Ode Ogede, North Carolina Central University
An exclusive preoccupation with Chinua Achebe's novels has somewhat decidedly deflected attention away from his work both as a short-story writer and as a writer of children's fiction.[1] The aim of this essay is to rekindle interest specifically in Achebe's short fiction. Numerically, Achebe's showing as a short-story writer may not quite place him on a par with that of other world-class writers. Edgar Allan Poe, Nawal El Saadawi, Alex La Guma, Herman Melville, Nurudin Farah, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Buchi Emechetta, Anton Chekhov, Bessie Head, Henry James, and Najib Mahfuz, among others,[2] not only distinguished themselves as master novelists but were equally at home in the terrain of short fiction. However, Achebe's efforts here are quite commendable. Despite the scantiness of his production, Achebe should take solace in the very high quality of his output.[3] Achebe's stories merit attention not only because of the thematic concerns they share with his longer narratives, but also because of the range of stylistic experimentation they put on display. In this essay, I analyze Achebe's singular book of short stories Girls at War and Other Stories (1972) to argue that all of his narrative experimentation in his short fiction can best be appreciated in the context of a debt to the oral tradition.
Oral tradition in this essay refers to the body of tales told both in the home by the fireside and in the wider community in African villages. Achebe heard these tales during his childhood. While he was growing up in the village of Ogidi in Eastern Nigeria in the 1930s, traditional storytelling flourished in the home as well as in the schools.[4] As noted by Isidore Okpewho in his important book African Oral Literature,[5] though different storytellers have different performance styles, there are certain resources that all performers have in their repertoire. Among these are repetition, tonal variation, parallelism, piling and association, the direct address, ideophones, digression, imagery, hyperbole, allusion, and symbolism. In addition, traditional tales tend to conclude with an appended moral that often confirms the norms of the society in which they are performed. Of these resources, the direct address (which ensures interaction with the audience), digression, exaggeration, and didacticism are the features most prominently deployed by Achebe in his short stories. Though traditional storytelling has influenced Achebe's short stories as much as it has his novels, this fact has surprisingly escaped the notice of his critics. Even more astonishing is the fact that some critics have made an effort to deny Achebe's oral heritage entirely. Among them is his longtime associate Ossie Enekwe, who claims that Achebe "developed as a writer in an environment where the short story form is not taken seriously, where there was no flourishing tradition of short fiction."[6] By arguing that Achebe "developed as a short story writer through dint of hard work and perseverance," Enekwe seems to excuse the presumed lack of short fiction in Achebe's oeuvre by blaming the unfavorable background in which Achebe grew up. Nonetheless, Enekwe's allegation that Achebe "made mistakes," that "these were steadily and systematically eliminated as he perfected his skill,"[7]is unwarranted; such special pleading sweeps aside not only the fact that the Igbos generally hold storytelling in high regard, but also the fact that the art of storytelling can legitimately be taken as Achebe's greatest literary influence.
Achebe takes his heritage seriously. Even when the subject of his stories is slight, he is always able to capture the reader's interest with reasonable storytelling skills, as "The Madman" (1972), the first story of the collection, clearly illustrates. In that story, Nwibe, an enterprising and eminent middle-aged man, is about to take the Ozo title, one of the most prestigious awards in his community, when he suddenly experiences a reversal of fortune. His plight resembles Okonkwo's in Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart (1958),[8] for, like Okonkwo, whose ambition to become one of the most respected elders of his community is ruined just as he is about to achieve his goal, Nwibe's aspiration is thwarted at the most unexpected moment.
Indeed, the destruction of Nwibe is rendered particularly poignant because he is able and determined to take full control of his life. Nwibe's quest for personal rejuvenation by bathing at a local stream on his way from the farm turns out to be the occasion for his ruin. A naked madman who has gone to the stream to drink water spots Nwibe's loincloth, gathers it, wraps it around his waist, and speeds away with it. Nwibe's attempt to retrieve his stolen loincloth results in a chase that leads him to a market where onlookers view his nakedness as a sign of insanity. Odun Balogun argues that the "involuntary but tragic exchange of identities between a sane person and a madman, an exchange symbolized by clothing" provides an appropriate occasion for a didactic lesson about life's "uncertainties."[9] As Balogun adds revealingly,"[t]he situation whereby a sane person is identified and treated as a madman not only underscores the precariousness of the claim of every sane person to sanity within the society, but also pinpoints the basic subjectivity of existence and human judgments. In fact, we cannot be sure of anything... But perhaps what the story has done is to equate extreme anger with insanity."[10] What should be added here is that Nwibe's plight, like Okonkwo's, stands as a dazzling metaphor for Africa's cultural dispossession. The madman's posture at that significant moment in Nwibe's life and personal/psychic development makes pointedly clear the devious impulse of the attacker. "The madman watched him for quite a while. Each time he bent down to carry water in cupped hands from the shallow stream to his head and body the madman smiled at his parted behind. And then I remembered. This was the same hefty man who brought three others like him and whipped me out of my hut in the Afo market" (7). The stalking, deceitful actions that precede the madman's theft of Nwibe's cloth are reminiscent of the calculating actions of the colonialists who pounced on Africans at their least suspecting and most vulnerable moment to insure the success of the mission of colonial conquest.
