e-ISSN 2231-8534
ISSN 0128-7702
Abdalhadi Nimer A. Abu Jweid
Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities, Volume 24, Issue 1, March 2016
Keywords: Aboriginality, Achebe, hegemony, identity, postcolonialism, subaltern
Published on: 29 Feb 2016
This article examines Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart within a postcolonial discourse. While the majority of postcolonial critiques argue over indigenous identity, this study explores the deterioration of national identity in Things Fall Apart. Such deterioration is brought about by the spiritual and tentative defeat inherent in the failure of the protagonist, Okonkwo, to face the colonial whites. Ultimately, the protagonist's failure leads to a tragic death. In the novel's context, Achebe exhorts the fall of national identity and its pathetic aftermath. The deterioration in national identity symbolically correlates to the protagonist's personal irresolute experience which is at first physically powerful but in the end spiritually weak. The focus of this article is a textual analysis of Achebe's Things Fall Apart, applying postcolonial theoretical concepts, especially aboriginality, hegemony, subaltern and identity. These concepts facilitate a smouldering conceptualisation of national identity as it is exterminated in the novel. Thus, the these terms will be cited mainly with reference to Bill Ashcroft, Gayatri Spivak, and Laura Chrisman's postcolonial critiques.
ISSN 0128-7702
e-ISSN 2231-8534
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