S NEŽANA V ULETIĆ Constructing Alternative Narratives, Triggering Cultural Change: Functions and Emplotment of Igbo Folklore in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Arrow of God (1964) 1. Chinua Achebe’s Novels as a Form of Ideological Resistance: an Introduction Things Fall Apart (1958) and Arrow of God (1964) were written at a time marked by what Chinua Achebe defined as a “general atmosphere of optimism” 1 The fact that Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God were written and published at the time when the decolonisation sentiment in Nigeria was at its strongest accounts for the keen scholarly interest in the relationship between these two novels on the one hand and the cultural context in which they emerged on the other. Edward Said brought postcolonial literary production in close contact with its cultural context in “Resistance, Opposition and Representation,” where he states that an equally important form of decolonisation as physical resistance to the coloniser is ideological resistance, “when efforts are made to reconstitute a ‘shattered community,’ to save or restore the sense and fact of community against all the pressures of the colonial sysin Nigeria. It was the formal independence from British rule in 1960 which inspired that optimism, and Achebe’s novels were written and published in the midst of that euphoria. However, at that time Nigerians were facing not only the possibility or the very attainment of independence from colonial rule but also the need to free themselves from colonial representations of their histories, identities, and cultures as well as from the overwhelming colonial influence on their education. In such a context, Achebe was prompted to contribute to the initiative of ‘cultural repair,’ eventually producing highly significant postcolonial literary works whose influence and significance transgressed the borders of Nigeria. 1 Achebe qtd. in Bernth Lindfors, ed., Conversations with Chinua Achebe (Jackson, MI: UP of Mississippi, 1997), 115. S NEŽANA V ULETIĆ 270 tem.” 2 African people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans; […] Their societies were not mindless but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and beauty […] They had poetry and above all, they had dignity. It is this dignity that many African people all but lost during the colonial period and it is this that they must now regain. The need to “restore the sense and fact of community” after the colonial disruption is echoed in Achebe’s essay “The Role of the Writer in a New Nation,” where he announces: 3 In light of Said’s and Achebe’s views pertaining to the dynamics between literary production and cultural context, Achebe’s novels can be defined as literary attempts at restoring the sense of ‘dignity’ to the Igbo 4 In Achebe’s understanding of the term, ‘dignity’ is intimately related to the colonised peoples’ sense of pride in their pre-colonial histories, cultures, and traditions as well as their sense of self-affirmation and agency. The colonial rule in Nigeria gravely disrupted both: it shattered the Igbo sense of pride in their histories, cultures, and traditions, and stripped the Igbo of the power of self-rule and self-representation. Accordingly, at the time of strong de-colonisation movement in and beyond literature, a restoration of the sense of ‘dignity’ meant a restoration of the indigenous peoples’ awareness of how rich and valuable their cultural legacy is. Such kind of a restoration of went hand in hand with the rise in the indigenous peoples’ political power in the nation-state in becoming as well as with the increase in their authority over how they are represented in fiction and nonfiction discourses. and as significant literary contributions to the ideological resistance against the colonial influence in Africa. While the connection between Achebe’s early fiction and the cultural context of the time has repeatedly been established, 5 2 Edward Said, “Resistance, Opposition and Representation,” The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, eds. Bill Ashcroft, Helen Tiffin and Gareth Griffiths (Oxford: Routledge, 1995), 95. there are at least two points which should still be thoroughly examined in that respect. Firstly, we ought to look closely at the specific literary strategies which Achebe employs in order to construct narratives which would have the power to restore ‘dignity’ to the Igbo. After establishing that Achebe extensively uses Igbo folklore as 3 Chinua Achebe, “The Role of the Writer in a New Nation,” African Writers on African Writing, ed. G.D. Killam (London: Heinemann, 1978), 8. 4 The Igbo are the third largest ethnic group in Nigeria, primarily inhabiting the southeastern part of the country. 5 See Simon Gikandi’s Reading Chinua Achebe: Language and Ideology in Fiction (Oxford: Heinemann: 1991); Kalu Ogbaa’s Understanding Things Fall Apart: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group 1999); and Abiola Irele’s The Cambridge Companion to the African Novel (New York: W.W. Norton & Co 2009). Constructing Alternative Narratives, Triggering Cultural Change 271 one of the most prominent literary strategies to show that African societies “were not mindless but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and beauty,” 6 we come to a second point in need of further elaboration. Namely, whereas the presence of Igbo folklore in Achebe’s early novels have been fairly well researched, 7 For that reason, this article seeks to elucidate on the use of Igbo folklore in the chosen novels and discuss how it helps the author shape narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions alternative to those constructed and promoted during the colonial rule. Such an approach to understanding the use of folklore in Achebe’s early fiction promises to also shed light on the process of literary emplotment of folklore into fictional narratives. In order to address these questions, I will draw on Bernth Lindfors’s insights about the dynamics between literary production and its context, Vera and Ansgar Nünning’s work on the functions of fiction, as well as Ashis Nandy’s, Karin Barber’s, and Carey Snyder’s work on various aspects of the use of ethnographic material (in fiction writing). the precise role of Igbo folklore in constructing alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions in these novels has not yet been fully explored. 