A POSTMODERN AND POSTCOLONIAL ANALYSIS OF NIGERIAN LITERATURE

By

MICHELLE JAMES

Integrated Studies Project

submitted to Dr. Joseph Pivato and Dr. Mark McCutcheon

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts – Integrated Studies

Athabasca, Alberta

August, 2010

Table of Contents

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………. 3

The Theories……………………………………………………………………………. 4

Postmodernism and Postcolonialism as Literary Theory………………………………. 6

The Destabilizing Effect of Religion and Law………………………………………… 11

Using English to Reclaim a Native Voice……………………………………………… 14

Rebuilding the Cultural Identity……………………………………………………...… 25

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….... 29

Introduction

Postcolonial Nigerian writers have reshaped their country’s national identity. The

techniques they have employed to do so can be identified by analyzing their works from

postmodern and postcolonial perspectives. These perspectives allow us to see that the

writers compel their readers to change their worldview by calling into question the

underlying assumptions about their traditional culture and their colonial legacy.

Ultimately, postcolonial Nigerian authors sought to change the way in which Nigerians

saw themselves, so that they could envisage themselves as an empowered people whose

cultural knowledge is a pragmatic combination of indigenous and British beliefs and

values.

This paper will examine works by Chinua Achebe, Sefi Atta and Chimamanda Adichie

and explore the techniques they use to change how Nigerians see their place in the world.

Since their endeavour was to change the world-view of Nigerians, I will use postmodern

theory as a starting point, as its focus is the examination of the assumptions that underlie

what we think that we know. Of the tools that postmodern theory provides, none is more

applicable to the postcolonial context than the postmodern paradox (Hutcheon 4). The

paradox consists in the contradiction of comparing a powerful regime against another system as if there were only a choice between absolutes, whereas what is needed is to

convey the possibility of a flexible middle ground. Very often in the novels studied here

the authors send clear messages about the importance of balancing aspects of traditional

African beliefs and British values, and using the best of both cultures. This analysis of

Nigeria’s postcolonial literature will look at how the postmodern paradox enables writers to navigate Nigeria’s coming into itself after colonization. The novels are Achebe’s

Things Fall Apart (1958) Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and Atta’s Everything

Good Will Come (2008)

The Theories

There is an intrinsic link between postmodern and postcolonial theories. While the

postmodern looks at how to break down the authority of the oppressing system,

postcolonial theory provides the tools to help rebuild a nation’s identity by framing

elements of the indigenous culture in a manner that shows that African knowledge can

provide a beneficial way for Nigerians to understand their world. Writers approach

creating works from the perspective of having a valuable and inspiring story to tell – and not with an explicit desire to put colonial knowledge through a postmodern analysis and cultural identity through a postcolonial reconstruction. However, the postmodern and postcolonial theories have identified ways of rebalancing the power inherent in dominant metanarratives, and this paper will look at how the authors of Nigerian postcolonial literature have used those techniques in their works.

Jean-François Lyotard was one of the founders of postmodern theory. He rails against the

accepted ideas inherent in scientific reasoning and thought that true knowledge came

from the rejection of underlying assumptions. He believes that every idea should be

weighed on its own merits. Since many of the beliefs that shape our world-view are based

on assumptions of dubious value, postmodernism encourages individuals to re-examine how they see the world, and their place in it. Lyotard’s theory is well suited to the exploration of the state of knowledge in postcolonial nations because its rejection of normative rules gives cultures the latitude to value otherwise contradictory ideas. If nothing is assumed, then anything and everything can be true, given the right context.

Postcolonial theory is explored by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin in their canonical work on postcolonial studies, The Empire Writes Back. They define the postcolonial as “all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day” (1989, 2). Although they mention in their second edition of The Empire Writes Back that other theorists prefer to narrow the application of the term “postcolonialism” to more specific periods of time, the broad use suggested in the first edition is suitable for the study of Nigerian postcolonial literature, as the country is still in the process of adapting to a postcolonial reality.

In his study of postcolonial literature, Stephen Bonnycastle pinpoints what I consider to be the essence of postcolonial writing: “A later task for workers for independence will be to create a living culture which responds to the current reality facing the native population” (210, emphasis is Bonnycastle’s).

It is worth noting that the difference between postmodernism and postcolonialism is far from concrete. Ato Quayson, the Nigerian postcolonial theorist, believes that the two theories are necessarily interconnected, since postcolonialists apply postmodern theory to unearth the inequalities that colonial metanarratives impose (Quayson, 2000, 140). In other words, postcolonialists apply postmodern ideas to question the authority of metanarratives to the context of a people struggling to balance the disparate knowledges of indigenous and colonial experiences into a functional cultural identity.

By approaching the two theories as interconnected steps, we will be able to examine how

Nigerian writers have deconstructed authority through postmodern analysis and used the pieces of knowledge that continue to have value to rebuild a postcolonial cultural identity that will allow their people to move forward. The value of this approach is echoed by

Lyotard who says: “It is impossible to know what the state of knowledge is – in other words, the problems its development and distribution are facing today – without knowing something of the society within which it is situated” (13) and Quayson who suggests that readers endeavour to find the social life of ideas to determine how and why an idea came about and how it has come to be valued as it has (2000, 140).

