UGRC 160 – Introduction to Literature SESSION 5

Session Objectives At the end of the session, the student will Gain a better appreciation of what the novel is and how it works. Appreciate the complexity of the novel and how it “complicates” each element of the narrative discussed in the earlier session of Short-Fiction. Understand the Historical antecedents and implications of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Gain a better insight or understanding of Achebe’s arguments in “The Novelist as Teacher.”

The Novel – Part 1 –Some Formal Characteristics What is a Novel? An invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience, usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. A fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes.

Formal Characteristics of the Novel For an understanding of the formal features or characteristics of the Novel, please re-visit Session Slides on the Elements of Short-Fiction (i.e. Plot, Character, Setting, Point of View, Theme, Style). However, there is some noticeable distinction/difference in how these elements operate in Short-Fiction and the Novel. As a comparatively longer prose work, the Novel form complicates or shows some peculiarities in its representation of the Prose elements.

THE NOVEL THINGS FALL APART

Understanding the Historical Antecedents and Contemporary socio-cultural relevance of Chinua Achebe’s Text Stereotypes and the Problem of Negative Portrayals of the African Continent and Her Peoples

What do you think is Wrong with these Portrayals of Africa and her people? The colonialist agenda of stereotyping the African continent and labelling the continent and her people as backward, starving, unenlightened people seems to recur in contemporary depictions of the Continent. This agenda of telling the African story in a way that mutilates or distorts Africa’s image is one of the issues that underpins Achebe’s literary production.

CONTEXT – History Meets Fiction While it offers a certain perspective on colonial history, Things Fall Apart is not strictly a historical novel. Historical novels, by definition, fictionalize historic events and bring them to life with invented details, characters, dialogue, etc. And while Things Fall Apart does situate itself within a specific historical context (Nigeria at the moment of colonization), it does not attempt to recreate actual events or re-characterize historical figures.

In other words, while it is engaged with the historical theme of colonialism in Nigeria and Igbo culture, it is wholly fiction. The novel seems to be set in the 1890’s, but was first published in 1958, 2 years before Nigeria’s Independence. So, the novel is not wholly historical or contemporary, even though it may help us understand issues relating to the past and what pertains in present time.

“The last four or five hundred years of European contact with Africa produced a body of literature that presented Africa in a very bad light and Africans in very lurid terms. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery. … This continued until the Africans themselves, in the middle of the twentieth century, took into their own hands the telling of their story.” (Chinua Achebe, “An African Voice”, The Atlantic)

INSERT VIDEO OF CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE’S “THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY

The Three “C’s”- Why They (Europeans) Came Commerce – One of the crucial factors that influenced the presence of Europeans in Africa was Trade. Civilization – Europeans, with a preconceived notion of the superiority of their culture, felt they had a duty to “civilize” the rest of the world. Christianity – Europeans assumed that everything that originated from Africa was inherently backward and inferior to the European way. Thus, they had as an objective, “Christianizing” the African continent, and “saving” them from their idolatrous religions.