2. Igbo Folklore, Literature, and Cultural Change: Theoretical Considerations Bernth Lindfors argues that “the new literatures in English and French that have emerged in black Africa in the twentieth century have been profoundly influenced by politics,” adding that “one could argue that they have been generated and shaped by the same forces that have transformed much of the African continent during the past hundred years.” 8 Significant as Lindfors’s claim is, it is equally important to specify how exactly early West African literature responds to its context(s). In order to understand this, I am going to consult Achebe’s intention when writing as well as his reasons for employing certain literary strategies in order to fulfil his intention. In “The Novelist as a Teacher,” Achebe overtly refers to the didactic nature of his writing: “I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially By implying that the forces of colonialism, among others, have affected literary production in Africa as much as its political and economic landscapes, Lindfors establishes an immediate link between literature and the context in which that literature was produced. 6 Chinua Achebe, 1978, 3. 7 See Bernth Lindfors, 2009; and Charles Nnolim, 1983. 8 Bernths Lindfors, “Politics, Culture, and Literary Form in Black Africa,” Colby Quarterly 15.4 (1979), 23. S NEŽANA V ULETIĆ 272 the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past - with all its imperfections - was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.” 9 In order to do that, Achebe’s early novels are dedicated, first, to deconstructing colonial representations of indigenous Igbo people and, then, constructing alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions, while one of his most prominent literary strategies employed to achieve that goal is the extensive use of Igbo folklore. Being “a space for experimenting with alternative ways of worldmaking,” Achebe’s novels are “at work in negotiating values, constructing and deconstructing knowledge, and fabricating storied versions of ‘the world’.” 10 In other words, Achebe’s novels become laboratories where alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions are fashioned, which provide “a second handle on reality” and “a way out when it becomes necessary to do so.” 11 In light of understanding fiction as a space for examining, challenging, and manipulating realities and a powerful worldmaking tool, Achebe’s statement that “if someone is in search of information, or knowledge, or enlightenment about the total life of these people - the Igbo people - [his] novels would be a good source” 12 provides only a partial insight into the significance of his early novels. Even though Achebe integrates much of Igbo ethnographic material into his fiction, his role is indeed much more than that of an ethnographer. It is thanks to Achebe’s skill of (politically engaged) imagination rather than that of ethnographic writing that he is believed to have shifted the paradigm in thinking and writing about indigenous African identities. In other words, rather than examples of ethnographic writing, Achebe’s novels are in fact much more valuable as creative endeavours which result in a construction of alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions and whose ‘fictional knowledge’ - understood as knowledge gained through fiction - has the potential to shape not only the ways to remember colonialism but also the ways to understand the nature of the colonial condition in the post-colonial age. It is in light of such insights that we may agree with Lindfors that (postcolonial African) writers assume not only the role of chroniclers of contemporary political history, but also of advocates of social and cultural change. 13 9 Chinua Achebe, “The Novelist as a Teacher,” Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (New York, NY: Anchor, 1988), 45. 10 Vera Nünning and Ansgar Nünning, “Introduction,” Cultural Ways of Worldmaking: Media and Narratives, eds. Vera Nünning, Ansgar Nünning and Birgit Neumann (Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter, 2010), 6-7. 11 Achebe qtd. in Lindfors, 1997, 168. 12 Ibid, 64. 13 Bernth Lindfors, 1979, 23. Constructing Alternative Narratives, Triggering Cultural Change 273 Having sketched the ways Achebe’s fiction could be understood as a space where alternative forms of knowledge and narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions are produced, it is worthwhile pondering the nature and value of Igbo folklore, which is ultimately made into a productive literary strategy in Achebe’s early writing. For example, as early as in 1858, colonial missionaries recognised the potential of Igbo folklore to capture and shape worldviews: “Send us as full account as possible of the people of the tribes and towns to the east (of Onisha): how far the Ibo language extends, what traditions they have, send us also specimens of their proverbs and folktales in their language.” 14 As the quote implies, indigenous Igbo folklore was used to gain knowledge about the Igbo, 15 the fact which testifies to Igbo proverbs, legends, and folktales being seen as artefacts capturing Igbo worldviews, lifestyles, and traditions. 16 Yet, apart from the potential of Igbo folklore to capture certain worldviews and lifestyles, missionaries also recognised the moral tone of indigenous Igbo proverbs, legends, myths, and folktales, consequently exploiting them for introducing new ideas and (re)shaping worldviews, both of which were at work in the process of spreading Christian messages across Igboland, for instance. 17 When speaking about folklore as employed in a fictional text, equally important as discussing its most immediate functions in the text is addressing the complexities of the process of emplotting that folklore into a literary genre. What the process of emplotment involves in this context are the processes of authorial interpretation, selection, and revision, all three of which considerably shape both the form which folklore assumes in a literary text and the role it plays in constructing fictional worlds. In specifying the dynamics between folklore as ethnographic material on the one hand and literary production on the other, Nandy’s, Barber’s, and Snyder’s views on different aspects of the use of ethnographic material (in fictional texts) are highly enlightening. Hence, it is exactly that meaningand world-making potential of Igbo folklore which makes it a suitable literary strategy in the novels which claim to be restoring the sense of ‘dignity’ to a people, as well as an important factor to analyse if we wish to shed some light on Achebe’s literary construction of alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions. Having conducted fieldwork about the transition from oral to written literature in Yorubaland (a region encompassing southwest Nigeria, Southern 14 Venn to John Christopher Taylor on January 23, 1858. Christian Missionary Society Archive, CA 3/ L1, Letter Book 1858-1882. http: / / www.ampltd.co.uk/ collections_az / CMS-4-06/ contents-of-reels.aspx 15 Helen Chukwuma, Igbo Oral Literature: Theory and Tradition (Ikot Ekpene: Belpot Nigeria Co., 1994), 7. 