In the following two stories, "The Sacrificial Egg" and "Chike's School Days," Achebe employs similar oral literary devices, but to different ends. Both stories continue to develop the theme of the unpredictability of life. Irony is an essential feature of both stories, and the crisp, direct, short sentences contribute immensely to the buildup of the emotions explored in the pieces. "Chike's School Days" is especially remarkable for the economical, but effective, way in which it invokes the reversals of fortune brought about by colonialism. The story depends for its effect on the use of digression, rumor or hearsay, summary recapitulation, and authorial commentary, all of which are devices favored in oral storytelling, as they lend liveliness and a sense of immediacy to the events depicted. The plot of the story focuses on the experiences of Chike, an only son in a family of six children. The story begins as a study of Igbo cultural values, which reveals the craving Igbos have for male children and the joy that Chike's birth brings to his particular family. It then shifts to the ravages unleashed by colonialism. Chike was originally born an osu, a member of families usually looked down upon in traditional Igbo culture. In relating the ferocity with which Chike snobs playmates from non-Christian families, the story pinpoints the terrible cultural consequences of the European colonial takeover. The world brought into being by the extension of European rule was unjust. Instead of bringing about the equality Europeans claimed, their rule replaced one evil with another, for, in place of privilege and respect determined by birth and age, colonial rule superimposed rank or social standing based on assimilation of the cultural model of Europe. Christianity and schooling were not only the primary institutions of Europeanization, but also of entitlement and social status. Such a reversal of fortune does not present a viable solution to the problem of bigotry; this is why Achebe makes an allegorical representation of a successful marriage between a free-born and an osu a reality in this story, thus making it an important update on the novel No Longer at Ease (1964),[11] where the attempt to achieve such parity results in a disastrous failure. "Chike's father was not originally an osu, but had gone and married an osu woman in the name of Christianity. It was unheard of for a man to make himself an osu in that way, with his eyes wide open. But then Amos was nothing if not mad. The new religion had gone to his head. It was like palm-wine. Some people drank it and remained sensible. Others lost every sense in their stomach" (38). Although the attempt to communicate a sense of those ostensibly attractive features of the new religion, which hastened the supplanting of the indigenous culture of the Igbo by colonialism, is a troubling throwback to the liberal ideology of Achebe's novels, the story as a whole is definitely less tedious to follow.
In "The Sacrificial Egg," a more fatalistic story, there is a similar display of narrative eloquence. The story deals with the psychological and physical toll exerted on people by a smallpox epidemic in an Igbo town, Umuru, in the 1920s. The people in town believe that the deadly epidemic is the handiwork of a local deity, Kitikpa, who is angry with the community, thereby emphasizing the power of superstition and creating an atmosphere of fear and helplessness. Achebe's interest, however, is in the plight of an individual within the context of a general calamity: "Julius Obi sat gazing at his typewriter. The fat Chief Clerk, his boss, was snoring at his table. Outside, the gatekeeper in his green uniform was sleeping at his post. You couldn't blame him; no customer had passed through the gate for nearly a week. There was an empty basket on the giant weighing machine. A few palm-kernels lay desolately in the dust around the machine. Only the flies remained in strength" (43).
One of this story's intentions is to demonstrate what appears to be a conspiracy between colonialism, human failure, and nature in instigating the suffering of a community. The protagonist, Julius, is a Standard Six certificate holder who works as a clerk in the offices of "the all-powerful European trading company which bought palm-kernels at its own price and cloth and metalware, also at its own price" (44 - 45). To the economic exploitation his community suffers at the hands of the imperialists is added the scourge of the smallpox, which, we learn, not only killed its victim, but also "decorated" the survivor (46).
