“Othering” as a Significant Element in Failure of Resistance against Western Culture in Things Fall Apart.

Document Type : Academicm and Research

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Abstract

The present article attempts to show how Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart has made use of the notion of "Othering" from a new perspective. Many critics have focused on postcolonial criticism to suggest that Achebe's novel is a sharp criticism of the Western colonialism in Africa. However،the present article tries to suggest that Things Fall Apart is more concerned with the internal than external "Othering". Achebe has succinctly focused on the internal dynamics of the African local culture to reveal its weak points through which the Western culture infiltrated the traditional tribal structure. The Most important aspects of this internal Othering is portrayed in the African communities' of making special parts of the society as strangers and subaltern. The Western colonizers appropriate this particular quality of societal making of strangers to bypass the structure of local power and dominate the community.

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References

Achebe, C. (1975). Morning Yet on Creation Day. London: Heinemann.
Achebe, C. (1995). Things Fall Apart. London: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Ashcrift, B.; Gareth G. & Tiffin, H. (1998). Key Concepts in Postcolonial Studies. London: Routledge.
Hall, S. & Gay, P. (1996). Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage.
Loomba, A. (2005). Colonialism/Post-colonialism. New York: Routledge.
Mecleod, J. (2000). Beginning Post-colonialism. Manchester: MUP.
Spivak, G. (1987). In Other Worlds:Essays in Cultural Politics. Routledge: London.
Vaugha, M. (1991). Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness. Cambridge and Stanford: Polity Press and Stanford University Press.
 
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Rhetoric and Grammar Studies
Volume 8, Issue 14
October 2018
Pages 119-138

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