Postmodernism and Postcolonialism as Literary Theory

When postmodern writers suspend the authority of the colonial metanarrative, it allows the author to convey the complicated state of the postcolonial reality, where neither traditional nor colonial metanarratives holds unquestioned sway, and where reality and causality are open to interpretation. Iftekharrudin et al. have identified some of the ways that postmodern writers challenge metanarratives, including calling attention to themselves in an attempt to make authentic the act of knowing. This and the “use of apparent disconnection and incongruity as techniques for creating coherence” (X) suggest that postmodern writers use paradox to underscore how, in reality, knowledge is too complex to be categorized by strict adherence to a single metanarrative.

The postmodern paradox can be used in the postcolonial context to weaken the colonial

system’s claim on authority. Although he does not use the term “postmodern paradox,” postcolonial theorist Ato Quayson (2000) argues that literature could be used as a medium for political discourse. Writers can force audiences to reconsider assumptions by devising stories that question the logic and moral authority of the colonial centre and of the fledgling nation’s emerging leadership. Quayson does not consider the postcolonial a period of time, but rather a process, one which he calls “postcolonializing” (9). He describes postcolonializing as a process of a culture coming into being. This analysis of

Nigeria’s postcolonial literature will look at how the postmodern paradox is used to enable writers to navigate Nigeria’s coming into itself after colonization.

In order to demystify the authority of colonial knowledge, Nigerian postcolonial writers had to address the contexts in which colonial knowledges replaced indigenous ones.

Lyotard and Quayson both say that it is imperative to understand the context in which knowledge is formed (Lyotard, 13, and Quayson, 2000, 140). Before a Nigerian writer could wrench the authority from a British system of knowledge, he or she had to understand how the elements of colonial knowledge perpetuated the colonial mindset.

Lyotard contends that advanced industrialized societies like Britain operate under a

“paranoia of reason” (12) which require them to categorize data under one of two categories: if it supportes their core beliefs (metanarrative) then it is correct, and if it does not, it is necessarily false. When Nigeria was colonized, this binary approach led to the widespread rejection of indigenous knowledge because it did not support the British view of reality. Since the colonizers did not consider local beliefs to be valid, they did not

consider how these beliefs might be useful to society. Thus, the British considered the imposition of their life ways and knowledge to be a benevolent act which did not require second thought. There was no consideration of the possible merit of the knowledge sets that they were displacing.

When the British colonized Nigeria, they had the backing of their armed forces, but they governed by enticing a portion of Nigerian society to support the system that they installed. The system had three primary tools: the Christian Church, schools that taught a

British curriculum, and the English language1. Nigerians who accessed these three

systems of knowledge gained access to lucrative administrative roles within the colonial

system, while those who did not became increasingly disadvantaged due to their isolation

from the British system. Through the introduction of these foreign elements, the British

were able to keep Nigerians working against one another as a foil to the power the local population could have had if they were unified against the British.

Based on this understanding of why British colonizers rejected Nigerian knowledges,

Nigerian postcolonial writers could use postmodern methodology to show the weaknesses in both the dominant colonial and old indigenous world views and to argue for an alternate way of seeing the world. Although the novels studied here are all written with a great deal of historical accuracy and detail, their examination of the clash between indigenous and colonial knowledge is not an all-out attack on colonizers. The authors

1 I will not address the issue of education as a separate paradox since the bias that it introduced against indigenous knowledges is adequately addressed in the discussion of religion, law and language. have chosen to convey the colonial paradox where neither the adoption of the colonial or

indigenous metanarrative will help the characters through their ordeals. Instead, the

characters succeed by creating a unique middle ground that holds neither set of beliefs

sacrosanct.

The creation of a middle ground where any idea can be considered valid, but where

nothing is assumed to be beyond questioning, is a fundamentally postmodern approach.

To avoid rejecting useful concepts from either culture, the authors have tempered their

critiques of the British system with a critical look at the applicability of indigenous

knowledge to the modern circumstances of postcolonial Nigeria.

… it must be admitted from the start that this is a strange kind of critique, one

bound up, too, with its own complicity with power and domination, one that

acknowledges that it cannot escape implication in that which it nevertheless still

wants to analyze and maybe even undermine. The ambiguities of this kind of

position are translated into both the content and form of postmodern art, which thus

at once purveys and challenges ideology – but always self-consciously (Hutcheon

4).

Hutcheon refers to this self-conscious element in postmodern writing as the paradox of postmodernism (4). This challenge to the dominant system can be seen as support for the suppressed system – even though the author’s aim may in fact be to instigate a debate about the merits of all knowledges. Postcolonial Nigerian writings show the postmodern paradox by approaching the topics of power in ways that are critical to both the colonial

and indigenous belief systems.

The writer’s task of creating a dialogue that appeals to all Nigerians is complicated by the fact that Nigeria was comprised of several completely separate tribes before colonization.

The different tribes not only had different indigenous beliefs, but they also had different experiences with colonization, as the British favoured some groups over others. However,

Nigerian writers are able to appeal to a large audience by showing the paradoxes that resulted from the most common elements of colonization. For example, Chinua

Achebe’s canonical work Things Fall Apart questions the colonial assumption that

Nigeria was wild and ungoverned before colonization. He paints a story of a functional society that was torn apart by the introduction of the colonizers’ tools of religion, language and education. And yet, however critical his work is of British colonization, it remains intentionally self-reflective and highlights some of the cruel aspects of Igbo culture. In this regard, while his work is a rebuke of the value of colonialism, it does not argue for a return to old ways either. Writing over 40 years after independence, authors

Sefi Atta and Chimamanda Adichie also address Nigeria’s cultural paradox through the issues of education, religion and language, since the divisions that were fostered by the colonial regime continue to tear Nigeria apart today.