The town itself has evolved from a small rural setting to a suburban locality, and with that have come a number of petty crimes and fear of the ghosts believed to haunt its big market. However, the thrust of the story is the tragic encounter of the protagonist with a deadly destiny through a doomed love affair. When Julius seeks the hand of Janet in marriage, he receives her mother's support because of his Christian faith. One fated day, however, Julius and his girlfriend part under foreboding circumstances. Julius is returning home in the night when he suddenly steps on a sacrificial egg. "In his hurry he stepped on something that broke with a slight liquid explosion... Someone oppressed by misfortune had brought the offering to the crossroads in the dusk" (47). In a story dominated by traditional fatalism, there is an indication that one's destiny cannot be averted; this is why, despite Julius's firm attachment to the tenets of Christianity and his conviction that his education has freed him from traditional taboos, he seems to end up a victim of diabolic forces. Shortly after he breaks the sacrificial egg, his girlfriend and her mother become afflicted with the deadly smallpox virus. While the reader may well see the breaking of the egg as a foreshadowing sign and a reminder of the townspeople's superstition, it is clear that this is not the cause of the smallpox. However, for the actors in the story, the breaking of the egg and the deadly disease signal cause and effect.
"Uncle Ben's Choice" develops the theme of destiny a step further by depicting one man's unsuccessful struggle to exist in a permanent state of innocence. The protagonist, known simply as Jolly Ben, works as a clerk in a trading company in the same locality as in the earlier story - Umuru - where he faces many temptations, among them alcohol and women, both of which are in plentiful supply. It is his choice, however, to remain a decent, responsible, and cautious man, and to live according to the injunctions laid down by traditional wisdom. If "Uncle Ben's Choice" stands out as a story, it is due to its use of the first-person narrator, which foreshadows the style of A Man of the People (1966),[12] a novel with which the story shares many thematic overlaps, including the elements of exaggeration, sustained reminiscence, tongue-in-cheek jollity, and riotous humor. In the opening paragraph of the story, the narrator sets the tone by establishing many layers of information. The narrator makes it clear, for instance, that he possesses some privileged historical information and that his decision to live frugally is not taken on account of being disadvantaged or lacking the resources necessary to sustain an indulgent lifestyle. He could afford to live in the fast lane, but he has chosen not to do so; his moral conviction seems to suggest that he speaks with the voice of the past's wisdom. After all, he is an old man who can pass over the temptations of life with a wealth of experience behind him.
In particular, Ben recalls how he exhibited a special, guarded behavior toward women. Even though he held a strong attraction for them, unlike the hedonistic Odili Samalu in A Man of the People, Ben believes women are perilous: "The women of Umuru are very sharp; before you count A they count B. So I had to be very careful. I never showed any of them the road to my house and I never ate food they cooked for fear of love medicine. I had seen many young men kill themselves with women in those days, so I remembered my father's word: Never let a handshake pass the elbow" (76). The eventual termination of Ben's long-standing struggle for everlasting innocence is presented as a measure of the inherent evilness of the city, whose degraded life is a threat to the permanence of traditional values. Finally, it happens that on a fateful New Year's Eve, Ben momentarily loses his guard. "I had one roasted chicken and a tin of Guinea Gold. Yes, I used to smoke in those days" (77). In the early hours of that morning, Ben jumps on his new Raleigh bicycle and rides it home; when he gets straight to bed, "too tired to look for my lamp" (78), he finds on his bed a woman whom he believes to be Margaret, his only female acquaintance: "So I began to laugh and touch her here and there. She was hundred per cent naked. I continued laughing and asked her when did she come. She did not say anything so I suspected she was annoyed ... I was still laughing when I noticed that her breasts were straight like the breasts of a girl of sixteen or seventeen, at most" (78). It is stated that Ben was alarmed by the texture of her strange hair, which was "soft like the hair of a European" (78). This is why he jumps out of the bed, asking the lady to disclose her identity and threatening to strike a match. Before he can seek help from his neighbor, Matthew Obi, however, Ben passes out and has to be revived with cold water, without finding out who the woman was. He is told he has been visited by a Mami Wota, or fairy woman.
