Lingering Issues In Achebe’s
Female Characterisation
Recently,
(Saturday April 12, 2008), I was at the National Theatre, Lagos, because of
Prof Chinua Achebe, Africa’s best known and most widely read author, who many
regard as the indisputable father and rallying point of African
Literature. The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) had organized a
forum to commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the publication of Achebe’s
classic novel, Things
Fall Apart,
published in London by William Heinemann in June 1958.
I was
held back at the office by some engagements, and by the time I arrived at the
venue, I had missed a substantial part of the ‘Interactive Session’. I came in
while Segun Olusola, former ambassador and arts enthusiast, was concluding his
speech. As I sat down, I heard him paying glowing tributes to Achebe and his
novel and saying how happy he was to be at the event. He then announced that he
would also grace the Awka event in honour of Achebe and Things Fall Apart, coming up more than a week
later.
Achebe
evokes a very special kind of pleasant, soothing feelings in most people that
have read either his novels or essays. And this was evident in the
emotion-laden speeches made by various speakers at the National Theatre that
weekend.
The
literary patriarch and icon was absent at the ceremony, but his image loomed
large everywhere, and this, mind you, was not because of those large posters
and billboards bearing his photograph (and, of course, the emblem of the main
sponsors, Fidelity Bank Plc) displayed at strategic points by the organizers.
There
is something profoundly unique about Achebe and his work that confers dignity
and awe on any event organized around him. The spirit of the man breathes
through the pages of his works, giving you the very palpable feeling that the
gifted story teller and meticulous teacher himself is by your very side, as you
read, physically telling you his most enchanting tales in the very unique way
that only him can tell them. His wit, deep insights, the overpowering wisdom he
conveys with such sagely precision, simple and subtle diction and disarming
style, the impressive imageries he effortlessly conjures, and the pleasant
local colour he so generously splashes on his narratives, never cease to
overwhelm. Achebe is one writer whose reputation and looming image was neither
built nor enhanced by any prize. What further glamour can occasional
decorations add to an already very colourful and big masquerade? The man rather
dignifies any prize he decides to accept, and not the other way round. For
instance, as Achebe and Things
Fall Apart are
celebrated across the world this season, only an insignificant few consider it
necessary to recall that a few months ago, he was awarded the Man Booker Prize
– a very important no doubt. Such information, though great in its own
right, makes little or no difference to the man’s already solidly established
stature.
It is impossible
to read Things
Fall Apart
without visualizing the village of Umuofia in its alluring freshness in the
warm embrace of rich nature in its most exciting vivacity and purity.
This is the only novel I know written by an African that has acquired such a
stature and influence, as to be so celebrated in such a grand fashion.
No,
doubt, Chinua Achebe is Africa’s rare gift to the world, and Nigeria should
never cease to be glad and grateful that this giant emerged from its loins. A
focused and consistent writer, the views expressed by Achebe in the sixties and
seventies, as the nature and boundaries of what is today known as African
literature were being meticulously defined, have remained valid and timeless.
They now constitute an invaluable reference material for anyone seeking a
better and reliable understanding of Africa, its literature and culture.
With
his novels, superb lectures and rich essays, Achebe has been able to compel the
world out there to significantly alter their entrenched warped views about
Africa. After a particularly brilliant speaking engagement in Canberra,
Australia, in the summer of 1973, Professor Manning Clark, a distinguished
Australian historian wrote to Achebe and pleaded: "I hope you come back
and speak again here, because we need to lose the blinkers of our past. So come
and help the young to grow up without the prejudices of their
forefathers..." I find this display of sincerity very touching.
It
is interesting that Things
Fall Apart enjoys
significant readership across cultures and races, and its message continues to
register lasting impacts that are simply rare and peculiar. Not a few Nigerians
can recall the instant celebrity status they had suddenly assumed or even some
favours that had come their way, in one remote part of the world or the other,
just because they had let it be known that they were from Chinua Achebe’s
country. Achebe has also remarkably excelled as a critic and essayist. His 1975
Chancellor’s Lecture at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, entitled, “An
Image Of Africa: Racism In Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness,” which I am never of tired of
re-reading, has not only significantly altered the nature and direction of
Conrad criticism, but is now widely regarded as one of the most influential
essays in the criticism of literature in English.
As
I listened to several speeches at the National Theatre on that Saturday, I
could feel the depth of admiration displayed by the various speakers towards
Achebe and his work. The whole thing was moving on well until one lady
came up with elaborate praise for Achebe for the significant “improvement” his
female characters achieved in Anthills Of the Savannah, unlike what obtained in Things Fall Apart, which we had all gathered to
celebrate that afternoon.