As Achebe, Atta and Adichie address the cultural practices that the British introduced to

Nigeria, they point out both the positive and negative consequences of their use. In doing so, the authors take a postmodern stance against the totalitarian aspects of the British metanarrative without entirely rejecting the potential value of its tools. Postcolonial

Nigerian writers don’t want to turn the clocks back to a pre-colonial society; they want to create a nation without the stratification that characterized colonial Nigeria. The following examination of how the authors deal with the issues of religion, education and language will show us that their primary concern is not the use of these new knowledges, but the uncompromising power relationship behind them.

By removing the colonial metanarrative’s sole claim to authority, the authors reduce the stratifying effect of the colonial knowledge systems. Their approach puts colonial knowledges on par with indigenous ones, and thereby enriches Nigerians by providing them access to different ways of seeing and interacting with the world. By reshaping their worldview, the authors seek to change the way in which Nigerians see themselves, so that they can envisage themselves as strong leaders rather than followers who negate the value of their unique perspectives in order to mimic the empire. This is the position of power that our authors want Nigeria to adopt as it navigates its postcolonial future.

The Destabilizing Effect of Religion and Law

Things Fall Apart is set at the moment of first contact with the British. Although the Igbo community at the centre of the story has a fleeting encounter with an explorer, their first lasting impression of the British is when they meet a group of religious missionaries.

Achebe uses the first two thirds of the book to paint a picture of life before the British arrived. While he conveys an image of a community with strict rules and taboos which do not necessarily appeal to the reader’s Western mores, it is clear that the community is healthy and functional. This addresses Hutcheon’s postmodern paradox by showing the reader that it is not the old ways that Achebe admires, but the community health and

cohesion that resulted from it.

Achebe takes careful pains to show the balance between Igbo religious beliefs and the

law which sprung from it. He stages a scene (78-83) where ancestral deities convene to decide a course of action in a dispute. Dressed in ceremonial costume to represent the deities, the community leaders use a religious setting to negotiate a resolution to a dispute. The process is public and requires the active participation of all of the interested parties. By the end of the scene, both parties of the dispute are satisfied with the judgement, and the community is satisfied that their religion has devised a resolution to

the disorder. In this first legal scene, there is harmony between the people’s beliefs and

the law, and the result is a successful outcome.

Following the arrival of British missionaries, Achebe writes two other scenes of legal

debate to contrast the shift from order to chaos. As Christianity spread in the Igbo

community, the harmony falls apart. Things Fall Apart is critical of this disharmony, but

not of Christianity per se. Since Christianity had become the predominant religion in the

southern portion of Nigeria occupied by the Igbo by the late 1950s, there would have

been little point in advocating for its rejection. Instead, Achebe uses legal scenes to show how damaging it can be to impose regulations on people who do not understand or believe in them. In doing so, he’s not arguing for or against one religion or legal system, but for laws that make sense to the people that they govern.

With the second legal scene (138-139), Achebe shows the negative consequence of applying one group’s values onto a second group that does not share the same values. The animists ostracize the Christian converts in their community for having eaten a sacred snake. The animists think that this punishment is severe, as individuals rely upon community for their mental and physical welfare, but they fail to consider that ostracizing the Christians means that they will forge their own community – one which the British will defend. The third legal scene (166-167) shows a reversal in the distribution of power. Although the power has shifted to the British, the consequences are similarly disastrous since the British law is wielded with a comparable lack of regard to the values of the subordinate group. Although most of the book reads as a criticism of the imposition of British culture, the legal scenes show that Achebe’s concern is less with whose metanarrative was being imposed, and more with showing what happens when people force others to abide by cultural norms that they do not share. In so doing, Achebe avoids the postmodern paradox that would suggest that the alternatives are either British or indigenous cultures rather than a combination of the two.

One aspect of indigenous culture that Achebe consistently casts in a positive light is the level of individual participation that every individual had in their system of governance.

The legal scenes can be considered a process for scrutinizing this element of indigenous culture to determine whether it warrants being retained. In the first legal scene, the verbal contribution and participation of elders, plaintiff and defendants are all essential to the process. Through the collective dialogue, all of the parties relate to their collective mores to decide an adequate resolution which will enable the continuity of the community’s wellbeing. There is a sharp contrast between the level of dialogue in the first and third

legal scenes. While all parties understand the process in the first scene, none of the Igbo participants of the third scene have any idea what is going on, as they are being held for offences that they had not known were crimes. Their confusion is symptomatic of the disintegration of their community’s functionality.

By not presenting counter arguments to his equation of dialogue to sound communities,

Achebe implies that it is always good to value the individual right to participate and to speak their mind. Participatory governance is an example of an element of indigenous cultural knowledge that Achebe believes should be retained and re-integrated into postcolonial Nigeria’s cultural fabric. Hand in hand with the shift of power away from the Igbo was a steady reduction in the people’s say in their legal system. The greater the

British power, the less that people were heard. Written in the years before independence,

Achebe’s book can be understood to be postmodern because it calls upon Nigerians to reject the colonial assumption that they need an outside force to govern them and to reverse the balance of power by insisting on having a voice in their own governance.