As in a typical oral storytelling performance, "Uncle Ben's Choice" ends with a moral lesson that is meant to reinforce the traditional values of the tribe. Despite the temptation to sleep with the Mami Wota in order to get rich quick, Ben recovers his guard refusing to give up his power to make and bring up children for material possessions. The lesson is driven home powerfully with the anecdotal story of Dr. J. M. Stuart-Young, who is remembered for having chosen to act against traditional wisdom: "For where is the man who will choose wealth instead of children? Except a crazy white man like Dr. J. M. Stuart-Young. Oh, I didn't tell you. The same night that I drove Mami Wota out she went to Dr. J. M. Stuart-Young, a white merchant, and became his lover. You have heard of him? Oh yes, he became the richest man in the whole country. But she did not allow him to marry. When he died, what happened? All his wealth went to outsiders. Is that good wealth? I ask you. God forbid" (80 - 81). The logic here is that Igbo (African) culture is people-centered and places primacy upon the value of children, as opposed to modern European culture, which is materialistic and acquisitive. "Uncle Ben's Choice" ends as an exploration in which African humanism triumphs over acquisitiveness and other temptations of the city that came along with the establishment of European colonial powers in Africa.
All of Achebe's short stories stress the importance of ancient cultural traditions and habits in the survival and organizing of indigenous societies. This is evident even in early and amateurish pieces such as "Akueke" (in which the experience of a proud girl who refuses all suitors in the neighborhood serves to accentuate not only the primacy of marriage as a traditional institution but also the importance of family and of values like compassion and love) and "Marriage is a Private Affair" (which questions the custom of arranged marriage by exposing the prejudice against inter-tribal marriage and which calls for tolerance and understanding in order to protect an institution believed to be the bedrock of society). It is also evident in "Dead Men's Path" (a story employing the overzealousness of a young headmaster to teach basic lessons in moderation) and in the stories "The Voter," "Vengeful Creditor," and "Girls at War," which focus on contemporary society, where corruption is pervasive and in which the author attributes the malaise to the repudiation of traditional values that once cushioned people from moral depravity and the crisis it inevitably inflicts.
The life of Rufus Okeke in "The Voter" provides an apt occasion for an examination of the debility that threatens to erode the moral foundation of society. An energetic and hardworking young man, Rufus is unlike other people of his generation. He has made an early determination to resist the pull of the cities and has decided to remain in his village instead. By presenting the eventual corruption of Rufus within the context of an obsessively acquisitive, materialistic society, Achebe condemns the foreign influences that have effectively eroded traditional integrity. When Rufus is hired to direct the political campaigns of the Honorable Minister Markus Ibe, he has no divided allegiance. Rufus eventually deviates from his high moral principles when he notices politicians using their offices mainly for personal material gain. So pervasive are the abuses that the villagers are no longer taken in by the deceptions: "The villagers had had five years in which to see how quickly and plentifully politics brought wealth, chieftaincy titles, doctorate degrees and other honours some of which, like the last, had still to be explained satisfactorily to them; for in their naivety they still expected a doctor to be able to heal the sick. Anyhow, those honours and benefits had come so readily to the man to whom they had given their votes free of charge five years ago that they were now ready to try it a different way" (14). The villagers' response is to put a price on their votes. In one of the most chilling depictions of political corruption in African fiction, they haggle continuously with one of the politicians' campaign managers. Despite Rufus's commitment to his moral principles, he ultimately succumbs to the corruption embedded in the system. The method by which he responds to the challenges of not being able to be bound by one's word foregrounds the state of desperation to which the well-meaning individual is driven by such a system. He cuts his voter's card into two and casts each half for the two candidates to whom he has been made to commit himself. By this act, Rufus attempts to achieve two goals simultaneously: to insure his self-defense against the Iyi charm to which he had sworn while receiving a bribe from Markus's opponent, and to assuage his conscience that he did not really betray his friend. The use in modern politics of Iyi - "a fearsome little affair contained in a clay pot with feathers stuck into it" (18) deployed to harm anyone who collects a bribe but reneges on the oath taken to vote for the giver of the bribe - reflects how desperate the politicians themselves have become; they are prepared to employ any immoral means that can lead them to victory because the stakes are exceptionally high, for while the winner takes everything, the loser gets nothing. But, ironically, while the political elites exert enormous pressure on the masses to keep their promises, the elites themselves do not show such exemplary behavior in their own conduct.