Now,
I would easily have ignored and quickly forgotten this comment as “one of those
things” one was bound to hear in a “mixed crowd” if I had not also heard such
thoughts brazenly expressed by some female scholars whom I thought should be
better informed. For instance, I was at a literary event in Port Harcourt some
years ago when a female Professor of Literature announced with the excitement
of someone who had just discovered another earth: When Achebe created his
earlier female characters, we complained; then he responded by giving us Clara
(in No
Longer At Ease),
and we still complained; then he gave us Eunice (in A Man Of The People) and we still asked for more; and
then he gave us Beatrice (in Anthills Of The Savannah). Unfortunately, I have
encountered thoughts even more pedestrian than this boldly flaunted in several
literary essays by women and some men.
Honestly,
I had thought that this matter had long been resolved and forgotten. It should
be clear (and I should think that this has been sufficiently stressed) that
whatever perceived differences in the various female characters created by
Achebe are a function of the prevailing realities in the different settings and
periods that produced them, and Achebe’s ability to record those realties so
accurately should not be construed to mean that he also “celebrates” them (as
some fellows have wrongly imputed) or advocates their sustenance.
In
his lecture at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, specially slated to precede
the very memorable Eagle
On Iroko Symposium,
organized to mark Achebe’s sixtieth birthday in 1990, Prof Dan Izevbaye
described Achebe as “history’s eyewitness.” Today Achebe is being widely
hailed for using his first novel, Things Fall Apart, to change the distorted images
of Africa celebrated in the heaps of mostly concocted historical and literary
accounts about the continent and its people by Western writers. But Achebe did
not see any wisdom in countering these distortions with greater distortions. He
merely presented reality with both its glowing and unedifying sides with
exceptional insight, penetration and grasp of the real picture which the
foreigner, whose impressions were mostly coloured by many years of deep-seated
prejudices, was incapable of capturing.
It
is a credit to Achebe’s mastery of his art that even though his readers may be
shocked, for instance, at the bloodcurdling murder of Ikemefuna, they would
still find it nearly impossible to categorize the incident as one more evidence
of savage pleasure in wanton bloodletting. The reader is able to see an Okonkwo
with genuine human feelings that are even more appealing than those of the
whitman who was attempting to “civilize” him, but who would have no qualms
wiping out an entire community, as happened in Abame community! Indeed, no sane
person would endorse any religious observances that prescribe human sacrifices,
but the reader would most likely catch himself empathizing with a highly
traumatized and sorrowful Okonkwo who had killed the boy as a national duty
prescribed by the deity he and his people worshipped at that time. Our dilemma
is compounded when we see that the same community that sacrificed Ikemefuna
would later banish Okonkwo for accidentally killing a man with his gun during a
ceremony in honour of dead great man. That is the reality of that era. And so,
when Achebe also records reality as it pertained to gender placement in
Okonkwo’s time, he is only playing effectively his role as “history’s
eye-witness.” Maybe, the feminists would have been happier if he had recreated
Okonkwo’s community to suit their notions and expectations, and in effect fall
guilty of the same charges of distortions that have trailed colonialist
portrayals of Africa in many works. We seem to forget, at times, that Achebe
was writing like someone who was part of that society and not some foreign
observer desperate to ‘confirm’ some preconceived notion. Umuofia was a society
in transition, and the author was able to capture the prevailing mood of the
time, instead of imposing on it his own idea of how the society should
be.
I agree
with Prof. Ian Watts in his book, The Rise Of The Novel, that there must be “a
correspondence between the literary work and the reality which it imitates.” I
wonder what kind of novel Achebe would have produced if he had made a couple of
women sit with the elders of Umuofia to deliberate on the banishment of
Okonkwo, or even the killing of Ikemefuna. Granted, that would have earned him
the boundless admiration of certain feminists, but the novel would have been
unrecognizable to anyone familiar with the subsisting features in the Igbo
traditional environment in the period Things Fall Apart or Arrow Of God was set.
But
despite the “emancipation and empowerment” Chinua Achebe’s later female
characters were said to have achieved, some faint murmur of dissatisfaction
could still be heard in some feminized critical circles. In a review of Anthills Of The
Savannah in the
journal, OKIKE (No 30: 1990), for instance ,
Prof Ifi Amadiume blames Achebe and his novel for failing or refusing to give
“women power” insisting that the female characters in the book are still
existing to “service” the men. But she appears to overstate her case when
she alleges that Ikem, one of the principal characters in the novel, despite
being a “great poet, great journalist and nationalist” could “at a personal
level” still stoop so low to “sexually exploit a grassroots girl.”