Using English to Reclaim a Native Voice

The issue of reclaiming a voice raises the thorny issue of language choice. Chinua

Achebe, Sefi Atta and Chimamanda Adichie elected to convey their messages in English

rather than in one of Nigeria’s native tongues. This decision represents a desire to reach

as broad of an audience as possible. The boundaries of Nigeria were drawn by Europeans,

who did not take into account the many cultures and languages that they enclosed within the state. English quickly became the language of privilege, not only because of its

association with the wealth and power associated with the colonial rulers, but because it

became the only pan-Nigerian language.

Because English language schools and the lucrative employment that followed were only

available to a small sector of society, it exacerbated rifts between classes and ethnic

groups. Seeking to provide their children with the best possible education, parents with

the means sent their children to England for their education, a process which inculcated

the children with a prejudice against their less privileged countrymen and fostered an

elite class which sought to mimic English ideas and styles of governance. These policies

created rifts within colonized societies, thereby making them easier for Britain to govern,

but ultimately proving disastrous for postcolonial unity.

Quayson justifies the common Nigerian practice of writing in English as a means to educate people, inside and outside the country, about Nigerian cultures. In his view, “the

sheer density of indigenous references [in the works of prominent Nigerian writers]

makes it impossible for an outsider not to have the sense of encountering the discourses

of a different culture…. Their works can be seen as nodal points for entry into a different

sense of things, even if accessibility seems initially simple because the texts are in an

English understood across the world” (158). This choice, however, has not been accepted

by all African writers. Kenya’s Ngûgi wa Thiong’o, began his career writing in English,

but now only writes in Gikûyû, one of his country’s many traditional languages. While

this choice limits his audience to the 22% of Kenya’s population that uses the language, Ngûgi’s aim is to promote the use of indigenous languages by removing English from its

privileged position as the means of communication and education. Gilbert and Tompkins

(169) explain this choice as a refusal “to submit to the dominance of the imposed standard language and to subscribe to the “reality” that it sustains.”

Joseph Pivato’s essay “Representation of Ethnicity as a Problem: Essence or

Construction” mentions the difficult line between the authentic voice and the authoritative voice. While his essay discusses the case of who speaks on behalf of immigrants to Canada, the same consideration is equally troublesome when considering former colonies whose leadership has been educated abroad. The qualification of rich, urban-dwelling, foreign educated English speakers to tell the story of poor, rural Igbo or

Yoruba speakers is questionable. While neither Achebe nor Atta address this issue,

Adichie’s choice of hero suggests that she believes that a poor character will resound more effectively with her audience, as most Nigerians come from similar backgrounds.

Pivato considers the issue to largely be one of translation, where the writer has to choose between writing in the old language or the new one, depending on which language best describes the cultural struggle between the two languages. Achebe strikes a compromise by writing predominantly in English, while using Igbo and a ritual language to prevent the reader from complacently assuming that the British metanarrative applies to the Igbo.

The second legal scene in Achebe’s work provides an example of how a text written in

the colonial language can be used to convey a message that is deeply respectful of

indigenous culture. The drum sounded again and the flute blew. The egwugwu house was now a

pandemonium of quavering voices: Aru oyim de de de dei! filled the air as the

spirits of the ancestors, just emerged from the earth, greeted themselves in their

esoteric language (Achebe 78)

Like the rest of the book, the scene is written predominantly in English; however, there is a smattering of Igbo words whose meaning can either be inferred or deciphered through the use of a glossary at the end of the book. Additionally, a ritual language, the meaning of which is unknown even to the characters, is used briefly. The use of the three languages demonstrates Achebe’s compromise between total adoption of the colonial language and Ngûgȋ’ s path of refusing colonizers access to indigenous stories and knowledge.

By writing in English, Achebe has clearly chosen to communicate Nigeria’s cautionary tale of colonialism to a wide audience. His use of Igbo and the ritual language serve respectively to hinder and reserve access to selected bits of knowledge. That he chooses to use the Igbo words “egwugwu” and “Umuofia kwenu” highlight the sacred parts of the dialogue. By placing unfamiliar words in front of a reader’s eye, Achebe makes the reader pause each time he uses them. Even though the words are repeated often enough throughout the text that the reader does not have to refer to the glossary every time, it still requires more thought for an English speaker to process these words than had he written them in English. This makes the reader reflect on the significance of the word and suggests that the term would be poorly served by translation. The result is that the reader comes away with a deeper appreciation for the indigenous language, and the richness of the concepts it represents.

Writing in the ritual language takes the practice of withholding knowledge to another level altogether. While the Igbo language can be roughly translated with the help of the glossary, the ritual language has no such reference. The ritual text is intentionally incomprehensible to both the reader and the characters, because the spirits who use it represent, in the Igbo worldview, the most sacred well of cultural knowledge. Achebe honours the Igbo understanding that no mortal can grasp the complete nature of that knowledge. While the use of Igbo language is a stumbling block for the reader, the ritual language is impenetrable, which serves as a valuable lesson to foreigners and English- speaking Nigerians alike: that a British education does not grant complete understanding of the world. Achebe’s work presents the reader with the postmodern paradox that while

English is the best tool with which to communicate Nigeria’s experiences to the world, it cannot provide the reader with complete cultural access or understanding.