16 See Helen Chukwuma, 1994; Chukwuma Azuonye, 1999; Emmanuel E. Obiechina, 1975. 17 Chukwuma, 1994, 7. S NEŽANA V ULETIĆ 274 and Central Benin, and Central Togo), Barber concluded that “writing oral tradition enables cultural editing, while the writer who is ‘entextualising’ oral tradition is actually in the position to revise it.” 18 Revision includes moments of legitimising some pieces of tradition and excising the illegitimate. Also, writing down oral literature puts the writer in a relation of partial detachment from the traditions he or she inhabits, setting him or her above the tradition in the act of writing it down. 19 Nandy’s view that “each re-interpretation of tradition is a form of creating new traditions” The position of being both within oral tradition (by participating in it) and outside of it (by revising it while writing it down) accounts for the conscious manipulation of folklore which one witnesses in Achebe’s early novels. 20 echoes Barber’s findings while foregrounding the outcome of the process: the construction of the new material. Transferred to the field of fiction writing, Nandy’s assumption inevitably raises such questions as how ethnographic material is emplotted in different genres and what kind of a narrative of tradition it ultimately helps to (re-)construct. The necessary adjustments of ethnographic material to the novel genre as well as the authors’ intentions with their work shape a specific approach to that ethnographic material, which provides a basis for manipulating the narrative of tradition by manipulating its artefacts. It is precisely this creative touch given to the ethnographic material in the process of authorial interpretation and narrative emplotment which both undermines the folklore’s universality of meaning and discloses the malleability of the notion of tradition which that folklore captures. In other words, the flexibility of ethnographic material coupled with the creative process of writing fiction account for what Nandy has so neatly phrased as “a re-interpretation of tradition as a form of constructing new traditions,“ 21 Snyder’s sobering discussion against reading Achebe’s novels as purely ethnographic narratives is in line with Nandy’s and Barber’s arguments. Snyder states that Achebe’s own ambivalent attitude towards the indigenous traditions, his subject position as having experienced just one (or some) of the many forms of Igbo culture, and his political agenda behind the novel all influence the way he interprets and treats Igbo ethnographic material in his novels. Therefore, to “uncover the complexities in the narrative voice we need to read the novel not naïvely as providing a clear window onto an alien the process arguably at work in Achebe’s early novels, too. 18 Karin Barber, ed., Africa’s Hidden Histories: Everyday Literacy and Making the Self (Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 2006), 19. 19 Ibid. 20 Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford UP, 1983), xvii-xviii. 21 Ibid. Constructing Alternative Narratives, Triggering Cultural Change 275 culture, but meta-ethnographically, in a way that attends to the complexity inherent in any ethnographic situation.” 22 Departing from the theoretical insights outlined in this section, the following two sections explore the functions which Igbo folklore performs in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, what is involved in the process of literary emplotment of Igbo folklore into the two novels, as well as how alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions as constructed in Achebe’s novels may be thought of as triggers of cultural change. Taking into account Barber and Nandy’s findings, the complexity inherent in the ethnographic situation in Achebe’s early fiction is the additional layer of meaning that Igbo ethnographic material acquires in the process of being re-interpreted, selected, and emplotted into his novels. Authorial interpretation, selection, and revision processes render ethnographic material a layer of literariness other than that already inherent to it, thus transforming Achebe’s narratives into alternative narratives rather than mirror images of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions. 3. Functions of Igbo Folklore and the Construction of Alternative Narratives in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Arrow of God (1964) When analysing the functions of Igbo folklore in Achebe’s early fiction, one is reminded of Lindfors’ seminal essay “The Palm Oil with which Achebe’s Words are Eaten,” 23 in which he outlines major functions of Igbo proverbs in Achebe’s early novels. “Achebe’s proverbs,” states Lindfors, “can serve as keys to an understanding of his novels because he uses them […] to sound and reiterate themes, to sharpen characterisation, to clarify conflict, and to focus on the values of the society he is portraying.” 24 However, I wish to suggest a) that other forms of Igbo folklore, such as folktales and legends, 25 22 Carey Snyder, “The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Ethnographic Readings,” College Literature 35.2 (2008): 157. perform identical functions in Achebe’s fiction as those ascribed by Lindfors to proverbs, and b) that Lindfors’ list ought to be extended by those functions of Igbo folklore which speak most overtly to Achebe’s intentional construction of alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions - the 23 Bernth Lindfors, “The Palm Oil with which Achebe’s Words are Eaten,” Early Achebe, Bernth Lindfors (Trenton, NJ and Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, 2009), 51-75. 24 Ibid, 56. 