Now,
what my reading of the novel showed, however (that is, if we read the same book
– Achebe’s Anthills
Of The Savannah),
is that Ikem was very proud of Elewa, taking her to social meetings with his
highly placed and educated friends, including an expatriate administrator of
the nation’s General Hospital and a visiting British Editor of a poetry
journal. In fact, during a lecture he gave at the University of Bassa, Ikem
proudly announced Elewa’s mother as his future mother-in-law. He also did not
forget to inform his audience that his fiancée’s mother was a market woman, a
petty trader at Gelegele Market.
Now,
while not endorsing Ikem’s lifestyle (since I detest pre-marital sex), I fail
to see a case of sexual exploitation here – Ikem was genuinely in a flourishing
relationship with a lady he wanted to settle down with. How they eventually
choose to spend the night -- in the same room or in different rooms -- should
not be the concern of any nosey feminist. From all indications, Elewa and Ikem
were happy in that relationship, and that was all that mattered. There is never
ever a perfect union, but people have been able, by sacrifices, forbearance and
accommodations of each other’s faults and weaknesses, where love is alive and
well, to make the best of many relationships, and live happily ever after. So,
the little matter of Ikem insisting that they would not spend the night together
(which was the only point of conflict) is something that can be resolved in the
life of the relationship, and I wonder why that should be the headache of any
third party?
And, by
the way, what is all this noise about “servicing the men” in actions that were
purely consensual and mutually pleasurable to both parties who are also adults?
Even if His Excellency was removed from office and replaced with a Beatrice
(BB) as President of the Republic of Kangan, would that have automatically
elevated her above whatever obligations she had discharged towards Chris (and
vice-versa) before her status changed? Can it be said in all honesty that BB
was subjugated in the novel? Is her character not real? Assuming the
nation was not under military rule, which was an aberration, were there any
impediments before BB, barring her from aspiring to very high political
offices?
Again,
wasn’t a strong point also made by the fact that Elewa, despite her poor
background and almost no education had no complexes whatsoever socializing with
the society’s elite, whether she was able to follow in the discussions or not?
No doubt, Achebe could have just changed his story and made Elewa possess
a doctorate degree, but can anyone say that the status the author gave her in
the novel made her less than real? Certainly, the creative enterprise would
yield only boring works if all novels and plays are stampeded into adopting one
predictable, feminized pattern.
Now, it
is all this insistence by feminists on prescribing strict codes of conducts to
govern couples in the privacy of their homes that most people find very
revolting. Many women who had uncritically swallowed those ‘great rules and
regulations’, and had attempted to implement them in their homes, mainly to
underline the fact that they have now been “liberated and empowered,” even when
there were no situations in their homes that called for such brazen show of
‘girl-power,’ are today without even any stable homes from where to flaunt
their wonderful empowerment. Their marriages have since crashed, leaving
them out in the cold, sad and lonely. Only the truthful among them (like the
‘liberated’ Nigerian actress who has been screaming all over the place since
her husband left her) would confess that their daily menu ever since have remained
regrets and more regrets. This is the point late Professor Zulu Sofola most
brilliantly underlined in her play, Sweet Trap. If Ikem was battering Elewa or sneaking her
into his house only when his friends would not observe, then Ms. Amadiume would
have had a point. But instead of praising Ikem, a nationally celebrated
journalist and upper drawer writer and poet, for proposing to marry a barely
literate girl like Elewa, Prof Amadiume, would rather ‘batter’ him, having
found him guilty of an offence he did not even dream of committing. Men then do
not hold the monopoly on battering, after all!
Now, we
return to the issue of “giving women power”. I doubt if any novel, or indeed,
any book, can boast of the capacity to just take hold of power -- political,
social or economic -- and hand it over to women? That seems to be what female
critics are asking for, but as would be seen later, their attempts to compel
their own books to do this with indecent haste have unleashed on all of us
disastrous and grotesque creative works, with characters, settings and
incidents that are so gratuitously padded with several outlandish details and
extreme exaggerations, that their stories simply lost their abilities to be
true. As a result, many of them have served us with excellent demonstrations of
how fiction should not be written.
But a
writer can choose to make some projections, depending on his thrust, and point
the way forward. In Anthills
Of The Savannah,
Beatrice was the only character who was able to look the dreaded His
Excellency, the very maximum ruler to whom all the men cringed, in the face and
tell him some home truth. We may not endorse what she did to get His Excellency
to listen to her, but she has set an example by daring the tiger. Others can
now improve on her effort and tactics.
So,
whatever power women would acquire (assuming they lack any now) would largely
be the outcome of their own conscious effort. And this would clearly be
reflected in the literary works that would appear in that period. But care must
be taken to ensure that art is not sacrificed on the altar of advocacy.
Propaganda is important, but so also is art. And like Chinua Achebe has
warned, virtually all art is propaganda, but not all propaganda is art.