Just as Achebe uses a paradox to convey English’s limited ability to access Nigerian culture while underscoring the necessity of its use, Adichie similarly shows the strengths and limitations of the English language to convey the Nigerian experience. Written in

2006 and set in the Biafran civil war of 1967-19702, Half of a Yellow Sun challenges the reader’s assumptions of power and voice. The central characters are a group of British- educated intellectuals from Nigeria’s wealthy elite and a British journalist who has moved to Nigeria to write a book about the place and its people.

2 See Annex A for a synopsis of the Biafran civil war.

The postmodern paradox that Adichie presents is the relationship between indigenous

voice and power. At the outset of her story, there is a direct correlation between being

elite, having power, and speaking English. This represents the state of affairs upon

Nigeria’s independence – the average citizen did not have the power to influence their

own nation, and lacked the means with which to communicate with the majority of their

countrymen. The paradox in Adichie’s story is how Ugwu needs to learn to speak English

to be able to speak to and for his own people. At the outset, Ugwu is an illiterate boy

from a rural village. As the story progresses and he adopts English, he accomplishes that

which the English journalist could not – he writes a book, in English, about the horror of the Biafran civil war so that the world could understand what they had endured.

Ugwu was writing as she spoke, and his writing, the earnestness of his interest,

suddenly made her story important, made it serve a larger purpose that even she was

not sure of…. (512)

Back in the kitchen, he found Mr. Richard reading the sheets of paper he had left on

the countertop. “This is fantastic, Ugwu.” Mr. Richard looked surprised. “Olanna

told you about the woman carrying her child’s head on the train?”

“Yes, sah. It will be part of a big book. It will take me many more years to finish it

and I will call it ‘Narrative of the Life of a Country’ (530)

Were Ugwu to write in his native tongue of Igbo, he would only be able to reach other

Igbo speakers – the majority of whom were well aware of the details of the war. Ugwu needs the English language, as it is the only mechanism available to reach Nigerians outside of his own ethnic group and people around the world who had ignored the atrocities of the war.

Ngûgi wa Thiong’o considers the use of English as robbing Africans of the power to communicate for and amongst themselves. But in demonstrating how English could be

turned around and used as a tool to enable pan-African dialogue and understanding,

Adichie shows the reader how to divorce the English language from its past and make it

into a tool that could be used to help heal the colonial rifts.

The mystery with which Adichie surrounds the identity of the author plays upon the reader’s assumptions of authority. We only learn that Ugwu is writing late in the narrative in chapter 32, p.497. Up to that point, we are led to believe that Richard, the

English journalist, is writing the story of the Biafran war.

…Ugwu fumbled, awkwardly, for something to say. “Are you still writing your

book, sah?”

“No.”

“’The World Was Silent When We Died.’ It is a good title.”

“Yes it is. It came from something that Colonel Madu said once.”

Richard paused. “The war isn’t my story to tell, really.”

Ugwu nodded. He had never thought that it was (530-531)

It isn’t until the very last page of the book that Adichie reveals that Ugwu was in fact the author. In the Western world, much of our literature about foreign lands is written by our own countrymen rather than by members of the society that we are trying to understand.

Adichie presents a fairly simplistic contrast of authority when she compares the British

writer’s desire to write from an African perspective to Ugwu’s innate understanding of

his own life. The problem becomes somewhat more complicated when you consider the qualification of rich, urban-dwelling, foreign-educated English-speaking Nigerians to tell

the story of poor, rural Igbo or Yoruba speakers. By having Ugwu, the least-educated

character become the hero, Adichie shows her readers that the underprivileged have as

much of a right to voice as any other Nigerian.

Adichie uses Ugwu’s struggle to show Nigerians that they can use a British tool to regain

their voice. The book’s message, that Ugwu’s voice had the ability and the right to speak

for his people, sends an empowering message to Nigerians: any one of them could lead

their nation. Since Nigeria was not a cohesive ethnic or language group before

colonization, the English language became and still is the only means of communicating

to the whole nation – even if only to local elites. By learning to write in English, Ugwu is able to relate his story about the war to a domestic as well as a foreign audience.

Under the colonial system, restricted access to English had been a way of keeping the people divided, since people who can’t communicate with one another aren’t likely to work together toward a common goal. While Nigeria may have been a disparate place before colonialism, and a divided one under it, Adichie introduces the prospect of a state where a common language allows its people to sympathize with one another because of their shared experience of colonial oppression.

Like Achebe and Adichie, Atta uses language as a means of compelling her readers to

become more involved in the civil affairs of postcolonial Nigeria. Unlike the others, her

message clearly has both domestic and foreign components, which are reflected in her

use of English. Her decision to only use English allows her to communicate with foreign

audiences and Nigeria’s domestic elite. Atta’s characters are all from the elite class

whose English language education has granted them an unproblematic access to

authority. The characters speak indigenous languages as well as English, but these

dialogues are always represented in English in the text. This decision places Atta’s work

squarely in the camp of those African writers who use English to convey their work to the

widest possible audience, in contrast to those like Ngûgi wa Thiong’o who satisfy themselves with writing for a smaller audience in order to avoid perpetuating the imbalance of power that led to the dominance of English in the colonies. That she wants to motivate foreign readers to become actively interested in Nigeria’s domestic affairs is clearly relayed during Enitan’s awakening, “was it too much to expect other countries to take an interest in our well-being, if most of our stolen wealth was invested in their economies?” (323)

While the whole of the book is written in sophisticated English, indicating that it was written for a fluent audience, there is a subtle evolution in its use over the course of the book which reflects Atta’s appeal to her domestic audience. During the 20 years that the book spans from the 1970s to 1990s, Enitan, the main character learns to throw off the shackles of societal expectation and to develop the courage to make the change that she believes is necessary in her country. Atta conveys this personal evolution through the

gradual introduction of emotion into the first person account.

