Postcolonial: African Novel

African Novel

• 2-2-16
• Things Fall Apart : Chinua Achebe
• The Sahara Desert
• North Saharan and Sub Saharan are treated differently.
• In Australia aborigine languages did not survive but in Africa some aboriginal languages have survived.
• Colonial policiy and effect on education.
• France: Senegal, Martinique in the Carribean
• French "Direct" Policy - treated the colony as part of France.
• Concerned with educating small number of students.
• French language only.
• Only a small minority can read.
• Reading and Writing is generally in the french Language.

English colonies

• Nigeria
• Ghana
• Rhodesia
• Zimbabwe
• Kenya
• English 'indirect' policy
• Spread of education (influence on Protestantism)
• Universities in Africa (Ibaelan 1948)
• Development of novel in Igbo and other languages not in African colonies.
• Onitsha marker literature from 1940s (Cheaply printed books) were written in English for semi-literate audience
• about good manners.

Negritude

• African writing begins in European languages (French.English)
• Negritude writing. Francophone writers of the 1930s and 1940s
• Aime Cesaire (1913-2008)
• (martinique) Une Tempetes (rewriting of Shakespeare's the tempest 1968
• Leopold Seda Sanghor (1906-2001) (senegal) Poetry ollections and essays
• The colonisers of the era of colonial expression were fully convinced of the superiority of the civilization they represented. The offered their own ideals to the colonised, seomethimes greater than themselves.
• The colonised were fully convinces of this superiority and were persuaded to imitate and to obey.
• Result of colonization was initially good.
• EM Forster, Passage to India (1924)
• Paul Scott, The Jewel on the Crown (1966)

Slide 4

• Debasement of Colonisation
• Mannoni distinguishes between Coloniser and Colonial.
• Material versus psychological satisfaction.
• Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) doctor specialised in psychology.
• The pathology of colonisation.
• After attending schools in Martinique and France, Fannon served in the French army during WW2 and afterwards completed his studies in medicine and psychiatry at the univestity of Lyon.
• In 1953-56 he served as head of psychiatry dept of a hospital in Alegeria then part of France.
• Black skin, white masks (1952) fannons 1952 position of language by speaking a language one gives it power.
• Nigel C. Gibson, Fanon The Postcolonial imagination
• (2003)

Slide 5

• Black Skin White masks p.21
• 9-2-16
• Post-colonial literature helps us to answer questions about literature itself.
• Nigeria - chinua Achebe
• Brought up in the Protestant religion.
• It's hard to separate religion from culture.
• Colonialism never comes as one thing.
• Who are not of a certain education are sometimes negatively affected like malta.
• The igbos Who converted to the new religion did not do it for material reason but it was a benefit.
• Igbo law degrees the twins had to be left in the forest.
• Achebe knew both about the igbo religion and tradition but also about Christianity. He was able to feel both but also distance himself from both.

Slide 6

• The 1950s was a time of great cultural ferment. The concerns are not 19th century but post-war concerns.
• Capitalism goes back to colonization.
• When he was studying English literature the more concerned he became with the portrayal of Africa in Novels.
• In orientalism edward said speaks about how countries are absorbing as the other.
• This is a very totalizing view.
• The written statement is a virtue of the reader... Thus all orientalism starts away from Oriental. The colonies negated either the existence or Humanity of the people. One of the most crucial resources now is water.

Slide 7

• Achebe's objections are related to the rejection of universalism. American novel has to have universal appeal and so has to have no specification like the draining of the land. He regards his role as an artist as a teacher and write an essay about it. For a long time post colonial literature seem to be too political to be an art. The bridge between politics and art happened because of colonialism. James Joyce was decreed not to be read in Russia. In reaction to that in the West there grew the idea of Art For Art's Sake. Trim around the 1930s there had to be a decision by the author to be political or not. Africa and her writing - an essay which describes Igbo. the igbos have an Mbari ceremony to show respect to the goddess Ala, the Villages are approached and asked to contribute. This is for Craftsman, art belongs to all and is a function of society.

The Igbo society

• Art and politics in the dichotomous approach.
• After a few years the price of Cocoa Fell. Neocolonialism at the end of colonialism Nestle was responsible for the deaths of millions of babies, by using powdered milk and since they did not have a good meal they died of infection.

