1) What was the most meaningful takeaway from today’s discussion relating to the cultural or literary context of Achebe’s work?
It is important to have the idea on the context that the story was written in, when regarding Achebe’s work of “Things Fall Apart” we examined multiple contexts such as historical, political and cultural (are just the view that were discussed). The most meaningful takeaway from the class discussion was exploring the ways Achebe implemented the historical aspects into his story. While Achebe’s book “Things fall apart” was published on 1958, the author sets the time period to late 1800 in the story. Since this is was deemed as one of the first piece of African Literature to be published, it is significant to the world as it was the first time any African responded to the way Europeans had perceived them (Africans) to the world. Achebe used many historical events and added it onto his story, helping the reader have a literary context of the text.
2) Select a specific quote from the interview or a general idea from the discussion and write a brief reflection.
“ 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 times. The reason for this had to do with the need to justify the slave trade and slavery” - Chinua Achebe (An African Voice Interview on August 2, 2000)
The quote was taken from Chinua Achebe’s interview with “An African Voice” on August 2, 2000. He responded to the question “In Home and Exile, you talk about the negative ways in which British authors such as Joseph Conrad and Joyce Cary portrayed Africans over the centuries. What purpose did that portrayal serve?”.
Chinua Achebe was one of the first if not the first African writer who shared his story on the colonisation of Nigeria. He discusses how the biggest issue with European contact with Africa was the verbal attacks and the perception that they gave on Africans. Chinua Achebe believes that the reason for doing so was a way of justifying the slave trading system that was going on. The British described them as savages and monsters. Giving the entire western world a bad image on the Africans. Chinua insinuates that the European did not give a accurate representation of them, and that it was simply the telling of a ‘Single-sided story” which robbed the Africans of their dignity. And created stereotypes all over the world on the Africans. Chinua Achebe is a significant figure in the world of literature, due to him being the first Nigerian to speak out on the false portrayal and “Things Fall Apart” discusses the cultural aspect of the Nigerians before the Colonisation. While the boo is split into 3 parts, the first one part showed a side of the story that no european had seen before, which was the lifestyle of the African people. And with the quote, Chinua believes that they disregarded all of that just for the approval of slave trading and that it cost Africans their dignity for many years. And that the effect was everlasting and even exists in our modern society as people still attribute the same stereotypes on Africans.
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