Great Zimbabwe. What language was used in early African literature? Arabic 9. What language influenced Swahili? TheZulu king Shaka Themissionary press refused to publish it What was the source of the title Things Fall Apart?
Yeats Why was Achebe criticized for writing in English? It seemed a capitulation to English colonialism 9. How does Achebe use and construct language to honor Igbo dialects and communicate to an English speaking reader? With his childhood in the Igbo town of Ogidi and his education in English at the University of Ibadan, Achebe was conversant with both Igbo and English language and culture.
This difference arises from the artificial drawing of African national boundaries by the colonizing powers, without regard to ethnic fault lines. Thus, the people of Nigeria speak numerous languages—Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, and Fulani, and additional languages. Achebe says that if he was to write for the people of Nigeria, he had to write in the one language they all understood, English.
The meaning of each can be readily grasped from context, but Achebe also included a glossary of Igbo words at the end of the novel. The use of Igbo reminds the reader that certain concepts are unique to this culture and are not fully translatable.
Achebe also used similes drawn from the daily life of the Igbo, each helping the reader to experience the particular time and place of the novel. The inclusion of proverbs in this novel was another means of cultural preservation for Achebe.
Igbo conversation is studded with these nuggets of wisdom. Thirdly, Achebe used folktales to reinforce the more conventional elements of the novel and emphasize the values of the Igbo culture. A session of storytelling may begin with proverbs and incorporate songs. J Nwachukwu-Agbada. ELA - Literacy. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone e. Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.
Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. Interpret figures of speech in context and analyze their role in the text.
Clarify that in this lesson students will focus on the how —the overall objective is to uncover how Achebe used the English language to tell an African story. Write the word foo-foo on the board and ask if anyone remembers its meaning in the novel. This staple food of the village is made from boiled and pounded yam or cassava. Write a list of the following Igbo words on the board: agbala , chi , egwugwu , ilo , ogbanje , obi , ogene, osu, efulefu.
Ask if students can define any of these words from the novel. Then point out the Glossary at the end of the novel and ask students to locate the definitions. Ask students to explain why Achebe left these words in Igbo when he wrote the novel in English.
Ask how many students needed to refer to the glossary as they read. What strategies did they use to help define the words if they did not check the glossary? Achebe provided context for these words so that the reader can guess their meaning. Point out that this use of Igbo vocabulary is one way that Achebe added an African nuance to his English vocabulary. Distribute Worksheet 1. Divide students into pairs and have them discuss the meaning of each simile to complete the chart.
Worksheet 1. Share answers within the whole group. Ask students: Where do these similes come from? What do they have in common? They all come from the everyday experiences of the Igbo, including weather, agriculture, hunting, war, and animals with which they are familiar. Point out that through the use of such similes, Achebe was once again shaping the English of his novel to the African experience. Assessment —Have each student compose three sentences, each of which incorporate a simile and use at least one word of Igbo vocabulary.
Have students determine the meaning of Igbo proverbs as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings to analyze the cumulative impact of proverbs on meaning and tone.
But I also realised that they had their house in order in many ways we didn't. So the visit acted as a sort of correction to what I thought the world was, but also a realisation that we had to put our own house in order and not count on other people to do it for us. A first draft of Things Fall Apart had received some encouraging assessments when he was in England, but he returned home to refine his story of the flawed and wronged Okonkwo and the arrival of European powers in the wake of the Berlin conference — "which took place without African consultation or representation" — that intensified the scramble for Africa.
The book, the title of which comes from Yeats's poem "The Second Coming", has gone on to sell more than 10m copies and has been translated into more than 50 languages.
Its splicing of English with Igbo rhythms, stories and proverbs was revelatory. Wole Soyinka acclaimed it as the "first novel in English which spoke from the interior of an African character rather than.
Achebe's decision to write in English has been a source of debate since the beginning of his career, with writers such as the Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o criticising his use of the colonial language. In Achebe wrote: "I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings.
When independence came in "it was as if the rains had come after a long period of harsh winds and bushfires". Encouraged by the apparent successes of India and Ghana , "we thought we would do well to part ways with Her Majesty's empire on which the sun never set, to which the usual rejoinder was 'because God couldn't trust an Englishman in the dark'.
Not that we knew what independence was intended to be like. It had been given to us on a platter of gold, as our leader told us. Only later did we learn that you cannot grant freedom in that way, we should have taken it on our own terms. So year by year we found ourselves saying that we didn't like this, or weren't sure about that. We didn't have enough scepticism and should have known from simple human instinct that things were not shaping up the way they should.
Then came the coup, and then the counter-coup and soon after we were engaged in civil war. Nigerian writers and intellectuals, he says, had entered into a "new and terrifying phase", in that independence seemed "without substance. Of course the pathology of colonialism was deep-rooted, and the wounds manifested themselves in many unforeseen ways, and the cold war was lingering in the background, but we could no longer go on blaming others and absolving ourselves of the need to take action.
He broke with friends on the issue. His family — in he had married Christie, a psychology professor, with whom he has four children — who had to leave Lagos in the wake of the coup, were forced to go into hiding.
The Nigerian military was armed to the teeth by big foreign powers, and three million people, including many children, died in a conflict in which starvation was deployed as a weapon of war. After the Biafran defeat Achebe entered party politics with the leftist People's Redemption Party, but his "sojourn" was marked by frustration and disappointment. His essay on Conrad's Heart of Darkness , in which Achebe accepted Conrad's depiction of colonialism but detected too little condemnation of its fundamental racism, has been a pivotal point of debate in the subject ever since.
But I won't return there although I am pleased it sparked so much discussion. It is good to show in stark outline what the real situation is, what the person at the other end of the whip is feeling. But I also understood that I must get on with my work and not dwell on one subject or book.
His most recent novel was Anthills of the Savannah , which was shortlisted for the Booker prize and dealt with the military regime that ran a west African republic. He is currently engaged in a "semi-autobiographical" work that will take in his engagement with Biafra, but he acknowledges that his five novels, four of which were written by , make for a "limited harvest". He claims he would like to have written more fiction, but "I go at the pace of inspiration and what I can physically manage — although I have produced poetry and rather a lot of essays on this and that over the years.
0コメント