In
this vein, therefore, Ms. Katherine Frank has raised very important questions
in her article, “Women Without Men: Feminist Novel in Africa,” published in the
journal, African
Literature Today
No 15: “How are we to judge a work which we find politically admirable and true
but aesthetically simplistic, empty or boring? What do we make of characters
whose credos and pronouncements we endorse but whose human reality we find
negligible? … If the writing is inferior, the book becomes a tract and there
are far more efficient and effective ways of spreading an ideology than by
novels…”
As
the first published female novelist from Nigeria, late Flora Nwapa’s objective
was to hurriedly “empower” her female characters and place them above the male
ones. But in doing this, as evident in her novel, Efuru and the others, she featured
‘liberated’, empowered and highly assertive female characters in a society
peopled by mostly weak, grossly irresponsible, non-innovative,
non-enterprising, in fact, emasculated men. Art and realism suffered so that
ideology and advocacy may thrive. Is Nwapa saying in effect that women are
incapable of competing with men that are equally endowed and so can only excel
and attain some prominence in an environment inhabited by mostly emasculated
men or, in fact, outright imbeciles? How then can success be celebrated when
the supposed winner was spared any form of competition? Or like, she
demonstrated in One
Is Enough, must
women become morally irresponsible and hawk their bodies (to the same men they
intend to demonstrate the are superior to) to make it in society? There
is a huge irony here which neither Nwapa nor the majority of female writers
that she inspired saw the need to resolve. Certainly, no decent person would
embrace a “liberated” character like Amaka in Nwapa’s One Is Enough, who after a misunderstanding
with her husband, abandoned her home, and relocated to Lagos to “fully realize
herself” by excelling as a public piss pot in the city of Lagos.
Mybe,
Nwapa wanted to use the character of Amaka to give full expression to the
overly pernicious doctrine so eloquently promoted by the Egyptian feminist
writer, Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, in her book, Woman At Point Zero. Said Saadawi: “A woman’s life is
always miserable. A prostitute, however, is a little better off….
All women are prostitutes of one kind or another… the lowest paid body is that
of a wife…. A successful prostitute (is) better than a misled saint….
Marriage (is) the system built on the most cruel suffering for women.” (Woman At Point Zero, London &New York: Zed Books,
1983, pp.114, 117,111)
Although
some female scholars have made the case that feminism is not monolithic, I keep
thinking that they have a responsibility to help us draw a clear boundary
between female assertiveness and female extremism, because from what I can see
out there, definitions of feminism are mostly situational, and most of
the time is solely dependent on the mood and peculiar cravings or experiences
of the particular woman defining it at any given time. Indeed, today, whether
as a struggle, ideology or movement, feminism is an amorphous and an
unnecessarily ambiguous phenomenon. The lesbian, for instance, announces
herself as a feminist. The prostitute claims she is “making some kind of
protest.” The never-married, unmarriageable single mother is “driving
home some point.” The ever-wild nympho-maniac (who ought to have sought
help) is “advancing the struggle.” The lady out there with revolting
obsession for luring small boys to her nest and cruelly deflowering them is “getting
back at the oppressor—man.” The habitually unfaithful wife is “sending out some
message.” Now, in the midst of this cacophony of voices, how can we
know who is sane? Must otherwise sane women continue to endorse all these
ruinous absurdities just to get back at men?
Many
critics are agreed that the societies she created in Nwapa’s novels
are unrecognizable. But because of her popularity with women empowerment
diehards, most other female writers that came after her were easily seduced
into adopting her art-murdering style. In my article in The Guardian (Lagos), Sunday, June 1, 1997,
p.B4, entitled, “Zainab Akali And Feminist Writers,” which provoked a year-long
debate and even name-calling by some female contributors, I was frank
about my observation that the works of those female writers “are united by
their possession of the same maladies: they are blessed with all the
features of fairy tales and myth; they unabashedly distort with indecency
and uncanny bravado, sociology and gender images just to make some shallow
feminist point; their heroines are spared healthy competitions as they
only thrive in outlandish communities peopled by only weak, emasculated, lazy,
foolish and insane men.”
Indeed,
the “unliberated” Beatrice in Anthills Of The Savannah, achieved all she had by dint of
hard work in the midst of equally intelligent and hardworking men, not by
“conquering” the men by sleeping around. Her only offence, may be, would be
that she was not anti-men, but favoured an environment that promoted equal
opportunities for both the male and female to excel. Maybe, she also sinned
because she did her best to ensure her proposed marriage to Chris worked.
All
I am saying really is that when viewed within the particular environment and
period in which they were set, Achebe’s female characters are very real. They
are easily recognizable, and I would prefer them any day than the outlandish
caricatures offered us as alternatives in many feminist novels.