The inability of African leaders to keep their political promises is without question one of the recurring themes in African writing. The story "Vengeful Creditor," however, is unique. It allows the reader a penetrating look into the world of political corruption and social neglect from the standpoint of ordinary people, thus confirming the notion that Achebe uses the short story to write for, and speak to, the people. Though not written in the language of the people, the story's accessibility is bound to appeal to those ordinary Africans who have neither the leisure nor the skill to read elongated prose narratives. "Vengeful Creditor" achieves several goals simultaneously: it exposes the ostentatious lifestyle of the elite and shows that it can be sustained only by corruption; it documents the failure of African governments' social policies; it explores the vested interests of powerful commercial concerns, revealing how they discourage genuine involvement; and it uncovers the hypocrisy of greedy political leaders, who take undue advantage of the masses.
"Vengeful Creditor" is a sophisticated, well-organized story that is structurally sound. Mrs. Emenike, the story's protagonist, is portrayed consistently through details that reveal that she takes the services she receives from her underpaid employees for granted. Achebe shows her in a shopping spree to bring out her individualistic personality and lifestyle, which are representative of her class. Her arrogance is evident in her imposing demeanor and her superior airs at the cash counter, as well as in the shabby treatment she metes to the forty-year-old "boy" whom she pays three pennies for carrying her purchases to her waiting car outside the shopping center.
The maliciousness of a master and mistress who lead their ward to the path of believing in promises they have no intention of keeping is exposed in the story of Veronica, a little girl of ten whom the Emenikes have enticed away from her widowed mother so that she can serve them. Veronica serves the Emenikes dutifully and reliably. However, her boss and his mistress refuse to honor their pledge to send her to school. Veronica is increasingly frustrated. She expresses her frustration in subtle songs of protest, but the Emenikes choose to view her songs in terms of their entertainment as lullabies. Veronica then resorts to little acts of cruelty against the child under her care, ultimately giving the child ink to drink in a last desperate effort to avenge her maltreatment. It is easy to see that Veronica's action expresses a worthy but misdirected rage over being denied access to education. Indeed, during the confrontation between her mother and Mrs. Emenike, Veronica's mother puts her daughter's anger in clear perspective: "And that thing that calls himself a man talks to me about the craze for education. All his children go to school, even the one that is only two years; but that is no craze. Rich people have no craze. It is only when the children of poor widows like me want to go with the rest that it becomes a craze. What is this life? To God, what is it? And now my child thinks she must kill the baby she is hired to tend before she can get a chance. Who put such an abomination into her belly? God, you know I did not" (69). After listening to Veronica's mother voicing her concerns about the fate of her daughter living under the bad influence of Mrs. Emenike, Mr. Emenike mischievously admits that Veronica is "learning fast" and asks: "Do you know the proverb which says that when mother cow chews giant grass her little calves watch her mouth?" (65). Fortunately, Veronica's mother does not just express these apprehensions concerning child-care and the danger of living under bad influences. The best solution, she finds, is simply to take back her daughter. This is probably the most salient moral lesson adumbrated by "Vengeful Creditor": The belief that, just as power corrupts easily, slipping as readily into the lives of those who wield it as into the minds of those who are the victims, so subjugation can easily be transformed into a desire for retribution in the subjugated people.
Similar to "Vengeful Creditor," the collection's title story, "Girls at War," is also a tale of aborted human dreams, in which Achebe explores with moving honesty the repercussions of human greed within the context of war. "Girls at War" combines sensitivity, compassion, and clear-headed observation in presenting the corruption experienced during one of Africa's most destructive and senseless civil wars - the Nigerian-Biafran War of 1967 - 70. In the story, Achebe captures a view of the war as a machination of the elites, who profit so much from the ravages of society that they want the war to go on indefinitely. In a manner reminiscent of Wilfred Owen's war poems, Achebe juxtaposes the resignation of the people with the determination of others who profit from the tragedy of the victims.
The amoral relationship carried out between Biafran officer Reginald Nwankwo of the Ministry of Justice and a vivacious and beautiful girl named Gladys, who works in the Fuel Directorate of the Biafran army, allows readers to gain an insight into the details of life during the war. Both Reginald and Gladys relate their own stories, divulging the degree of discomfort they feel about the social malaise in which they are caught, a decadence that seems to have eroded the very fabric of society. Nwankwo specifically holds women responsible for the decay. The story's title, which is taken from a comment made by Nwankwo about a girlfriend of Gladys's, indicates the ironic distance with which the author views Nwankwo's position. The rumors being peddled by neighbors about the trips Gladys's girlfriend repeatedly makes to spend weekends in Liberiville in the company of her boyfriend provokes Nwankwo's comment that "[s]he [Gladys] will come back on an arms plane loaded with shoes, wigs, pants, bras, cosmetics and what have you, which she will then sell and make thousands of pounds. You girls are really at war, aren't you?" (111). The comment is unfair since Nwankwo himself is equally guilty of profiteering from the war. In any case, Nwankwo's observation regarding the character of Gladys refutes his biased explanation of the situation.
