Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe

332 Pages·1978·11.565 MB·English

by  C.L. Innes, Bernth Lindfors

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PERSPECTIVES
ON
CHINUA ACHEBE
Edited by C. L. Innes and Bernth Lindfors

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES
The purpose of the works in this series is to provide the teacher and
student with the most important critical and historic commentary on
major authors, themes, and national literatures of the non-western
world.
In a period when vast realignments of power and long overdue
reassessments of the cultures of the third world are occurring, the
documents and polemics reflecting and often speeding these
changes should be readily available.
Senior Editors of the Series: Donald Herdeck, Georgetown
University, Washington, D. C. and Bernth Lindfors,
University of Texas, Austin.
Subjects of the first works in the Series:
1. Amos Tutuola (B. Lindfors, ed.)
2. V. S. Naipaul (R. D. Hamner, ed.)
3. Nigerian Literatures (B. Lindfors, ed.)
4. Chinua Achebe (C. L. Innes and B. Lindfors, eds.)
5. Wole Soyinka (J. Gibbs, ed.)
6. Lusophone Literature from Africa (D. Burness, ed.)
7. Aime Cesaire (T. Hale, ed.)
8. Leon Gontran Damas (K. Q. Warner, ed.)
9. Modern Arabic Literature (I. Boullata, ed.)
Future Volumes:
10. Wilson Harris (K. Ramchand)
11. Modern Persian Literature (T. Ricks)
12. Algerian Literature (A. Lippert)
13. (James) Ngugi wa Thiong’o (G. D. Killam)
14. Jean Rhys (H. Tiffin)
15. Saint-John Perse (D. Racine)
16. Goan Literature: Five Centuries (P. Nazareth)
17. Cuba South: Caribbean Writing (D. Herdeck)
18. West African Writing, excl. of Ghana & Nigeria (J. Peters)
19. Ghana (R. Priebe)
20. Thomas Mofolo
21. Christopher Okigbo
22. Sembene Ousmane
23. Okot p’Bitek
24. East African Literatures
25. South African Writing by South Africans
26. Derek Walcott
27. George Lamming
28. Naguib Mahfouz
29. Contemporary Arabic Women Writers
30. Contemporary African Women Writers
31. Contemporary Anglo-Indian Writers
32. Twentieth Century Latin-American Writers
33. Caribbean Fiction dealing with U. S. Presence
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CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES
ON
CHINUA ACHEBE

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES
ON
CHINUA ACHEBE
Edited by
C. L. Innes
&
Bernth Lindfors
Three Continents Press
Washington, D. C.
FIRST EDITION
Copyright ® 1978 by Three Continents Press
ISBN 0-914478-45-1
0-914478-46-X pbk.
LC No: 77-9163.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission ex¬
cept for brief quotations in reviews or articles.
Three Continents Press
1346 Connecticut Avenue, N. W.
Washington, D. C. 20036
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the following individuals, publications and
publishers for permission to reprint the essays which appear in this book.
Heinemann Educational Books, Anchor/Doubleday, and Nwankwo-
Ifejika for permission to quote from Achebe’s works.
Heinemann Educational Books, African Literature Today, and Afri-
cana Publishing Corp. for “The Palm-Oil with Which Achebe’s Words are
Eaten,” and “Language and Action in the Novels of Chinua Achebe.”
Abiola Irele for “The Tragic Conflict in the Novels of Chinua Achebe.”
Kolawole Ogungbesan and African Studies Review for “Politics and
the African Writer.”
Heinemann Educational Books and the Journal of Commonwealth
Literature for “Yeats and Achebe.”
Solomon Iyasere and New Letters for “Narrative Techniques in
Things Fall Apart.”
Bu-Buakei Jabbi, Christopher Heywood, the University of Sheffield,
The University of Texas Press, and Obsidian for “Fire and Transition in
Things Fall Apart.”
Felicity Riddy, the Journal of Commonwealth Literature, and Oxford
University Press for “Language as Theme in No Longer at Ease.”
Roderick Wilson and English Studies in Africa for “Eliot and Achebe:
An Analysis of Some Formal and Philosophic Qualities in No Longer at
Ease”
Emmanuel Obiechina and Cambridge University Press for permission
to quote from Culture, Tradition and Society in the West African Novel.
Presence Africaine for “Achebe’s African Parable.”
Twayne Publishers for permission to quote from David Carroll’s
Chinua Achebe.
Heinemann Educational Books for permission to quote from Ngugi
wa Thiong’o’s Homecoming.
Philip Rogers, the Journal of Commonwealth Literature and Oxford
University Press for “Chinua Achebe’s Poems of Regeneration.”
Research in African Literatures and The University of Texas Press for
“Cultural Norms and Modes of Perception in Achebe’s Fiction,” “A Source
for Arrow of God,” and “A Source for Arrow of God: A Response.”
Robert Wren for “Mister Johnson and the Complexity of Arrow of
God. ”
Donald J. Weinstock, Cathy Ramadan, and Critique for “Symbolic
Structure in Things Fall Apart.”
M. M. Mahood and Rex Collings Ltd. for “Idols of the Den.”
We also wish to thank Christian Njimma for assistance in proofreading.