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Beyond Authenticity and Creolization: Reading Achebe Writing Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Neil ten Kortenaar
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Abstract

Postcolonial discussion of culture revolves around the twin poles of authenticity and creolization, which are not descriptions of culture but rhetorical constructs used to win the adherence of the members of a community. These metaphors are valid insofar as they convince community members to adopt a certain identity. Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God, a postcolonial novel set in the early colonial era, supports my contention that cultural identity has always been constructed by such appeals. The priest Ezeulu invents the tradition that he upholds, and in so doing he (unintentionally) permits the consensual writing of a tragedy in which an authentic identity is lost. The experience of colonization is configured by the community of Umuaro as a tragedy but by the novel as the writing of a tragedy. I emphasize the community's capacity to write a cathartic narrative.

Information

Type
Special Topic: Colonialism and the Postcolonial Condition
Information
PMLA , Volume 110 , Issue 1: Special Topic Colonialism and the Postcolonial Condition , January 1995, pp. 30 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1995

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References

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