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

The African Trilogy - ‘writing back’ to Mister Johnson The African Trilogy has been the subject of much 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, calling them â€Å"appalling novels† about Africa. More specifically he has said: â€Å"I know around ‘51, ‘52, I was quite certain that I was going to try my hand at writing, and one of the things that set me thinking was Joyce Cary’s 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 country - 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† ( Duerden 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 own Igbo society and its oral traditions. By reconstructing a picture and narrative of Africa, and using Cary’s 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 Cary’s novel, Achebe’s 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 rebuttal 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 at : â€Å"Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man.