Tracing the background of Chinua Achebe: his early life and upbringing in Nigeria
Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, best known for his first novel, things fall apart which is the most widely read and discussed book in modern African literature, he described his writing as an attempt to clarify the historical record by showing that Africans did not first hear about culture from Europeans, that their societies were not meaningless. but they had a philosophy of great depth and value and beauty, which had poetry and above all, had dignity.
Achebe’s novels, especially the now 50-year-old Things Fall Apart, focus on the traditions of Igbo society, the effect of Christian and Western influences on it, and the clash of values during and after the era. colonial. Achebe’s works portray the communities of Nigeria. going through the traumas of colonization and entering a troubled nation. By uniting the political and the literary, she does not idealize the indigenous culture or apologize for the colonial one.
Achebe, who, unlike his Kenyan counterpart Ngugi Wathiongo, wrote his novels in English, has defended the use of English, even if it is the language of the colonizers, in African literature. Achebe’s keen ear for spoken language has made him one of the most highly regarded African writers writing in English. His style draws heavily on Igbo oral tradition and combines simple storytelling with reenactments of folk stories, proverbs, and oratory.
Raised by Christian parents in the Igbo village of Ogidi in southern Nigeria, Achebe excelled in school and won a scholarship for university studies. She later became fascinated with world religions and traditional African cultures, and began writing stories that were published in campus publications.
After graduation, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service, which caused him to move to the metropolis of Lagos.
Achebe’s parents, Isaiah Okafo Achebe and Janet Anaenechi Iloegbunam, converted to the Protestant Church Missionary Society (CMS) in Nigeria. The elder Achebe, being a teacher in a missionary school, stopped practicing the religion of his ancestors, but respected his traditions and sometimes incorporated elements of his ancestors into his Christian practice.
Chinua’s unabridged name, Chinualumogu “May God fight on my behalf”, was a prayer for divine protection and stability. The Achebe family had five other surviving children, named with a similar amalgamation of traditional and English names: Frank Okwuofu, John Chukwuemeka Ifeanyichukwu, Zinobia Uzoma, Augustine Nduka, and Grace Nwanneka.
Chinua was born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in the Igbo village of Ogidi in Nneobi on November 16, 1930. His parents instilled in him many of the values of their traditional Igbo culture even though they were devout evangelical Protestants. They then named him Albert, after Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. His parents, who were at a crossroads of traditional culture and Christian influence, had a significant impact on the children, especially in Chinualumogu. As a result, Achebe’s education spanned both worlds, the indigenous and the colonial.
After the birth of the youngest daughter, the family moved to their ancestral village of Ogidi, in what is now Anambra. state.
Storytelling was one of the pillars of the Igbo tradition and an integral part of the community. Therefore, Chinua’s mother and sister, Zinobia Uzoma, told him many stories when he was a child, of which he repeatedly asked for more. His education was further enhanced by the collages his father hung on the walls of their house, as well as by almanacs and numerous books, including a prose adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and an Igbo version of Progress. of the pilgrim Chinua also enthusiastically anticipated the traditional events of the village, such as the frequent masquerade ceremonies, which he later recreated in his novels and stories.
In 1936 Achebe entered the Central School of St Philips. Despite his protests, he spent a week in the little boys’ religion class, but was quickly moved up when the school chaplain took notice of his intelligence. It was said that he had the best handwriting in the class and the best reading skills. He also attended weekly Sunday school and monthly special gospel services, often taking his father’s purse with him. A controversy broke out at one of those sessions, when apostates from the new church challenged the catechist on the tenets of Christianity. . Achebe would later include a similar scene in things fall apart.
At the age of twelve, Achebe moved away from his family to the village of Nekede, four kilometers from Owerri, where he enrolled as a student at the Central School, where his older brother, John, taught. At Nekede, Achebe gained an appreciation for Mbari, a traditional art form that seeks to invoke the protection of the gods through symbolic sacrifices in the form of sculptures and collages. When it was time to switch to secondary school, in 1944, Achebe sat the entrance examinations for both the prestigious Dennis Memorial Secondary School in Onitsha and the even more prestigious Government College in Umuahia. He was accepted to both but ultimately opted for the Government College in Umuahia. He received a coveted scholarship to the Government College in Umuahia, where he studied alongside some of Nigeria’s future political and cultural leaders.
Modeled on the British public school and funded by the colonial administration, Government College was established in 1929 to educate Nigeria’s future elite. He maintained rigorous academic standards and was vigorously egalitarian, accepting boys solely on the basis of ability. The language spoken in the school was fully English, not only to develop proficiency but also to provide a common language for students from different Nigerian language groups. This Achebe was later ordered to “put aside his different mother tongues and communicate in the language of his colonizers.” The rule was strictly followed and Achebe remembers that his first punishment was to ask another boy to pass him the soap in Igbo.
There, Achebe was double promoted in his first year. Therefore, he completed the first two years of studies in one, spending only four years in high school, instead of the standard five. Achebe, who did not adapt to the sports regime of the school, joined a group of six highly studious students. whose study habits were so intense that the principal prohibited the reading of textbooks from five to six in the afternoon (although other activities and other books were allowed).
Achebe began exploring the school’s “wonderful library” and discovered Booker T. Washington’s book. Up From Slavery, the autobiography of a former American slave. Although Achebe found it sad, but it showed him another dimension of reality. He also read classic novels, such as Gulliver’s Travels, David Copperfield and Treasure Island along with tales of colonial exploits such as that of H. Rider Haggard Allan Quartermain and John Buchan prester john . Achebe later recalled that, as a reader, he “sided with the white characters against the savages” and even developed a dislike for Africans. “The white man was good, reasonable, intelligent and brave. The savages ranged against him were sinister and stupid or, at best, cunning. He hated them to death.”
In 1948, in preparation for independence, Nigeria’s first university, now the University of Ibadan, opened as an associate college of the University of London. Achebe scored so highly on the entrance examination that he was admitted with a Scholarship in the first class of the university to study medicine. However, after a grueling year of work, he decided that science was not for him and switched to English, history, and theology. However, because he changed fields, he lost his scholarship and had to pay his fees. He received a government scholarship and his family also donated money; His older brother, Augustine, even gave money for a ride home from his civil servant job so Chinua could continue his studies. From its inception, the university had a strong English faculty and counts many famous writers among its alumni. These include Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, novelist Elechi Amadi, poet and playwright John Pepper Clark, poet Christopher Okigbo, and playwright and academic Kole Omotoso.