Slide 9

• 16-02-16
• Things Fall Apart
• Has a simple style of writing. Set in the past but concerns present day issues. Achebe reconstruct African society. He persuades people that African society was not all savagery.
• Power sharing and democracy - British people were more interested in the Islamic.
• Egwugwu - masked spirits that represent the ancestors.
• Like the rest of the world at the time he made right we're not here to so Brothers have to take up her case.
• It shows a highly complex and sophisticated Society. The elders make decisions together.
• Ancestor worship in Africa- the cult of the Dead.
• The presence of the community is prevailant.
• There's a sense of reciprocity- the balance between male and female.
• When Ochu accidentally kills a boy he is exiled for 9 years.
• Achebe makes it possible for us to suspend our disbelief and we are more open to the society.
• By helping African leaders to regain a certain dignity as European leaders the paper as a stereotype.
• Retrieval of myth is one of the main ways by which you can rekindle interest in one's history.
• Myth has a function in changing Society much of the tragedy takes place because Okonkwo decides to shoot the messenger but at the same time he saves the village. Do Things Fall Apart in Things Fall Apart or have they survived in their own form?
• The oracle remarking is that... Needs to be killed or the ritual breaking of the Kola nut.p 4
• Okoye was a musician and Onaka was an artist. True this rituals Achebe shows these two characteristics.

Slide 10

• Okoye was not a failure like Onoka. Onaka also helps us understand the character of his son. Achebe shows the distinction the distinction of Art in a book sent in the 19th century.
• Through myth and ritual the author establishes theme and characterization.
• A sister's can be compared to Saints.
• Chi is very much a personal god. The chi creates you.
• Boko Haram no to Western education.
• There is a dramatization of rituals.
• Writing came in with Islam and in the south of europe printing starts coming in.
• The sense of having a literary tradition is important for African writers. There was an oral tradition but it was not written down. Up to the 19th century the oral tradition was very important.
• The author keeps the folk tales alive.
• Mr Chiaga - African, Enoch is Africanetc.
• Last 3 pages - British district Commisioner realize that a terrible calamity has struck Eumophilia? This is Achebe's comment on how europeans roach about Africa which can be seen in the title of the British district commissioner was going to write.
• Painstaking details of tradition, myths and rituals so we are more willing to accept them but you also have the European World which affects them.
• The Christian world is not allowed to triumph either.

Slide 11

• The Narrative technique in this novel involve highly modulated viewpoint and for quite a great deal of the novel we feel we are part of the communityAchebe hold both religions to equipoise. We have to look at the details, the killing of ikemefura shows savagery for Europeans. You should have been a servant and not become more important to Okonkwu then his own son Noye. With all this knowledge we can look at things differently. When ikemefura it's killed something in Noye snaps and he becomes a Christian.

Slide 12

• African novel
• Petals of Blood - Ingugi
• In his own practice we find him committing himself writing in African.
• Achebe- Nigeria (a nation that depends on the English language to be able to communicate as they have over 100 languages)
• Ingugi- his area was different as he has a main language in his area unlike Achebe
• Ingugi- decolonizing the mind
• Ingugi Watyongo - Born 1939
• His father had four wives but he was the fifth child off the 4th wife. Very large extended family is normal for them. Family had to become squatters on their own land.
• Went to a Christian School.
• He went through the gikuyu rite of passage. He rejected Christianity.
• He became involved in the theater. There was still a large amount of illiteracy.
• He chaired a cultural committee and made the play 'I will marry when I want'.
• The play caused so much clamor that he was in prison for a year and the theater burnt down
• His works we read more critically and the people realized that he had become very critical of the Kenyan leaders.

Slide 13

• He realized how much more effect his working had when written in Gikuyu.
• When he left prison, he escaped kenya and went to live in Europe, then america.
• After 1990 he tried to return to Kenya. In 2004 he tried to return again and was attacked again.
• It was in Leeds that he wrote a grain of wheat. a theme which runs through all his novels is the importance of History.
• He is convinced africa is still neocolonial.
• There are the arrest of 5 protagonists.
• The cutting is about a triple murder.
• There is a religious fanatic then there is another (munira) who believes religion is the Opium of the people. There is an Indian (abdulla) many have migrated from India to Kenya.
• The way that committees get the sense people who are different are not a part of their community.
• When things go wrong in Africa people seem to turn on each other.
• Wenga - Kenyan granddaughter of Neya Kinyua - Girot (oral historian)
• Karega - the Marxist trade unionist he is trying to make the workers unite to overthrow..?
• Ingugi's narrative technique depends on the use of his pronouns for instance the way uses 'we' helps us to go through the novel smoothly.
• Munira's description begins in the third person account then moves to a 'we' account.
• (voice of the community)
• We is also used as a totally different voice and changes perception. Wherever the British were they built roads.
• As a character Munira is very subjective and very limited he is highly unreliable but also very complex and very important.
• Immediately we see the use of his religion as an escape. He is riding his bike and a thought makes him stop. This is the golf scene. Fat African pretending to play golf and the poverty of the caddy boys is obvious. He refuses to engage with the politics as he prefers to escape in his religion. He tries not to become involved with things