25 Although, as Jack Berry and Richard Spears note in West African Folktales, classification and definition of West African oral storytelling has posed problems from the outset of the study of verbal art (1991, ix), for the purposes of this article folktales are understood folktales as purely fictional narratives while legends as narratives based on some real historical personages or events. S NEŽANA V ULETIĆ 276 functions of folklore to capture and shape worldviews, respectively. (Re-) examining the above-mentioned functions of Igbo folklore is significant in so far as it ultimately sheds light on the nature and power of Achebe’s alternative narratives in his early novels. Firstly, while Lindfors shows that Igbo proverbs sound and reiterate themes, 26 Arrow of God also contains one such story which functions as a parable of Ezeulu’s most controversial decision to send one of his sons to learn Christianity, an act which eventually undermines both his reputation and his authority in the clan. Namely, in reference to a question why he sends his son to a Christian school, Ezeulu reminds his friend of a legend about their ancestors who “when pushed beyond the end of things by the warriors of Abam, sacrificed not a stranger but one of themselves.” I maintain that the same could be claimed for certain Igbo folktales and legends in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, respectively. For instance, an Igbo folktale about a bird and a tortoise, stretching across three pages in chapter eleven in Things Fall Apart, functions as a paradigm for the major topic in the novel - namely, Okonkwo’s rise and fall as a respected member of the Umuofia community. The folktale is strategically placed between chapter ten, where it is shown that Okonkwo has occupied the second highest position in his village, and chapter thirteen, which speaks of his exile from the village. The fact that the folktale itself thematizes a sudden rise and fall of its own protagonist implicitly announces Okonkwo’s own fate. 27 Secondly, Achebe employs Igbo proverbs to sharpen characterisation, In Ezeulu’s perception of his immediate world, his community is “pushed beyond the end of things” by the great force of the colonial disruption. In order not to get disoriented in the midst of the radical change, Ezeulu “sacrifices” one of his sons to the new religion which is perceived as an embodiment of the new cultural and political order. 28 the same of which could also be demonstrated for certain examples of Igbo folktales in Arrow of God and legends in Things Fall Apart. Taking our cue from Ker’s argument that the village of Umuaro in Achebe’s Arrow of God should be treated as a character in its own right, 29 the Igbo folktale which Achebe employs to describe the village of Umuaro indeed serves to sharpen its characterisation: “Umuaro had grown wise and strong in its own conceit and had become like the little bird, nza, who ate and drank and challenged his personal god to single combat.” 30 26 Ibid, 56. In Things Fall Apart, it is the character of 27 Chinua Achebe, The African Trilogy (New York, NY et al.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 420. 28 Lindfors, 2009, 56. 29 David I. Ker, The African novel and the modernist tradition (New York et al.: Peter Lang, 1997), 132. 30 Achebe, 2010, 333. Constructing Alternative Narratives, Triggering Cultural Change 277 Okonkwo which is often characterised through associations with Igbo legends. In fact, at the very onset of the novel, Okonkwo’s success in wrestling Amalinze the Cat, whose “back would never touch the earth,” leads to an agreement among the old men of the clan that Okonkwo’s wrestling match “was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights.” 31 Thirdly, while Lindfors finds that Igbo proverbs serve to clarify conflicts in Achebe’s early novels, Employing a legend to characterise Okonkwo simultaneously informs the readers about Okonkwo’s physical advantage over his clansmen and announces the place he himself would earn in the chronicles of his Igbo community at the end of the novel. 32 the same could be stated about Igbo folktales in Arrow of God and Things Fall Apart. For instance, one major aspect of the character of Ezeulu in Arrow of God is the conflict inherent to his role as the Chief Priest of Ulu. Ezeulu is often unsure about the scope of his personal power in comparison to that given to him by the god of Ulu, and that conflict is made explicit at the very opening of the novel. At first, Ezeulu admits that, whenever he thinks about “the immensity of his power over the year and the crops,” he realizes that “he [is] merely a watchman,” 33 an arrow in the hand of his god. Yet, Ezeulu’s uncertainty (and perhaps uneasiness, too) in the face of such a thought leads him to immediately add: “No! The Chief Priest of Ulu was more than that, must be more than that.” 34 It is that internal conflict that is additionally explained by means of an Igbo folktale about a child who has power over a goat which is said to be his: “As long as the goat was alive it could be his; he would find it food and take care of it. But the day it [is] slaughtered he would know soon enough who the real owner was.” 35 In Things Fall Apart, the character of Nwoye is made to epitomise the conflict between an indigenous Igbo religion and Christianity. Interestingly enough, even before that conflict is made central to the character of Nwoye, Achebe provides a hint at it very early in the novel, by explaining what kind of folktales Nwoye finds appealing. It is such folktales as the one about “the quarrel between Earth and Sky” which got into an argument because “Sky withheld rain for seven years; ” “at last the Vulture was sent to plead with the Sky, and to soften his heart with a song of the suffering of the sons of men.” Such a folktale indirectly clarifies Ezeulu’s internal conflict, making explicit that Ezeulu’s power is of a similar nature to the power of the child: Ezeulu is in charge of it in the name of his god, rather than truly owning it. 36 31 Ibid, 5. 32 Lindfors, 2009, 56. 33 Achebe, 2010, 293. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid, 40. S NEŽANA V ULETIĆ 278 Even this short section of the entire folktale already contains certain elements which would be made central to Nwoye’s choice of Christianity over an indigenous Igbo religion. Namely, as with the folktale, Nwoye would be attracted to Christianity because of the melody of its hymns and the narrative of human suffering, which speaks to Nwoye’s own grief over the tragic fate of his brother Ikemefuna. Finally, Igbo proverbs provide a “grammar of values” by which the deeds of Achebe’s characters can be measured. 