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All quotations are taken from the 1988 Picador edition of Chinua Achebe’s The African Trilogy
The African Trilogy has been the subject of much critical discussion since the publication of Things Fall Apart forty years ago. Some of this critical work has focused on the trilogy as a postcolonial work, ‘writing back’ to the previous colonial works on Africa, such as those produced by Joseph Conrad and Joyce Cary. Achebe has himself alluded to these works as part of his motivation for becoming a writer, calling them “appalling novels” about Africa. More specifically he has said:
“I know around ‘51, ‘52, I was quite certain that I was going to try my hand at writing, and one of the things that set me thinking was Joyce Cary’s novel, set in Nigeria, Mister Johnson, which was praised so much, and it was clear to me that it was a mostsuperficial picture of - not only of the country - but even of the Nigerian character, and so I thought if this was famous, then perhaps someone ought to look at this from the inside” ( Duerden Dennis, and Cosmo Pieterse, eds. African Writers Talking: A Collection of Radio Interviews. London: Heinemann, 1972.)
Looking at this ‘from the inside’, involved drawing on the model of his own Igbo society and its oral traditions. By reconstructing a picture and narrative of Africa, and using Cary’s fiction as a point of departure, Achebe set out to challenge the colonialist depiction of Africans and their society.
Although both Mister Johnson and The African Trilogy are concerned with similar issues, the ways in which these issues are confronted are strikingly different. In contrast to the simple, baby-like natives of Cary’s novel, Achebe’s characters are complex, multi-dimensional figures in their own right. While the African society of Mister Johnson is portrayed as uncivilized, simple, corrupt, the Igbo society of Things Fall Apart is shown as having grown from a long tradition of careful decision-making and a carefully system of religious, social and political beliefs. A rebuttal to the African world portrayed by Cary takes the form of an intelligent portrayal of the character of Okonkwo and the society of Umuofia. As opposed to Cary, Achebe explores, in depth, the relationship between the individual and the social context in which his emotional and psychological make-up has developed. In addition, he gives us in Okonkwo a protagonist we can identify with rather than laugh at:
“Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness... It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father” (25)
As Catherine Innes has pointed out, although Cary may ask the reader to refrain from judging Johnson, he or she is at no point asked to identify with him. (Chinua Achebe Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990) Achebe has himself pointed out that the depiction of Johnson as representative of Africans is flawed from the very outset, in that such a person is very difficult to imagine in the context of Nigerian society - a figure without a family to support him. Achebe also attempts a balanced depiction of Igbo society. He shows how it lies deeply rooted in tradition, and at the same time questions some of these traditions through his characters:
“Obierika was a man who thought about things. When the will of the goddess had been done, he sat down in his obi and mourned his friend’s calamity. Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offence he had committed inadvertently?” (105)
No Longer at Ease continues the project of writing back to Mister Johnson, carrying the themes of the first novel into the 1950s, but Achebe’s styles of approach and treatment are very different. This story is a tragedy in the sense that Obi defines a tragedy, something that “takes place in a corner”(205). Like Mister Johnson, Obi is captivated by what British civilization has to offer, but yet cannot live up to the new image created by his position as an employee of the British. Unlike Johnson however, Obi comes across as a character rather than a caricature. Behind what may appear to be arrogance lies a real fear - that of disappointing those he loves. Achebe also gives a balanced description of 1950s Umuofia, which could be a way of attempting to redress the balance in realation to Cary’d depiction of Fada. Umuofia, now a mixture of pagan and established Christian respectabilities, still clings to the old tradition of clan kinship, something worthwhile in this period of disruption.
Obi’s final defeat, unlike Okonkwo’s or Ezeulu’s takes place at a very banal level. Achebe is perhaps suggesting that this kind of defeat took place frequently in 1950s Lagos, which makes the story all the more tragic. This also has the effect of making Mister Johnson seem melodramatic; this is also achieved by Achebe’s detached, almost offhand style, writing back to Cary’s urgent, dramatic prose.
The final book, Arrow of God, is closest to Mister Johnson in terms of the historical period in which it is set. The emphasis here is on the consequences of the colonial encounter rather than the process of colonization. The unity of Umuaro is destroyed by the English. By bringing an element of fear into the deliberations of the council of elders, the English finally offer alternatives that make the abandonment of the old traditions easier to bear. There are whole groups of Mister Johnsons in this novel, who see the white man’s civilization as the future and so not only are there the contrasting cultural perspectives of the Igbo and English ways of life, but there are internal conflicts evident within the Igbo people themselves. Like Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God writes back to Cary’s portrayal of Nigerian society as one-dimensional, uncivilized, through thoughtful, careful depiction of Ezeulu and his contemporaries as they search for answers to the problems created by the arrival of the English. Events in the novel, such as the Feast of the New Pumpkin Leaves, gives us a valuable insight into native celebrations. Celebrations such as these in Mister Johnson are either refered to patronisingly or passed over altogether. Road building also plays a significant part in this novel, as it does in Mister Johnson. However, instead of the conscripted road workers, belting out songs as they toil, in this novel the age-group involved questions a state of affairs that forces them to be involved in the white man’s pet project. Their discussion, and the issues raised throughout, are central to the entire African Trilogy:
When Suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat left for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool. The white man is like that... As daylight chases away darkness so will the white man stamp out all our customs. (405)
These words are made even more significant by the fact that they are spoken by Unachukwu, someone who believes in English religion and English civilization. Unachukwu is also the sidekick of Mr. Wright, who in many ways resembles Mr. Rudbeck. In effect, these words are spoken by an intelligent, articulate Mister Johnson, and they are words that Cary was incapable of producing. Achebe, ‘writing from the inside’ has produced them.
This page was written by Katharine Slattery.
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