TFA Context Post

  Achebe has chosen to set his novel prior to and during the arrival of the colonial administration rather than during the context of production to, firstly, give an unfiltered, non-historically factual and ‘accurate’ description that could lack the understanding and emotional connections that can be felt and expressed by the characters. An example of such emotions could be the fear felt by the village women as the ritual of the spirits (when in reality they are the village men) commences. In this, we are able to feel the fear that these women feel as well as how they respect and admire the beings that have, as believed, taken over the bodies of the village men. When taken into historical and modern terms, these emotions may not be expressed as richly due to the need of giving large amounts of historical context within novels based in the modern era. For example, instead of expressing the fear of the women, if the novel were written in the context of production, the situation may have been described, instead, as “due to the village people’s sacred beliefs of spirits and other mystical ideas, village women largely feared encounters or visits from such creatures, even with the knowledge that the bodies were of the village men living among them.” This alone lacks the emotional understanding that Achebe achieved when, instead, setting the novel prior to and during the arrival of the colonial administration. From this, we can continue to the second point which, by reaching this emotional understanding, we can also understand the turmoil found in the village when outsiders become powerful and when villagers turn to the colonialist’s religion of Christianity, a foreign and unaccepted concept by the village people. From this description, we are able to also understand Achebe’s possible internal struggle of being both Igbo and Christian, two conflicting cultures that may have affected how he perceives things such as each culture’s celebrations, beliefs and traditions. This alone allows the audience to understand how complex and, possibly, confusing Achebe’s combination of two separate cultures are as well as how complex the less well known Igbo culture is. To move on, there’s also the arrival of the colonial administration in the village that causes large amounts of turmoil and frustration in the village. The village people are seen as barbaric and less to the British when, in reality, the Igbo have their own culture with their traditions and beliefs and celebrations that they hold dear to their hearts. With the British radically changing the Igbo culture through their actions of defilement, in regard to building the church and making the outsiders powerful, as well as implementing a system of laws that differ greatly from those created and followed by the village people. With this, we are able to see just how invasive the arrival of the British is to the soon-to-be-named country of Nigeria and how the locals, at the time, felt trapped and forcefully placed into a confusing and frustrating system by outsiders of unknown origin. From this viewpoint shown in the book by many of the village people, we are able to understand Achebe’s ideas and emotions of the arrival of the British and how he aims to get their influence out of Nigeria, which ties to how he was part of the movement for a British-free, independent country of Nigeria.

Word Count: 560