AFRICAN LITERATURE AND THE CHANGING WORLD: THE ANTITHETICAL IDEOLOGIES OF INDIVIDUALISM AND COMMUNALISM IN CHINUA ACHEBE’S NOVELS

Abstract

The synergic nature of African culture is endowed with cultural values that
promote peace, oneness, harmony and care for one another. Thus, the ideology of
communalism is a highly esteemed African practice which works for the survival
of the people and for the common good. This principle and practice of
communalism have held the African culture from total annihilation. This is even
in spite of occasional individual dissidence found among those communities.
African literature has dealt with matters of cultural importance, highlighting
individual and collective tendencies which have reflected certain ideologies in
fictional texts and narratives. Chinua Achebe, a leading literary African writer
has extensively promoted African communality in fictional texts. Hence to
explore the fact of African Communalism and the conflict of individualism,
selected novels of Achebe including; Arrow of God, Things Fall Apart and No
Longer at Ease, are to be examined to present characters that are seen as nonconformists.
This study is aimed at making a literary exploration on the
longstanding ideology of communalism, in the spirit of ofuobi/anyibuofu. It will
specifically make a critical evaluation of the dissenting activities of the key
individuals in the texts and the consequences of their actions. The conclusion
will promote a re-orientation and re-ordering of individual psyche to the
assimilation of cultural ideologies in our changing world.