37 Yet, it is also Igbo legends and folktales which perform an identical function in Arrow of God and Things Fall Apart, respectively. For example, in Arrow of God, Ezeulu tells a legend about a bird to his son Oduche: “I am like the bird Eneke-nti-oba. When his friends asked him why he was always on the wing he replied: ‘Men of today have learned to shoot without missing and so I have learned to fly without perching’.” 38 The folktale foregrounds the need for flexibility in the face of change, which is what the novel investigates from various angles through its diverse characters. In Things Fall Apart, it is Igbo folktales which predominantly serve to prescribe a code of conduct to the characters. For example, such folktales as those about a bird and a tortoise 39 as well as about Mother and Daughter Kite 40 Before we proceed to discussing how the above-listed functions of Igbo folklore shape Achebe’s alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions, it is pertinent to examine the functions of Igbo folklore to capture and shape worldviews. It is these two functions which most overtly demonstrate the power of folklore and its specific role in the construction of (fictional) worlds. condemn cheating and gluttony in the case of the former, and the lack of peaceful conversation in the case of the latter. It is the implicit messages about the respectable ways of behaving which such legends and folktales convey that not only shape the characters behaviour in the novels but also trigger the readers’ approval and disapproval of those characters who obey or fail to abide the communal rules of behaviour. The capacity of Igbo folklore to remember indigenous Igbo worldviews and lifestyles is reflected in its role as a record-keeping device and a mode of preserving knowledge and information. For instance, in Achebe’s novels, some Igbo legends behave as informal accounts of historical events. In Things Fall Apart, the narrator summarizes the rise of Umuofia to prominence by means of a legend about the power of Umuofia’s war-medicine, which was “as old as the clan itself.” 41 37 Lindfors, 2009, 56. While nobody knew how old the medicine was, 38 Achebe, 2010, 333. 39 Ibid, 67-70. 40 Ibid, 98-99. 41 Ibid, 10. Constructing Alternative Narratives, Triggering Cultural Change 279 “there was a general agreement - the active principle in that medicine had been an old woman with one leg,” whose shrine was “in the centre of Umuofia, in a cleared spot” and “if anyone was so foolhardy as to pass by the shrine after dusk he was sure to see the old woman hopping about.” 42 In Arrow of God, a character called Akukalia also resorts to telling a legend when he sets out to explain how the great Eke market came into being. Interestingly enough, an old woman plays a central role in Akukalia’s legend, too, appearing in the market place “with a broom in her right hand and [dancing] round vast open space beckoning with her broom in all directions of the earth and drawing folk from every land” 43 However, by integrating Igbo folklore in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, Achebe does much more than simply invoking Igbo worldviews and lifestyles: Igbo folklore is also employed to shape worldviews of Achebe’s characters and readers. In light of that, it is worth examining those Igbo folktales and legends which serve as a mode of informal education, by first addressing those which are directed at Achebe’s fictional characters and then those intended to trigger changes in the ways Achebe’s readers conceptualise African (pre-colonial) worlds. to come to the market. Such examples are testimonies to the power of Igbo folklore to narrate events from the communal past and - through remembering that past - to nourish, strengthen, and validate the sense of communal belonging and identity. In Things Fall Apart, the narrator points to a difference between male and female stories only to emphasize the importance of Okonkwo’s male stories “about tribal wars, or how, years ago, he had stalked his victim, overpowered him and obtained his first human head” 44 in his son Nwoye’s maturing into “a great farmer and a great man.” 45 Another example is a folktale about Mother Kite and her daughter who eventually learns that “there is something ominous behind the silence,” 46 42 Ibid. told in reference to a clan of Abame which was wiped out by the coloniser after some members of a clan killed one a white man before any form of communication was established between them. In Arrow of God, Ezeulu tells his community a legend about a “great wrestler whose back had never known the ground,” who then decided to “wrestle in the land of the spirits, and became a champion there as well,” and after he beat every spirit that came forward, the wrestler “gave a challenge to the spirits to bring out their best and strongest wrestler […] So they sent him his personal god, a little wiry spirit who seized him with one hand and 43 Ibid, 308. 44 Ibid, 40. 45 Ibid, 25. 46 Ibid, 99. S NEŽANA V ULETIĆ 280 smashed him on the stony earth.” 47 While Achebe employs folktales as a means of educating his characters, it is Igbo proverbs - in particular those which speak about change - that assume a similar role in shaping readers’ worldviews. For instance, when in Things Fall Apart Achebe writes that “the clan was like a lizard, if it lost its tail it soon grew another,” Ezeulu tells this legend in order to remind his clansmen that one ought to obey the rights assigned to them within certain roles in a clan, thus alluding to a clansman who transgressed the rights within his position as a messenger and ultimately got killed in a neighbouring village. 48 he in fact emphasizes the inevitable processes of regeneration and construction which follow a destructive (or disruptive) event. In Arrow of God we find yet another proverb which equally masterfully shapes the readers’ understanding of change: “The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well you do not stand in one place.” 