of
  denigration and self-abasement."

11
What would you write about to help your culture
regain your self-esteem?
12
Arrow of God (1964)

• This was the third nightfall since he began to
  look for signs of the new moon. He knew it would
  come today but he always began his watch three
  days early because he must not take a risk. . . .
  The Chief Priest sat up every evening. (1)

13
Why would you begin your story with a priest?
14
What kind of story would you write?
15
Who would the priest be comparable to in our
culture?
16
If you wanted to write a story about a
statesman, what aspects of his life would you
write about?
17
Arrow of God

• But for the present he was as good as any young
  man, or better because young men were no longer
  what they used to be. There was one game Ezeulu
  never tired of playing on them. Whenever they
  shook hands with him he tensed his arm and put
  all his power into the grip, and being unprepared
  for it they winced and recoiled with pain. (1)

18
What image of Ezeulu do we get here?

• Whenever Ezeulu considered the immensity of his
  power over the year and the crops and, therefore,
  over the people he wondered if it was real. It
  was true he named the day for the feast of the
  Pumpkin Leaves and for the New Yam feast but he
  did not choose it.

19

• No! the Chief Priest of Ulu was more than that,
  must be more than that. If he should refuse to
  name the day there would be no festival no
  planting and no reaping. But could he refuse? No
  Chief Priest had ever refused. So it could not be
  done. He would not dare. Ezeulu was stung to
  anger by this as though his enemy had spoken it.
  . . . No man in Umuaro can stand up and say I
  dare not. (3)

20
What image do we get of Ezeulu here?How could
that be significant for the story?
21
What positions would you put Ezeulu in?
22
Colonizer

• When a handshake goes beyond the elbow we know
  it has turned into another thing. It was I who
  sent you to join those people because of my
  friendship to the white man, Wintabota. He asked
  me to send one of my childred to learn the ways
  of his people and I agreed to send you. I didn
  not send you so that you might leave your duty in
  my household. Your people should know the custom
  of this land if they don't you must tell them.
  (14)

23
What is Ezeulu's attitude to Wintabota?
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• The six villages then took the name of Umuaro,
  and the priest of Ulu became their Chief Priest.
  From that day they were never again beaten by an
  enemy. How could such a people disregard the god
  who founded their town and protected it? Ezeulu
  saw it as the ruin of the world. (15)

25

• The war was waged from one Afo to the next. . .
  . On the following days, Eke and Oye, the
  fighting grew fierce. Umuaro klled four men and
  Okperi replied with three. The next day, Afo, saw
  the war brought to a sudden close. The white man,
  Wintabota, brought soldiers to Umuaro and stopped
  it. (28)

26
What image of Wintabota do we get here?
27

• Captain Winterbottom had not known real sleep
  since the dry, cool harmattan wind stopped
  abruptly in December and it was now
  mid-February. He had grown pale and thin, and in
  spite of the heat his feet often felt cold.

28

• Every morning after the bath which he would have
  preferred cold but must have hot to stay alive
  (since Africa never spared those who did what
  they liked instead of what they had to do), he
  looked into the mirror and saw his guns getting
  whiter and whiter. Perhaps another fever was on
  the way. At night he had to imprison himself
  inside a mosquito net. (29)

29
What image of Winterbottom do we get here?
30
Chinua Achebe

• writing both for African and European audiences
• reverse colonial perspective Wintabota is
  clueless about "Africa"
• "Wintabota" portraying the colonizer from the
  perspective of the colonized (postcolonial
  revenge)
• Ezeulu defends tradition, but is destroyed by
  his personal pride
• goal synthesis between African and European
  cultures

31
Chinua Achebe (1930)

• born in Nigeria, Ibo writer
• political function of writing
• portray the complexity of African cultures
• create sympathetic portrait of the African
  village
• Things Fall Apart (1958)