Gladys's beauty is so startling it gives Nwankwo the impression that "she had to be in the keep of some well-placed gentleman, one of those piling up money out of the war" (106). Her behavior is also consistent with his description of her as "a girl, who once had such beautiful faith in the struggle and was betrayed (no doubt about it) by some man .. out for a good time" (108). Nwankwo distinguishes between those who exploit the war situation as a tactic for survival and those who are so perverted and lacking in ethical values that they take delight in making material gains from the death of others. However, events in the story indicate otherwise: Even Nwankwo's own experience tends to lend support to the hypothesis that people are not doing bad things because they are evil, but rather because they have to do what they need to survive. Nwankwo sympathizes with the poor and is never so happy as when he can distribute food to them. Ordinarily, Nwankwo would not want to steal from the masses. However, when the circumstances force him, Nwankwo diverts "tins and bags and cartons" of food supplies meant for distribution to the public to help in the upkeep of his own family while the "starved crowds that perpetually hung around relief centres made rude, ungracious remarks" (105).
Even the casual reader of Achebe's stories soon becomes aware of the reciprocal relationships the author strikes between his shorter and longer narratives. Though his stories appear to move away from the direct communal concerns of the longer narratives, this is not really the case. In most of his stories, Achebe uses the experiences of individuals to explore the problems of the larger society. Ultimately, the stories constitute precious documents that portray socio-political, cultural, and economic changes of the community. In his short stories, Achebe has shown how literature can deal with trying moments such as colonization and war and their aftereffects, how art can emerge from moments of utter chaos, and he has responded with sensitivity to the suffering of others. The generation that witnessed both the colonization of Africa and the Nigerian-Biafran War certainly knew the pain that resulted from years of upheaval. War is the most obvious indication of human life gone awfully wrong, and this, surely, is the message of Achebe's stories. Giving a sense of what it means for the ordinary person to live through the circumstances of war is the major contribution of the few short stories Achebe has composed.
Notes
[1]
The neglect of Achebe's short stories goes hand in hand with the general disdain in which the short story is held by critics of modern
African writing. Wilfred Feuser puts the case in perspective when he laments in his Jazz and Palmwine (London: Longman, 1981) that
critics of African writing have "paid scant attention to the short story and have treated it as a footnote to the novel" (iv). All of
Achebe's stories discussed in this essay are from the collection Girls at War and Other Stories (London: Heinemann, 1972), which includes
several stories first published by Etudo publishers in Onitsha in 1962 under the title The Sacrificial Egg and Other Stories.
Subsequent references are to this edition and are cited in the text in parentheses.
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[2]
Such as, for example, James Joyce, Nadine Gordimer, Salman Rushdie, Albert Camus, Ama Ata Aidoo, William Faulkner, Gabriel Marquez, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
V.S.Naipaul, Richard Wright, Dambudzo Marechera, Margaret Atwood, Jamaica Kincaid, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and Ernest Hemingway.
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[3]
In the preface to his only book of short stories, Girls at War and Other Stories, Chinua Achebe himself expresses uneasiness about his
performance as a short-story writer, saying "A dozen pieces in twenty years must be accounted a pretty lean harvest by any reckoning" (2).
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[4]
For details on Achebe's background, see Ezenwa - Ohaeto's Chinua Achebe: A Biography (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997) and
Kole Omotoso's Achebe or Soyinka: A Study in Contrasts (London: Hans Zell, 1992).
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[5]
Isidore Okpewho, African Oral Literature: Backgrounds, Character, and Continuity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992) 70 - 101.
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[6]
Ossie Enekwe, "Chinua Achebe's Short Stories," Nigerian Literature 1700 to the Present, vol. 2, ed. Yemi Ogunbiyi (Lagos:
Guardian Books, 1988) 38.
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[7]
Enekwe 38.
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[8]
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (London: Heinemann, 1958).
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[9]
See Odun F. Balogun, Tradition and Modernity in the African Short Story: An Introduction to a Literature in Search of Critics
(New York: Greenwood Press, 1991) 97.
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[10]
Balogun 99.
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[11]
Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease (London: Heinemann, 1960).
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[12]
Chinua Achebe, A Man of the People (London: Heinemann, 1966).
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