49 What all of the above-discussed usages of Igbo folklore ultimately do is shape Achebe’s narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions. The vast variety of Igbo folklore that Achebe weaves into his novels presents Igbo culture as incredibly rich. Furthermore, the fact that Achebe uses Igbo folklore to add touches of local colour to his fictional worlds portrays his Igbo culture and traditions as highly localised and specific in their nature and form. Also, the author’s playing with the communal wisdom inherent to Igbo folklore in order to sharpen characterisation renders the Igbo culture in his novels with a peculiar kind of shrewdness and philosophical profundity, whereas the employment of Igbo folklore to establish a set of values in Achebe’s Igbo communities portrays Igbo philosophies of life and conduct as utterly developed. Not any less important is Achebe’s use of Igbo folklore as historical accounts, which allows him to depict Igbo histories as long and complex. Finally, the integration of Igbo folklore as a source of education In this case, Achebe underlines the notions of flexibility and adaptability to change. By means of such proverbs, Achebe does much more than merely share indigenous Igbo wisdom with his readers. Instead, he suggests ways to rationalise and cope with change and difference, both that occurring within and beyond the novels in question. Achebe’s obvious insistence on the process of regeneration after destruction/ disruption and his emphasis on flexibility in the face of perpetual change in African communities bear the potential to change the (Western) readers’ ways of understanding Igbo/ African colonial histories as well as their pre-colonial cultures and traditions from thinking about them as static and simple to thinking about them as equally resilient, malleable, complex, and rich as the Western ones. 47 Ibid, 315. 48 Ibid, 121. 49 Ibid, 365. Constructing Alternative Narratives, Triggering Cultural Change 281 presents Igbo systems of education in Achebe’s novels as very influential, creative, and elaborate. Such a portrayal of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions provides an alternative narrative of indigenous African worlds to those available in colonial(ist) literature, challenging its representations of Africa as a ‘blank slate,’ of African cultures and traditions as simple-minded and illogical, and of indigenous Africans as ‘half-Devils, half-children.’ 50 4. The Process of Emplotting Igbo Folklore and Alternative Narratives in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God While countering and debunking colonial(ist) portrayals of African worlds, Achebe’s alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions simultaneously offer a more dignifying representation of African pasts, give agency to African actors at the time of colonialism, and provide tools which arguably have the power to restore the sense of ‘dignity’ to the Igbo (and by implication, to other colonised peoples across Africa) after devastating colonial experiences. Although the nature of Achebe’s early writing might at first appear to be an uncomplicated matter which does not deserve much reflection per se, Snyder’s plea to readers and literary scholars to take into serious consideration the “complexities of any ethnographic situation” 51 Firstly, Achebe’s critical stance towards Igbo culture is traceable both in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. When in Things Fall Apart a character named Obierika questions the Igbo custom of throwing away twins by askforegrounds several issues which inform Achebe’s treatment of Igbo folklore and, by further implication, considerably shape Achebe’s narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions. In Snyder’s view, Achebe’s own ambivalent attitude towards indigenous traditions, his subject position as being familiar with just some of the many forms of Igbo culture, and his political agenda behind the novel should be taken into serious consideration when trying to understand the nature of Achebe’s early writing. Since, as demonstrated so far, Achebe’s emplotment of Igbo folklore as ethnographic material is tightly related to his construction of alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions, I now proceed to show how the three factors which Snyder delineates as significant in the process of Achebe’s early writing inform Achebe’s treatment of Igbo folklore and shape his alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. 50 Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden,” http: / / historymatters.gmu.edu/ d/ 5478/ . 51 Snyder, 2008, 157. S NEŽANA V ULETIĆ 282 ing what crime they had committed to deserve it, 52 a critical examination of the Igbo custom is inevitably triggered. Yet, figuring as a just, obedient, and honourable member of the Umuofia community, Obierika immediately explains that “the Earth had decreed that [the twins] were an offence on the land and must be destroyed” and that “if the clan did not exact punishment for an offence against the great goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender.” 53 In Arrow of God, Achebe’s critical examination of Igbo culture is traceable in the recurrent comments by his character-focalisers about a diachronic change in culture. For instance, several times throughout the novel, Ezeulu criticises a radical change in understanding and performing Igbo culture in temporal terms, by employing such phrases as “if the world had been what it was” By means of foregrounding the laws which underlie the custom in question through a character of high moral standing and reputation in the clan, Achebe seems to subtly discourage his readers from simple-minded accusation and moral judgement of the Igbo custom. Instead, the questioning of Igbo custom as present in Things Fall Apart is valuable for it highlights the overall intention of Achebe’s early novels: to show the (pre-colonial) African worlds in all their complexity by revealing, for instance, that they consist of both unquestionably positive and admirable aspects as much as of those which raise concern. And perhaps more importantly, questioning indigenous custom in Achebe’s fiction testifies to the presence of highly valuable forces of interrogation coming from within the custom itself, which more often than not account for gradual modifications or an ultimate abandonment of a given custom. 54 and stating that an unfinished homestead upon a new wife’s arrival “does not trouble the present age.” 55 Another character, Akukalia, negatively evokes changes across generations in the way they perform Igbo culture, when he says that “things like this would have never happened when I was a young man, to say nothing of the days of my father.” 56 What Achebe’s investigatory stance towards Igbo culture implies is an equally critical treatment of Igbo folklore as an integral element of that culture. Such critical treatment of Igbo folklore means specific processes of authorial interpretation, selection, and revision being at work. As Barber ex- Rather than arguments in favour of equating the author’s opinion with that of his characterfocalisers, the examples discussed are significant because they demonstrate the author’s awareness of the dynamics of change in Igbo culture and his intention to address it in various ways and from various angles in his fiction. 