Essay on Colonialism: Comparisons Between Things Fall Apart and Historical Accounts

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Nigerian Women and Colonialism: Comparisons Between Things Fall Apart and Historical Accounts.

Chinua Achebe is arguably the best known African writer of the twentieth century. And more than any other writer, he has shaped the world's idea of what African literature is. As Rose Mezu states, "Things Fall Apart is significant because it began the vogue of African novels of cultural contact and conflict" (Mezu 1). This is a highly influential position for a single writer. So what was Achebe's purpose in writing his novels? What does he hope to accomplish? According to Cora Agatucci's summary of Achebe's essay, "The Novelist as Teacher," she writes, " Achebe describes a dual mission to educate both African and European readers, to reinstate a sense of pride in African cultures and 'to help my society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of years of denigration and self-abasement'" (Agatucci). So Achebe's purpose for writing is to overcome the stereotypes of Western readers that Africans are primitive savages with no sense of culture or history, and to combat the internalization of these stereotypes by his fellow countrymen. So where does Achebe's purpose for writing his novels leave women and are the gender roles as described in Things Fall Apart culturally accurate? Before this question can be accurately be answered; gender roles both in history and in Achebe's novel must be addressed. Specifically, what roles did men and women play in society in all three stages of Nigeria's more recent history?

In the last 200 years of Nigeria's history, there have been basically three distinct phases in government: pre-colonial rule overall by Muslims (there were some tribes unaffected by this rule), colonial r...

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...~womanist/1995/mezu.html

"Nigeria." Encarta Encyclopedia. 3 July 2001. http://encarta.msn.com/find/concise.asp? mod=1&ti=761557915&page=2

"Nigeria." U.S. Department of State, Human rights Reports for 1999. 30 June 2001. http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1999_hrp_report/nigeria.html

Ogunsuyi, Austin. "Women in Africa." African Cultures Page. 30 June 2001. http://africancultures.about.com/culture/african cultures/library/weekly/ aa011401a.htm

Rojas, Maria. "Women in Colonial Nigeria." African Postcolonial Literature in English in the Postcolonial Web Page. 30 June 2001. http://landow.stg.brown.edu/ post/nigeria/colonwom.html

----- "Women in Pre-Colonial Nigeria." African Postcolonial Literature in English in the Postcolonial Web Page. 30 June 2001. http://landow.stg.brown.edu/ post/nigeria/precolwon.html

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