While Half of a Yellow Sun and Things Fall Apart examine the macro or societal impacts of how colonialism robbed Nigerians of their collective power, Everything Good Will

Come looks at how competing value systems affects Nigerians at the micro or individual

level. Set between the 1970s and 1990s, the shift from external struggle to internal debate

in Everything Good Will Come reflects Nigeria’s coming of age as the country adjusted to

forming its own agendas rather than having Britain dictate its affairs. It represents a

dialogue where the characters are faced with the challenge of navigating the ordinary

challenges of life faced with the competing constraints of numerous conflicting value

systems.

Early in the book, young Enitan witnesses the rape of her friend Sheri. The scene and its

aftermath read like a statement of factual observation. This occurred, then that was done

and so on. Instead of acknowledging her feelings, Enitan rationalizes the event with

social dogmas by telling herself that Sheri had brought the rape upon herself for deviating

from social expectations of the role of women. “Bad girls got raped. We all knew. Loose

girls, forward girls, raw, advanced girls. Laughing with boys… thinking she was one of

them… It was her fault”(65). Although she does not verbalize her feelings about the

event, Enitan expresses her fear of becoming victimized like her friend by trying to live

her life in strict accordance with the societal expectations for women to be passively

supportive.

Atta makes a postmodern statement against the rigid application of both colonial and indigenous normative systems in favour of allowing people to make their own decisions.

Like Achebe who presents the flaws of the indigenous system so that the reader would not mistake his criticism of British colonialism with the postmodern paradox of recommending a return to the indigenous rules, Atta’s story ensures that no one system is shown in a uniquely positive manner, ensuring that the reader does not assume that one of the myriad systems operating in Nigeria is better than the others. Instead, by showing how everything from the British education system to the tribal customs of a wife’s behaviour are used to manipulate the characters into lives that stifle them, Atta makes the bold argument for the rejection of all of the authoritative systems that pervade the lives of

Nigerians.

In the final chapter of the book, Atta proposes a way ahead for Nigeria by showing the liberating effect of rebellion. Living her life in a perpetual state of fear has left Enitan with a father in prison, a dead mother and a baby by a husband who does not love her.

Atta shows Enitan’s development into a social leader and independent woman by gradually introducing descriptions of her feelings. By the end of the book, not only are her feelings described, but she has finally developed the courage to act upon them. In the end, Enitan decides to renounce fear and to live her life according to her own values instead of those of others. Against the counsel of those around her, she becomes an activist, leaves her husband and finally realises what it means to be fulfilled. In the last scene, Enitan’s carefully constructed network of security is in shambles, but in hearing that her father is free from prison, she stops in the middle of traffic to dance and sing. Everyone around her thinks that she’s insane, but she’s finally free to express her true feelings.

As an analogy for Nigeria, Atta’s work highlights the paradox of social convention. As a postcolonial society, Nigeria is influenced by Christian, Islamic, Animist religions, and

British and indigenous social norms. Between all of these systems, there are so many expectations placed on Nigerians that they don’t have the freedom to develop innovative solutions to fit their complex postcolonial reality. Atta’s story of Enitan’s liberation from her own fear and society’s rules is a call for Nigerians to be brave and do what they know is necessary for themselves and for their country.

Rebuilding the Cultural Identity

The above discussion demonstrates how Nigerian authors reduce the status of colonial knowledge by bringing to light the failures of the imposed system. While identifying areas where the colonial culture fell short, postcolonial authors inject elements of the indigenous culture to propose alternate ways of thinking. This re-centeres the body of cultural works on Nigerian traditions rather than on British ones.

Although Nigerian writers draw upon indigenous traditions in their postcolonial work, the result is not a hybrid of pre-colonial indigenous and colonial British culture, but one that has emerged from the interaction of the two. Andrew Smith argues that to focus on hybridity suggests that the two entities being mixed were somehow “pure” beforehand.

This ignores the constant state of flux that all cultures undergo (Smith, 257). Bonnycastle echoes a similar caution against viewing culture as a static entity when he suggests that

postcolonial leaders create “living culture which responds to the current reality facing the

native population” (Bonnycastle, 210). This suggests that rather than looking at how

postcolonial literature represents a mix of two cultures, that it is preferable to look for

instances where old traditions are being used and reinterpreted as a means of

understanding changing circumstance.

Since Nigeria was still going through troubled times when the novels were written, the

authors had to avoid offending their governments, which were self-conscious about their

habit of perpetuating colonial strategies that kept their people divided. Quayson believes that Nigeria is a violent place where politics are simplified into a binary of government = good, opposition = bad, and that in such a place criticizing the status quo is a dangerous activity.