52 Achebe, 2010, 87. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid, 341. 55 Ibid, 302. 56 Ibid, 309. Constructing Alternative Narratives, Triggering Cultural Change 283 plains, what enables the processes of conscious selection and revision of Igbo folklore is “a relation of partial detachment” of the author from the traditions he or she inhabits. 57 Indeed, Achebe himself acknowledges the state of inbetweenness when he says that “[he] was brought up in a village where the old ways were still active and alive, so [he] could see the remains of [Igbo] tradition actually operating.” 58 He adds: “At the same time I brought a certain amount of detachment to it too, because my father was a Christian missionary, and we were not fully part of ‘heathen’ life of the village. It was divided into the people of the Church and the people of the ‘world’. I think it was easier for me to observe.” 59 Secondly, although detailed descriptions of the many aspects of Igbo culture, such as religion, philosophy, education, ceremonies, and the ways market functions, project an image of Igbo culture in its totality, Achebe does not fail to allude to a vast variety of forms in which Igbo culture offers itself to those investigating it. While it has already been demonstrated how, in Arrow of God, the notion of difference is portrayed in relation to a temporal dimension, in Things Fall Apart the notion of cultural difference is related to a spatial dimension by placing difference across geographical space in focus. For instance, on several occasions in Things Fall Apart, Achebe’s characters discuss cultural difference among Igbo tribes, mentioning those where, unlike in Achebe’s Igbo community, “it is an abomination for a man to die during the Week of Peace,” In reality, instead of assuming a position of an ethnographer who is simply “observing,“ that is, recording and quoting Igbo folklore in his narratives, a conscious selection and revision of Igbo folklore turns Achebe into an active (and creative) participant in (re)constructing the notions of Igbo history, culture, and tradition in part shaped by that very folklore. Achebe’s simultaneous involvement and detachment from indigenous Igbo traditions indeed lends him the power to manipulate that ethnographic material and - in Nandy’s sense of the phrase ‘re-interpreting tradition’ - use it as building blocks to construct alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions in his fiction. It is that fact which undoubtedly discourages one from treating Achebe’s narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions as faithful portrayals of the Igbo world but as its artistic and speculative (re)constructions. 60 “a man of title is not forbidden to climb the palm tree,” 61 and where people “haggle and bargain” for a bride. 62 57 Barber, 2006, 19. Ultimately, a character 58 Achebe qtd. in Lindfors, 1997, 18. 59 Ibid. 60 Achebe, 2010, 145. 61 Ibid, 5. 62 Ibid, 53. S NEŽANA V ULETIĆ 284 named Uchendu concludes that “the world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.” 63 The ways in which the issue of cultural difference is portrayed in Arrow of God and Things Fall Apart, thus, help to revise the view that Achebe’s Igbo world is a world depicted in its totality, both in a spatial and a temporal sense. Achebe’s exposure to a limited set of forms which Igbo culture has assumed across time and space arguably causes an equally limited exposure to the many forms of Igbo folklore. By means of implication, Achebe’s alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions - largely shaped by the limited exposure to and the careful selection of items from that folklore - arguably exist as forever incomplete literary representations of an Igbo world, rather than reliable and complete ethnographic accounts of the Igbo world in its totality. Finally, Achebe’s political agenda shapes his alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions in at least two ways. On the one hand, the author’s intention to restore ‘dignity’ to the Igbo leads to long and detailed descriptions of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions, as well as to an elaborate psychological composition of his protagonists in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. Therefore, while as much as one third of Things Fall Apart is dedicated to unusually exhaustive descriptions of Igbo historical and cultural setting, a substantial portion of Arrow of God is informed by Ezeulu’s peculiar interior world. Such extensive and informative descriptions of Igbo internal and external worlds have a clear political goal: They serve as an antithesis to reluctant, over-simplified, and/ or reductive colonial representations of indigenous African worlds as those depicted in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) or Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson (1939). On the other hand, Achebe’s descriptions of Igbo exterior and interior worlds contain an abundance of Igbo proverbs, legends, myths, and folktales, whose function, as already mentioned, is both aesthetic - dedicated to developing the sense of the Igbo art of conversation - and utilitarian - in that they are selected in such a way so as to fulfil the author’s intention to restore ‘dignity’ to the Igbo. Let us now consider an example of an overtly utilitarian function of the Igbo proverbs which speak about ‘difference’ being accepted as ‘a fact of life’ in both Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. Namely, in Things Fall Apart, Obierika’s eldest brother says that “what is good in one place is bad in another place,” 64 while Ezeulu from Arrow of God teaches his children that “there must be good people and bad people, honest workers and thieves, peacemakers and destroyers […] In such a place, whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.” 65 63 Ibid, 99. Such proverbs tell the 64 Ibid, 53. 