The novelist as a teacher by chinua achebe text. The Novelist as a Teacher 2022-10-29
The novelist as a teacher by chinua achebe text Rating:
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1969
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In "The Novelist as Teacher," Chinua Achebe discusses the role of the novelist in society and the importance of using literature as a means of education and enlightenment. Achebe argues that the novelist has a unique ability to teach and shape the thoughts and beliefs of readers, and that this power should be wielded responsibly.
Achebe begins by noting that the novelist is often seen as a mere entertainer, but he argues that this view is shortsighted. He asserts that the novelist has a special role in society, one that goes beyond simply providing entertainment. Instead, the novelist has the ability to influence the way people think and understand the world around them.
Achebe goes on to discuss the power of literature to educate and inform. He believes that novels can provide insight into other cultures and ways of life, allowing readers to gain a deeper understanding of the world. Additionally, he argues that literature can serve as a means of preserving and sharing the stories and histories of different cultures.
Achebe also emphasizes the importance of using literature as a means of addressing social and political issues. He argues that the novelist has a responsibility to speak out against injustice and to shed light on important issues that may otherwise go overlooked. In this way, literature can serve as a catalyst for change and progress.
Ultimately, Achebe argues that the novelist has a unique and powerful role in society. He believes that the novelist has the ability to educate and inform, to preserve and share culture, and to speak out against injustice. By embracing this role and using their power responsibly, novelists can make a meaningful contribution to society.
The Novelist as a Teacher
Achebe truly believed in representing his culture and his country in his way. To do this, however, he must display to the reader a character that Seems like the perfect African man, one who will appear to have these qualities but will in fact need further understanding on the side on the reader. His father was a lazy, weak, title less man, and Okonkwo lives his life to the extreme opposite in order to never become this. Another misconception that Achebe sets out to rectify is that the people of the Ibo tribe do have a language, and it is not a primitive animalistic language as depicted in some other books. Africa had been represented by outsiders for so long that it was important to show the rest of the world an authentic, unfiltered, unbiased perspective. Achebe feels that the post-colonial sentiment that is taught to the current society needs to be rectified through his novels.
The Novelist as Teacher: Chinua Achebe's Literature for Children
There are places in the novel where he contradicts his own mission, but it is in order to achieve a greater understanding of the true meaning of the character. That it goes beyond the stereotype and moves in to a realm of understanding the African male that many of the younger generations have been removed from by post-colonization. He is showing his disrespect for his wife, and also for his tribe. What it typically means to be a member, and to be regarded as a successful contributor to society. Through this novel Achebe hopes to teach the reader that there is significance to why it is that Okonkwo acts the way that he does. With this, he taught the world, flaws and all, about his culture and the influence of British Colonization.
Achebe has taken on a great task by trying to be a teacher to the reader, but it is only fitting that the novelist be considered one of the most important types of teacher today. This is his task. They, in many ways, have a better language than English due to this remarkable collection of words to better and more accurately describe emotions and thoughts. His rage and anger consume him and he disobeys tribal custom in order to release his beast-like emotions. The novelist takes the reality of the situation at hand and molds it in order to help convey a point to the reader, so that the reader walks away with the knowledge to make informed judgments about topics previously less unknown. While Achebe presents Okonkwo as representing the typical African male, it is something else that drives him to act in such a way that he could be perceived as that. Okonkwo would rather the society be one of war and fighting, than one of emotion and religiousness.
Write a one page minimum summary of the text below titled, "The Novelist as a Teacher" by Chinua Achebe. Throughout the novel Okonkwo lashes out violently. However, through this contradiction that I have been skeptical of, Achebe inadvertently proves another of his goals to be true. This event took place during the week of peace, which is a time where no one is to commit such acts. This quote shows that Okonkwo was immediately hit with the reality of the changing society from the moment that he returned to his village. Okonkwo not only resorts to physical violence when provoked, he also disregards tribal custom in order to do so. Through taking that experience, of being part of a society, and turning it in to a piece of literature that can be used as a tool to unlock the misconceptions of a society is one of the most important lesions that Achebe could be teaching.
. ¦he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women. On the surface of the character he is a rugged brute who only cares about titles, wives, and property. Through this fear Okonkwo does act like the stereo-typical African male, but it is not to make him appear as a contradictory character, it is also to reveal to the reader that Okonkwo actually has a humanistic side to him. In the novel Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, the history of the Ibo society is displayed to the reader through the story of Okonkwo and his family.
Things Fall Apart became the first novel by the African writer Chinua Achebe to be adopted as a required text for African secondary school students and the West African. ¦did no more than teach my readers that their past-with all its imperfections-was not one long night of savageryâ� By 1965, Achebe could point to a significant audience for his works in Nigeria and in other African societies. The novel also offers insight in to what the pre-colonial Ibo society was like. Achebe accomplishes this task through Things Fall Apart, but he does so through the use of contradictions. He lives his life based on the fear that he will one day turn in to the kind of man that his father was, who no one in his tribe thought was a useful part of their society.
In turn, Okonkwo appears to have fashioned himself in to what the stereotypical African male is in many post-colonial mind; a savage-like, war-hungry, brute. He is once again embodying the quality of the stereo-typical African male brute, which Achebe is trying to reeducate his people about and steer them from through his novel. Words pertaining to spiritual beings, feelings, and personality traits add a new dimension to the Ibo society. This, however, is not the case entirely. This displays how he feels that the missionaries are turning the once war-like and manly society in to one of woman-like qualities.
The reader is forced to make the realization that this language is actually a complex one, even containing some words that we, in the English language, do not even have a word for. More importantly, that he has a tragic flaw. Before the African writer could write about contemporary issues, Achebe maintained, he had first to resolve the question of his humanity. Achebe uses the Ibo society as a tool to take the reader on the journey of European colonization, just as he uses Okonkwo to show the reader how this colonization was not always accepted. Throughout the novel the main character, Okonkwo, is depicted as a large, semi-emotionless, powerful fighter with in his tribe. His first novel, Things Fall Apart, is regarded as a literary classic, and its impact has been so decisive upon contemporary African writers that many critics have begun to criticize his works.
