Sundiata/ Things Fall Apart Essay
Andrea C. Mathis
Dr. T. P. Mahadevan
Introduction to Humanities I
21 October 2014
Revised: 1 December 2014
Make Believe Creatures
Historically Africa has been partly constructed by journals, books, etc. written by white hand. It is believed by many that one cannot truly talk about the land, unless they have lived the land. Two particular novels and oral epics that depict this perspective, the perspective of the colonized, are Things Fall Apart, written by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, and Sundiata by author Djibril Tamsir Niane. At the end of Things Fall Apart, the District Commissioner, who was the British colonial administrator put in place to govern the Igbo society, is shown writing a book he plans to call the Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger. Although the District Commissioner’s book doesn’t directly apply to Sundiata because the future book will have been based of different parts of Africa, it is safe to say that the epic will represent a prejudice account of Africa. Both societies will be portrayed as unprivileged, savage, and uncivilized for inhabiting strict gender roles and laws. Not only the authors, but also the readers of Things Fall Apart and Sundiata would disagree with the commissioner’s standpoint. The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger would tip off how the Africans of Umuofia were unprivileged due to them having an informal way of learning because of no schooling systems. The history of how knowledge was transferred during this time period was from mother and father to son and daughter; and it was this way for many, many years. The story that Ekwefi tells her daughter Enzinma about the tortoise and the birds is one of the many instances in TFA that readers are exposed to the knowledge passed down through generation. The DC would use the story to insult the people of Umuofia instead of how it was actually represented. The tortoise can be seen to speak for the white colonizers and the birds as the
Dr. T. P. Mahadevan
Introduction to Humanities I
21 October 2014
Revised: 1 December 2014
Make Believe Creatures
Historically Africa has been partly constructed by journals, books, etc. written by white hand. It is believed by many that one cannot truly talk about the land, unless they have lived the land. Two particular novels and oral epics that depict this perspective, the perspective of the colonized, are Things Fall Apart, written by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, and Sundiata by author Djibril Tamsir Niane. At the end of Things Fall Apart, the District Commissioner, who was the British colonial administrator put in place to govern the Igbo society, is shown writing a book he plans to call the Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger. Although the District Commissioner’s book doesn’t directly apply to Sundiata because the future book will have been based of different parts of Africa, it is safe to say that the epic will represent a prejudice account of Africa. Both societies will be portrayed as unprivileged, savage, and uncivilized for inhabiting strict gender roles and laws. Not only the authors, but also the readers of Things Fall Apart and Sundiata would disagree with the commissioner’s standpoint. The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger would tip off how the Africans of Umuofia were unprivileged due to them having an informal way of learning because of no schooling systems. The history of how knowledge was transferred during this time period was from mother and father to son and daughter; and it was this way for many, many years. The story that Ekwefi tells her daughter Enzinma about the tortoise and the birds is one of the many instances in TFA that readers are exposed to the knowledge passed down through generation. The DC would use the story to insult the people of Umuofia instead of how it was actually represented. The tortoise can be seen to speak for the white colonizers and the birds as the
Cited: Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. London: Heinemann Press, 1958 Niane, D T. Sundiata an Epic of Old Mali (2nd Edition). New York: Longman, 2006.