65 Ibid, 365. Constructing Alternative Narratives, Triggering Cultural Change 285 story of Igbo cultures and traditions as being welcoming to difference, thereby standing in opposition to the colonial narratives which tended to homogenise religious and linguistic diversity as well as economic and political systems among the indigenous peoples in Nigeria/ Igboland. Hence, it is by means of such a careful choice of Igbo folklore and a serious consideration of the narratives they trigger that Achebe’s stories of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions gradually grow into those that revise colonial(ist) narratives of indigenous Igbo peoples, history, and cultures, and have the potential to restore the sense of ‘dignity’ to the (formerly) colonised peoples. By means of a brief discussion of the three factors shaping Achebe’s early writing, I hope to have demonstrated why Achebe’s alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions cannot be read as ethnographic accounts of the Igbo world in its totality, but as incomplete and speculative fictional narratives. Or, if they were to be read as windows into the Igbo world, it can only be done so bearing in mind the distorted glass in the window pane, whereby the distortion is caused by a creative manipulation of Igbo folklore, an inherent literariness of a fictional text, and an explicit politicised intention on the part of the author. 5. Concluding Remarks Achebe’s reputation as one of the most influential early postcolonial African writers 66 The use of Igbo folklore, the stories it tells, and those it helps shape are of central importance to Achebe’s construction of alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions. I hope to have demonstrated that precisely because of, rather than in spite of, the factors such as authorial interpretation, selection, and revision of Igbo folklore involved in the process of its emplotment into a fictional work, Achebe’s narratives contain the potential to ‘alter’ reality. By investigating and challenging Igbo reality through its artefacts, Achebe ultimately constructs narratives which not only reflect but also comment in most creative ways on the political and cultural contexts which inform them. is, in part, accounted for by the power of his fiction. In this article, I argued that this power resides in Achebe’s alternative narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions as constructed in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. The complexity of Achebe’s narratives of Igbo history, cultures, and traditions, their telling depictions of colonial and indigenous influences intertwining and layering, as well as their bold unveiling of the various forms of colo- 66 See Catherine Lynette Innes, 1990; Bernth Lindfors, 1997; Carole Davies, 2008; and Terry Ochiagha, 2015. S NEŽANA V ULETIĆ 286 nial violence severely challenge the reductive and utterly misleading colonial narratives about the colonial contact and the colonised Other. As such, Achebe’s narratives promise an escape from repressive colonial discourses and narratives, teach and/ or remind the (formerly) colonised peoples of the grandeur of their pre-colonial history, and inspire new ways of remembering the past, thinking about the present, and envisioning the future. It is through such a potential that Achebe’s fiction can restore the sense of ‘dignity’ to the (formerly) colonised peoples and figure as a powerful literary tool in the ideological resistance to the effects of colonisation. Constructing Alternative Narratives, Triggering Cultural Change 287 Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. The African Trilogy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. ---. “The Novelist as a Teacher.” Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays. New York: Anchor, 1988. 40-46. ---. “The Role of the Writer in a New Nation.” African Writers on African Writing. Ed. G.D. Killam. London: Heinemann, 1978. 7-13. Azuonye, Chukwuma. “Igbo Stories and Storytelling.” Traditional Storytelling Today: An International Sourcebook. Ed. Margaret Read MacDonald. Chicago and London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999. 33-40. Barber, Karin, ed. Africa’s Hidden Histories: Everyday Literacy and Making the Self. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 2006. Berry, Jack, and Richard Spears. West African Folktales. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1991. Christian Missionary Society Archive. Part 6/ Reel 97. CA 3/ L1, Letter Book 1858-1882. http: / / www.ampltd.co.uk/ collections_az/ CMS-4-06/ contents-of-reels.aspx. Chukwuma, Helen. Igbo Oral Literature: Theory and Tradition. Ikot Ekpene: Belpot Nigeria Co., 1994. Davies, E.B. Carole, ed. Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2008. Gikandi, Simon. Reading Chinua Achebe: Language and Ideology in Fiction. Oxford: Heinemann, 1991. Innes, L. Catherine. Chinua Achebe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990. Irele, Abiola. Things Fall Apart: Authoritative Text, Contexts and Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2009. Ker, I. David. The African Novel and the Modernist Tradition. New York et al.: Peter Lang, 1997. Kipling, Rudyard. “The White Man’s Burden.” historymatters. Web. 3 April. 2016. http: / / historymatters.gmu.edu/ d/ 5478/ . Lindfors, Bernth, ed. Conversations with Chinua Achebe. Jackson, MI: UP of Mississippi, 1997. ---. “The Palm Oil with which Achebe’s Words are Eaten.” Early Achebe. Trenton, NJ/ Asmara, Eritrea: African World Press, 2009. 51-75. ---. “Politics, Culture, and Literary Form in Black Africa.” Colby Quarterly, 15.4 (1979): 240-251. Nandy, Ashis. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1983. Nnolim, E. Charles. “The Form and Function of the Folk Tradition in Achebe’s Novels.” Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, 14.1 (1983): 35-47. Nünning, Ansgar, and Vera Nünning. “Introduction.” Cultural Ways of Worldmaking. Media and Narratives. Eds. Ansgar Nünning, Vera Nünning, and Birgit Neumann. Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter, 2010. 1-25. Obiechina, E. Emmanuel. Culture, Tradition, and Society in the West African Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1975. Ochiagha, Terry. Achebe and Friends at Umuofia: The Making of a Literary Elite. Rochester, NY: James Currey, 2015. S NEŽANA V ULETIĆ 288 Ogbaa, Kalu. Understanding Things Fall Apart: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999. Said, Edward. “Resistance, Opposition and Representation.” The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Eds. Bill Ashcroft, Helen Tiffin, and Gareth Griffiths. Oxford: Routledge, 1995. 95-98. Snyder, Carey. “The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Ethnographic Readings.” College Literature, 35.2 (2008): 154-174.