ENG140Y1 Lecture Notes - Chinua Achebe, Relativism
Document Summary
First novel to offer a literary form of resistance. Achebe rewrote both form and content of western literature in order to provide a different kind of imaginative space for both african and non- African readers in which they could go on to discover a different political space. Can plausibly be said to have changed the way we see the world. Right now, things appear to be fallen apart again for same reasons. War for control or resources and minds, colonialism. Protests against all these things: occupy wall street. A novel about colonial power and about a man who kills himself because he cannot bear it any longer. Things fall apart is about a place and a people unknown to many. Ibo is very removed from our experiences. The words in the book are even foreign. Achebe says that when i had to read the russian novels, no one told me what words meant.
