r. ,. . 2 B Jtm.J 1q~1 OS:03. 0-:i · UNIVERSITE" CHEIKH ANTA DIOP DE OAl<AR ... F A- L 6lf1 .f'.ACULTE DES LETTRES ET SCIENCES HUMAINES ~ ·oEPARTEMEN T O"ANGLAIS ·'o Y R A R THE COLLAPSE·OF IGBO T.RADITIONAL B SOCIETY IN ACHEBE'S TWO NOVELS: I L THINGS FALL .APART AND ARROW OF GOO - A I R S E D O MEMOIRE DE MAITRISE .. , C presente par CHEIKH FALL sous la· direction tec~nique et administrative de Monsieur OUSMANE SENE Maître Assistant. ou Déportement d'Anglais Annee 1990 A C I\ N O H L E D G 1·1 :C 1T T [', I am indeb-è,ed and very f;rat0ful to ny supe:cviso,:? Mr SENE whose teachingi advice and lnformatirin Y have greatly contributed to the makiRn& of this A GSS8.J°o R B My thanks go to the othar membera of the board I L for havin~ accepted to judge this work - Co 8.Dd V the ;\onncil fAor the ~jevelopment of ~}conondc and $ocial ResIoarch in Africa (C.O.DoE.S.RoI.A.) R for their financial grant. S E D O C Y R A R To my fa6ily, my friands and all B the teachers around the world. I L - A I R S E D O C TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------~ INTRODUCTION 1 PART I ·- Igbo social structure and~ CHAPTER 1 THE IMPACT OF GEOGRAPHICAL ENVIRONMENT ~ ON IGBO TRADITONAL VALUES CHAPTER 2 SOCIAL STRUCTURE AS THE NORMATIVE PATH TO SUCCESS OR FAILURE CHAPTER 3 Y RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEITIES AND MEN R so A PART II - ·An anal"ysis of some characters' R triumph or failure B CHAPTER I I L THE ROLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE LIFE OF THE COMMUNITY 76 - CHAPTER 2 A ·OKONKWO 1 S FAILURE I R CHAPTER 3. S EZEULUïS FAILURE 11,.3· E PART III= ColonialiêE._ as the revealer of Igbo D society weaknesses or strength. Î O ' J CHAPTER 1 ,: C THE DISRUPTIVE CONSEQUENCES OF THE WHITE MAN'S INSTITUTIONS ON IGBOLAND 1J·o CHAPTER 2 CLASHES BETWEEN TWO WORLDVIEWS 14:ii CHAPTER 3 THE OOLLAPSE OF IGBO TRADITIONAL SOCIETY 155 CONGLUS°ION 16S' BIBLIOGRAPHY 17d Y R A R B I L - I N T R O D U C T l Q N A =======I==::;=::;;=; R S E D O C 2 Ih this essay our topic is about nthe collapse of Igbo ·traditional society in Achebe 1s two navals Things Fall _Apart and Arrow of God.tt We have chosen this theme because we think that it is necessary to paya tribute to Igbo people 1s stifled authentic cul·~ ture and therefore African culture since the Igb(r.)do belong to Africa and still live in the Eastern part of Nigeria in West Africa (see map p. 1U). Y R This issue is all tha more important because we African A are almost uprooted losing ipso facto our idRentity as negroes. If we happen to forget ourselves other naBtions can but forget us I as far as humanity is concerned. We too belong to this world and L ought to be regarded as human=beings. To convince the others to - do so~ cultural propaganda = buAt not cultural imperialism - is I not unnecessaryo Our intentRion is not different from that of Achobo as a teacher. We want to Shit the nail on the head by making our E eventual readers understand Igbo mysteries~ values and beliefs ~J D in pretenatural occurrences as efficient powers capable of Ghapine O human dest:i.ny willy=nilly. In brief our main purpose is to explain C how do the IgboOhappen to have. such an attitude rather than·anothor on~o To put it in a nutshell we want to analysa in detail through out this essay the mechanism which leads the Igboô to percoi ve ,,(/11, ·themselves in this way rather than,the other~ to interpret the events - may it be natural œsupernatural-as they do~ to explai~ ~ their lives and existence in the environment they live in as ~ 1 Africans.vigbo~.1 process of mind has given an opportunity ta the white man to judge the black man and to condemn his supposee. lack 3 of intelligence and upbringing. First African mind has been negatively explained by Claude Levi Strauss with his concepts of 11primitive mindtt. It is high time. Europeans listened to the very natives 1 message~ for, the black man has something different to tell and prove in the eyes of his disparagers. Achebe makes his duty to extol the African past and let us interpret · it according to our own standpoint. He gives us facts and the very facts are polemical because pregnant with meaning Y for who dare go beyond the factual level and the forefathers ;) R spiritual legacy. A R Achebe invites us to dig into our past which has some B dark stains however glorious i t may be. By so doing.p we will I L know what we can lose without great damage and what we may gaiil - when in contact with the other. In fr?nt of that dat\ black A men ought to understand how far not ta go. This analysis of I R our forefathers 1 legacy may be used as an apology for black S traditional culture or mere useless propaganda which does not E tell on our everyday life when it is dealt with idealistically D but not realistically. It must be more than a pious wish. Many O African writors use literature as a means to prove evorything~ C as a lumber-room. As for Achab~ it is an ttapplied art" to euro a worldspread disease diagnosed as a mental alienation as far as the black westernized man is concerned. Therefore wc may ask :"does Achebe manage to avoid the easy temptation to idoali ze at will his pristine ancestral civilization ?"Achebe himsolf gives us the answero We will quota him in this issue later