Since a direct criticism of authorities would be very risky, authors found ways to imply their criticisms in a more oblique manner. One of the ways that they accomplished this was by infusing their story with elements from folklore that would be familiar enough to the indigenous reader that the underlying message could be implied rather than overtly stated. For instance, if a Western author was to write about the travels of a tortoise and a hare, the Western reader would assume characteristics of relative speed and determination without the author having to actually comment on the subject because the folktale of the tortoise and the hare is familiar to most Westerners. While there are a

number of ways to inject cultural referents into a story, one that is frequently used in

Nigerian literature is the use of proverbs.

One proverb which is repeated in each of the three novels is one about a practice of

sharing a kola nut. In Nigeria, it is tradition for hosts to break open a kola nut when

guests visit and to share its five lobes amongst the guests as a sign of hospitality. The first

guest to be offered a piece says “He who brings the kola nut brings life.” In each of the

books, the character that shares the kola nuts and other foods with the others is also the

source of strength. The setting of each of the novels reflects reality insofar as life for the

characters is not easy. At some point, each of the protagonists has to rely on the

generosity of their friends. The repetition of a proverb that honours the importance of

generosity and community serves as a reminder of two important lessons in traditional

Nigerian life. Firstly, that no person can survive without their community, and secondly, when a person makes sacrifices for the good of others, everyone benefits.

Achebe uses this proverb to remind Nigerians of the strength that their communities have when they work together. Okonkwo accidentally kills a tribesman, and has to face mandatory expulsion from his village for seven years. Because his friends and extended family take care of him, neither he nor his family suffers because of it. Written at the end of Nigeria’s colonial era, Achebe uses the proverb to rally Nigerians with the idea that together, they can overcome anything.

In Adichie’s book, there is only one scene of a kola nut being passed. It occurs in the beginning of the book before the start of the war, when the characters lead a comfortable life. The lesson that generosity is repaid is repeated a number of times in the later part of the book when the characters face starvation during the war. The main characters are frequently given gifts of food which helps them survive, and at every opportunity, they share what little they have with others. Adichie demonstrates the practical application of the proverb’s lesson by first showing the ritual of sharing the kola nut in a normal context, and then by showing her readers the social value that it represents by demonstrating how generosity and consideration of others saves the lives of many of the central characters.

Since a proverb is figurative, the values that it represents can be applied to widely differing circumstances. In each case, the proverb of the kola nut represents strength in community and the value of sharing with others. While Achebe and Adichie demonstrate the value of sharing material wealth, Atta’s story of sharing involves sacrificing personal comfort for the good of society. Atta presents the sharing of the kola nut as a coming of age for Enitan. “From childhood, people had told me I couldn’t do this or that, because no one would marry me and I would never become a mother. Now, I was a mother…. I listened to many voices that night. I, alone, had beaten my thoughts down” (326).

Following the realisation that she alone controls her destiny, she abandons the self- effacing role of passive housewife and assumes the role of host and benefactor by distributing the kola nuts amongst her guests. In so doing, she figuratively frees herself from the restrictive roles that society would have her play and moves on to become a leader in her community. She loses out on the social and material assurances that her

previous life had assured her, but gains the knowledge that she is doing the right thing.

By showing readers that personal sacrifice for the sake of others is a reflection of

traditional Nigerian mores, Atta provides Nigerians with a role model for them to follow

that will motivate them to take action against the violence and corruption that continues

to wreak havoc on Nigeria.

Despite Achebe’s encouragement to work together, the post-independence years were wracked with continuing divisions, civil war and numerous military coups. While the nation ostensibly returned to democracy in 1999, it remained one of the world’s two most corrupt nations until 2005, when it’s corruption rating began to improve (according to

Transparency International). Writing in an era of extreme corruption and fragile democracy, Adichie and Atta employed the well-worn proverb of the kola nut to encourage Nigerians to work together – not against British colonizers as Achebe had

advocated, but against the corruption and feuding that was keeping the oil-rich nation in a state of ongoing chaos. The adoption of a traditional proverb to relay a message encouraging people to act together was a way for the authors to subtly criticize the corruption of the leadership of the time without having to risk incurring their wrath.

Conclusion

Achebe, Atta and Adichie argue for Nigerians to question the norms and social

assumptions that they have lived by, and in so doing, to reject the culture of passively allowing others to govern them. Instead, they encourage their countrymen to become actively involved in determining their own fate. These Nigerian writers address the imbalance of authority between colonial and indigenous religious, legal and education systems by treating that imbalance as an impediment to the freedom of expression that is necessary for Nigeria to flourish and move forward in the post-colonial era. So long as

Nigerians are bound by an imposed system of rules and norms that make little sense to the Nigerian context, the nation will not have the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances.

Once they put the colonial knowledge sets into question, the authors go on to introduce elements of indigenous cultures that serve as suitable alternatives. Together, postmodern and postcolonial strategies create the circumstances in which an ongoing substitution of ideas can occur in a nation’s literature. This embodies Bonnycastle’s notion of the creation of a living culture which is responsive to the current reality facing a native population (Bonnycastle, 210).

