Thanks Ken for that careful analysis
Much food for thought
On Tue, Jun 13, 2023 at 5:59 PM Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
hi toyini am not inclined to go to the shelf and pull down TFA, a book i taught o so many times in the past. it is like etched on my brain!it isn't that i think unoka was weak; it is that he was portrayed that way. he made his powerful son grind his teeth with his weasely ways of rationalizing his non-payment of his debts, a sign of bluster without substance. his son was a man of few words, but powerful actions....achebe was a bit simplistic there, but the idea was they were opposites.unoka played the flute, a weak instrument, compared with the powerful drummers who accompanied okonkwo when he wrestled, etc.i think arrow of god was actually a better, more sophisticated novel, but tfa marked the world of african literature like no other novel. (and this guy did not win the novel prize!!!!! the most influential of all african novelists. oh well)
oedipus's hubris, his pride, blinded from seeing how the very thing he was fleeing, his fate, was what he was rushing toward. he could outwit the sphinx, but at the crossroad, where he meets his father, he cannot conceive that the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother was being carried out. and so, he killed a man old enough to be his father—and who was his father—and married a woman old enough to be his mother, and who turned out to be his mother. he thought he was too smart for the prophecy of his fate to occur.
he was blind to his fate, as was okonkwo. and at the end, oedipus takes his mother's brooches, and sticks the pins into his eyes, to complete the blinding that fate had dictated would be his.
it has the greatness of a pure and perfect statement.
and one, by no coincidence, in which freud say our human predicament, our relations with our progenitors, is encapsulated.and the language is unforgettable.its words could be said to be palm wine with which the painfulness of the story can be swallowed....if nothing else, okonkwo certainly appeared like an oepidus figure, but it goes even further when he kills his own (adopted) son, ikimafuna, whose fate dooms okonkwo. his hubris.ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2023 11:46 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thought For TodayThanks KenWhat exactly was Oedipus hubris
I've not been able to get it or understand why it's seen as a great play--
On Tue, Jun 13, 2023 at 4:43 PM Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
Unoka was weak and lazy. He borrowed and appeared in a miserable light.Okonkwo's patriarchal machismo was ultimately a sign of his rigidity and inability to adapt to new times.The story was about the men, the adoption, the sacrifice, the takeover by christians and then whites. The struggle of the men to deal with the change was the story; one chapter had a wife telling a tale.
My answers are intended to capture the sense of the novel in the 1950s and how we came to teach it in the 70s and 80s. Chidi's questions reflect our times; and in a sense we can't help projecting our times back into a novel of the past.We wouldn't have used the wording "cultural hero" back then.Achebe was a humanist, a great figure who did not want to put his characters into absolute frames of black and white, good and evil etc, but humanized okonkwo who was a great wrestler and fighter, but a poor model for a husband and father, especially father; and as i said, someone who couldn't bend.
He was achebe's answer to the european views of africans as simple tools of their societies or cultures, not thinking, feeling human beings like the europeans. And most of all, achebe wanted to validate igbo culture, so we could learn to value it. For that he needed a flawed protagonist, a flawed hero, who could embody the values but also the weaknesses of a culture that overvalued manliness and strength.
I remember oedipus whose hubris, too, led to his downfall. His hubris was not his own personal failure but that of his culture that would enable him to rise up and become king, but who couldn't see his own weaknesses. Like okonkwo.Ken
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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2023 10:47:47 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Thought For TodayI dont recall if Unoka was presented as a failure but he was a man living ahead of the time where he could have been economically successful.
He was successful as a great flutist but since his services were not required on a regular basis and his payment at those times could not cover the intervals and he did not want to farm, so he was often broke and in debt.
It would take the colonial encounter, the creation of Nigeria and the expansion of her economy and social complexity for an entertainer such as Unoko to achieve economic viability.
Today, singers and comedians are doing very well in Nigeria but its less likely to have been so in Unoka's time.
Unoka, Okonwo's father, if I recall correctly, is contrasted with Okonkwo by his own son, who strives not to be like him, and wonders why one of his sons seems to share his father's contemplative character.
I dont think Okonwo was presented as a failure. Okonwo and Ezeulu in Arrow of God are at the centre of Achebe's genius as an ironic narrative philosopher.
Both characters may be understood as projecting the Igbo expression, ''where one thing stands, another stands beside it'', a principle of the complementary of opposites, of relationships between constancy and flexibility.
They are both strong, unyielding men, great achievers. But did they discern correctly when to yield or not to yield?
Both of them were defeated by their approach to historical forces greater than themselves, forces that perhaps were better addressed through a degree of compromise.
Perhaps only Achebe can fully answer the last question. Female foregrounding Igbo novels had to wait for other writers, but Achebe seems to have moved in that direction with his short story Girls at War.
thankstoyin
--On Tue, 13 Jun 2023 at 13:26, Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA <chidi.opara@gmail.com> wrote:
It is 65 years this year since the publication of Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" in 1958, a good literary work no doubt. There are however a few questions:
(1)Why was Unoka the flutist who was said to handle the flute with dexterity, producing pleasant notes that made the people happy presented as a failure? Does this connect with the Igbo philosophy of "Ezi aha ka ego"(translated in English to "good name is better than wealth")?
(2)Why was Okonkwo, a radical cultural activist also presented as a failure and his docile kinsman Obierika presented as a hero? This belies the Igbo philosophy of "a brave son rather than a cowardly one, even if the brave son die young".
(3)Why were the enormous influences of the womenfolk in Igboland as recorded in the activities of Umuada(daughters)and Ndi Ndom(wives)not highlighted?
Thanks.
-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO)
--
Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
--
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