on. His opinion on African writers 1 role bas beon expressed many times in lectures~ articles~ essa~and interviews. As far as 4 his views arG concerned African writers do have a mission to carry out: to rehabilitate African dignity by telling the truth, the whole truth~ and nothing but the truth about African past as far as literary truth can be reached. We must require neither scientific nor historical truth because the ~riter may take liberties with history and he is not necessarily a scientist. However he can borrow his method of analysis which he applies to facts and occmTences may i t be external or interYnal ~ na tural or supernatural. The writer is somewhat a historiRan since he has ihdeed a story -.for not to say a historyA - to tell: that R of the individual society or bath under precise circumstances. 7 B He reacts here against those European· ideologists who used I L to look at Africans as noble savages. Europeans look down us - bacause they think that we have invented nothing and are still A swinging carelessly on our tropical creepere. This hackneyed I R and false image of the black man leads the white man to believo S that he has the tluty to civilize the grand childj I maan the E black man. D O This distorted view~ this misconception of African C traditional way of life compels Achebe to dofend African past through the Igbo one. He pinpoints the traditional valuos of Igbo community without exaggerating either the good or the evil within his forefathers 1 land. Needlass to say that the Igbo socioty is a microcosm of African one. Achebe 1s ambition is a lofty one. But how does ha fulfill this gigantic tas~[? Ho uses all his talent to depict many aspects of Igboland customs and traditions in a given period. The Igbo clan belongs to West African cultural erea. Achebe himself may bo taken as an 5 impartial witness of that society of old. He has ta tackle many or all the aspects of Igbo community to become more and more convincing in the eyes of the disparagers of African civiliza tion which is 0ven denied. The writer must underline his commu nity1s weakness and strongth through its two charactcristic heroes. I mean Okonkwo in 'fhings Fall Apar~~ and Ezeulu in A~rl"O}:L of Gog_. ThG tw0 charactcrs I failure tells directly on the collapse of ancestral wisdom and Igbo traditioncl Y socioty. What do wa mean when we speak of the collapse of a R society? A R The phenomenon of a collapsing society can bo inter·· B preted as the disruption of its ties which used to keop and I check its balance over the abyss Lof_nonentity. This doos not mean that a society must be st-atic and rejoct any metnmorpho A sis. Metarnorphoses are welcomed insofar as they do not I R strengthen thG disruptive elements within society. Otherwise 1 S the collapse is u.navoidable. That is what ~Jefalls Igbo sociot/ E wo are going to deal with. Its agony is a Long one becausa tho D chaos forces are loosed upon it. It is a flght to the daath. O C Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot here the falconer Things fall apart ; the canter (aie) cannot hold Mers anarchy is loosed upon the world. (1) The phenomenon of the collapse is caused by disorder and turmoil. Was the society apt to survive after its clashes 1 -· Clf~SE (Narlème) -·· The Tra.gic Vain in Chinva Achebe1s Th1.:~ms Fall_ ~nd Arrow 9.,,f C~~ Mémoire de Maitrise d'anglais 198?; quot:1I1:-; .:L::~tsi pq;:)Iil Oll"GJ.:tlod îl'I'.ho Second Com:iJ:i.r:.·a. p. 9. 0 111r1.-, .., 'l'rar.o-î,-, Vein in.... Achebe Tœdlf>-.Ji. Fall Apar_i anà._ l lœ1/ r-ow of • Go• dl..l. "''1" !-~ •"4 ,._J Ys ~- 6 ( with the new order without metamorphosas? That is the issue we intend ta discuss throughout this assay. What we admire in Achebe is his out-spoken-mind. In fact he does not wear blinderso His purpose is not to stamp out all the flaws of African society •. He does not plead guilty for his forefathers 1 supposed inferiority but seems to tell us g 11do not have guilt or inferiority comploxes ~ you match Y the white man if you are not better than him1 Our defett when i. R facing the white man has a dialectical explanation in terms A of human being1s behaviour. To understand Rhow Ibgo socioty hap pens to be disrupted needless to say thBe writer too has to dig I deap into his ancestral legacy to Lfind out the quintessonce of Igbo values in a hierarchica-l society in touch with an alien and hostile world which seemsA superior in many aspects as we I will try to demonstrate thRrough our analysis of Igbo traditiona1 society collapse when Sclashing with the western values. Let E us quota - as promisedo Achebe 1 own definition of the writer 1s ~ D role to rehabilitate African ridiculed dignity. This may buttroGG O his own standpoint - and mine too - on that matter in dispute C among the highbrows. The worst thing that can happen to any people is the loss of their dignity and self-respect. The writer's duty is to holp them regain it by showing them in human terms what happened to them~ what they lost. There is a saying in Ibo that a man who can't tell where the rain began to beat him cannot know where he dried his body. The writer can tell the people where the rain began to beat themo (1) 1 - G. D. KILLAl'VI,, .. l\frican Writers On Afric~.Wri!,~ng., Heinemann London 9 9 p. 80