The African Trilogy - ‘writing back’ to Mister Johnson :: Essays Papers

The African Trilogy - written material back to Mister JohnsonThe African Trilogy has been the subject of more critical discussion since the publication of Things Fall Apart forty years ago. Some of this critical work has focused on the trilogy as a postcolonial work, writing back to the previous colonial works on Africa, such as those produced by Joseph Conrad and Joyce Cary. Achebe has himself alluded to these works as part of his motivation for becoming a writer, art them appalling novels about Africa. More specifically he has saidI know around 51, 52, I was quite certain that I was going to fork over my hand at writing, and one of the things that set me thinking was Joyce Carys novel, set in Nigeria, Mister Johnson, which was praised so much, and it was clear to me that it was a mostsuperficial picture of - not only of the commonwealth - but even of the Nigerian character, and so I thought if this was famous, then perhaps someone ought to look at this from the inside ( Duerde n Dennis, and Cosmo Pieterse, eds. African Writers Talking A Collection of Radio Interviews. London Heinemann, 1972.)Looking at this from the inside, involved drawing on the model of his suffer Igbo golf-club and its oral traditions. By reconstructing a picture and narrative of Africa, and using Carys fiction as a point of departure, Achebe set out to challenge the colonialist depiction of Africans and their society.Although both Mister Johnson and The African Trilogy are concerned with similar issues, the ways in which these issues are confronted are strikingly different. In contrast to the simple, baby-like natives of Carys novel, Achebes characters are complex, multi-dimensional figures in their own right. While the African society of Mister Johnson is portrayed as uncivilized, simple, corrupt, the Igbo society of Things Fall Apart is shown as having grown from a long tradition of careful decision-making and a carefully system of religious, social and political beliefs. A rebu ttal to the African world portrayed by Cary takes the form of an intelligent portrayal of the character of Okonkwo and the society of Umuofia. As opposed to Cary, Achebe explores, in depth, the relationship between the individual and the social context in which his emotional and psychological make-up has developed. In addition, he gives us in Okonkwo a protagonist we can identify with rather than laugh atPerhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a poisonous man.