The process of creating a viable and relevant cultural identity should equip Nigerians with the tools that they need to create a better future for themselves. Nigeria has a lot of obstacles still to overcome before it reaches its full potential. Ethnic, linguistic, religious and class divisions still cause violent outbreaks and the government still has a terrible record for corruption and the distribution of the nation’s wealth to its citizens. However, as Nigerians grapple with forming a national identity, they can draw upon a wealth of cultural traditions to equip them for the challenges they will face.

Annex A – The Biafran Civil War

Nigeria has never been a homogeneous country. When the British unified the tribes that

lived in what is today called Nigeria, there was no common language, religion or culture.

The British took advantage of traditional distrust amongst neighbours to keep the people

from uniting against them. When Nigeria won its independence from Britain in 1960, the

country was still riven with ethnic distrust. Following seven years of uneasy peace, the

Biafran war (aka the Nigerian civil war) broke out on 6 July 1967.

“The immediate cause of the civil war itself may be identified as the coup and the

counter coup of 1966 which altered the political equation and destroyed the fragile

trust existing among the major ethnic groups. As a means of holding the country

together, the country was divided into twelve states from the original four regions in

May 1967. The former Eastern Region under Lt. Col. Ojukwu saw the act of the

creation of states by decree "without consultation" as the last straw, and declared

the Region an independent state of "Biafra". The Federal Government in Lagos

saw this as an act of secession and illegal. Several meetings were held to resolve

the issue peacefully without success. To avoid disintegration of the country, the

central government was left with only one choice of bringing back the Region to the

main fold by force” (Abubakar 2).

The war lasted for three years, during which time both sides committed widespread

atrocities. Of the estimated 3 million who died, 100,000 were military casualties, the

remainder died of starvation. The war ended when the Biafran leader fled to Europe and his replacement negotiated an end to the war. Despite being the location of Nigeria’s vast oil wealth, the region remains impoverished and neglected, even by Nigerian standards.

Works Cited:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Everyman’s Library, New York, 1958.

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a Yellow Sun. Anchor Books, New York, 2006.

Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth; Tiffin, Hellen. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures, Second Edition. Routledge, New York, 2002.

Atofarati, Abubakar. The Nigerian Civil War, Causes, Strategies, And Lessons Learnt. US Marine Command & Staff College, 1992.

Atta, Sefi. Everything Good Will Come. Interlink Books, Northampton, 2008. Bonnycastle, Stephen. In Search of Authority: An Introductory Guide to Literary Theory, Second Edition. Broadview Press, Peterborough, 2002.

Gilbert, Helen; Tompkins, Joanne. Post-colonial Drama: Theory, Practice. Politics.

Routledge, New York, 1996.

Hutcheon, Linda. The Politics of Postmodernism, Second Edition. Routledge New York, 1989.

Iftekharrudin, Farhat. Postmodern Approaches to the Short Story. Praeger, Westport, 2003.

Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1979.

Pivato, Joseph. “Representation of Ethnicity as a Problem”, in, Verduyn, Christl. Literary Pluralities. Broadview Press, Peterborough, 1998.

Quayson, Ato. Postcolonialism, Theory, Practice or Process? Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000.

Smith, Andrew. “Migrancy, Hybridity and Postcolonial Literary Studies”, in, Lazarus, Neil (ed). The Cambridge Companion to: Postcolonial Literary Studies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008.

Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi. Decolonising the Mind. Heinemann, New York, 1986.

Bibliography:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Everyman’s Library, New York, 1958.

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a Yellow Sun. Anchor Books, New York, 2006.

Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth; Tiffin, Hellen. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures, Second Edition. Routledge, New York, 2002.

Abubakar, Atofarati. The Nigerian Civil War, Causes, Strategies, And Lessons Learnt. US Marine Command & Staff College, 1992.

Atta, Sefi. Everything Good Will Come. Interlink Books, Northampton, 2008.

Belcher, Stephen. African Myths of Origin. Penguin Books, New York, 2005.

Bonnycastle, Stephen. In Search of Authority: An Introductory Guide to Literary Theory, Second Edition. Broadview Press, Peterborough, 2002.

Gilbert, Helen; Tompkins, Joanne. Post-colonial Drama: Theory, Practice. Politics.

Routledge, New York, 1996.

Human Rights Watch, Nigeria’s 2003 Elections, http://www.hrw.org/node/12130, 2004.

Hutcheon, Linda. The Politics of Postmodernism, Second Edition. Routledge New York, 1989.

Iftekharrudin, Farhat. Postmodern Approaches to the Short Story. Praeger, Westport, 2003.

Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1979.

Pennycook, Alastair. The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. Pearson Education, Harlow, 1994.

Phillipson, Robert. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008.

Pivato, Joseph. “Representation of Ethnicity as a Problem”, in, Verduyn, Christl. Literary Pluralities. Broadview Press, Peterborough, 1998.

Quayson, Ato. Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing: Orality and History in the Work of Rev. Samuel Johnson, Amos Tutuola, Wole Soyinka and Ben Okri. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1997.

Quayson, Ato. Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Process? Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000.

Smith, Andrew. “Migrancy, Hybridity and Postcolonial Literary Studies”, in, Lazarus, Neil (ed). The Cambridge Companion to: Postcolonial Literary Studies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008.

Taiwo, Oladele. Culture and the Nigerian Novel. St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1976.

Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index, 2001-2009, www.transparency.org .

Walker, Barbara. The Dancing Palm Tree and Other Nigerian Folktales. Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock, 1990.