Looking Again at How Achebe’s Works Are Interpreted

 by Ohikhuare Isuku

I recently reread Chinua Achebe’s masterpiece – Arrow of God – after about a decade. The revelations from the novel were by far more nuance and clearer than they were a decade ago. As I finished the last word, a notion about Achebe’s work I had held for over a decade based on reviews by foreign and local reviewers alike suddenly fell apart. The truth is that Achebe’s work didn’t actually elevate the Igbo cultural norms. Instead, it portrayed the inefficacies and inferiority of the Igbo customs and traditions and then clashed these customs and traditions together with that of the Whiteman.

In every scenario in Achebe’s works, the Whiteman’s ways triumphed above the indigenous culture. For instance in Things Fall Apart, Achebe portrays how the Whiteman first enters Umuofia and conquers the stubborn clan, making Okonkwo – the book’s hero – to hang himself. In Arrow of God also, Achebe portrays a weakened system already subdued by the colonial government of the early twentieth century. The people of Umuaro do not resist the authority of Captain Winterbottom. Not even Ezeulu, the great Chief Priest of Ulu, dares resists on a second thought when Captain Winterbottom summons him. But there is one thing Umuaro do not let go of their culture– their regard for their deities and festivities. In a way, Achebe finds way to picture these deities and festivities ineffective, and thus proclaims the triumph of the European religion – Christianity.  

            I bear no ill against Achebe for writing things the way he saw them. I respect the literally icon immensely for the great wits in his books. Somehow, I do bear some hidden resentments against some retrogressive African customs and traditions still in existence today. But my confusion is this: why did Western critics of Achebe’s Trilogy feel he was upholding the culture of his Igbo people in his work? Why didn’t they interpret the books the way they had read them?

            I have found one answer to this puzzle. They were simply hiding away the obvious. The Western critics loved Achebe’s trilogy because they spoke in their favor. In a way that Achebe perhaps didn’t realize, these books add credence to how mighty and reverend the Whiteman’s power was in the days of African conquest.

The question now is: Why did the western critic fail to review these books as they were starkly? Achebe’s books appeared in an era of mass protests against racism across Africa, America and elsewhere. Book critics who were feigning liberal views at that time may not have wanted to interpret the books as they were. Yet they wanted the books to be popular even though they didn’t want it to look as if they were portraying Western culture above African culture. Thus, they may have decided to praise Achebe’s work for its rich African language content rather the message it actually passed. Once this interpretation was popular, it became the definitive interpretation that even African critics bought into. In any case, the popularity of Achebe’s trilogy became a triumph for Western culture in disguise.

 

 

Ohikhuare Isuku.