Cultural Context "Things Fall Apart"

1) What was the most meaningful takeaway from today’s discussion relating to the cultural or literary context of Achebe’s work?

According to me, there were several meaningful takeaways from today's discussion relating to the cultural or literary context of Achebe's "Things Fall Apart". However, if I was to chose the most meaningful one it would have to be the fact that Achebe wrote his novel to produce the alternate story for what happened in the European colonization of Nigeria. At the time, which Achebe was writing his novel (1900's) all the books that were being published were from the European point of view, thus suppressing the African story. This led to the fact that a single story was being published and the readers of the books were solely influenced by this content since it was the only literary work available dwelling on the topic of the colonization. The single story prevailing at that time was the fact that the Europeans brought Civilization & order to the Africans, who were so-called "savages". This dehumanized portrayal of the Africans by the European authors served as their justification for embodying slavery. Not only this, but the stories painted by the European authors showed the European colonizers almost doing a favor to the Africans by taking control of them since they brought civilization to them. However, this was the only "untrue" single story available and prevalent at that time. Achebe provided the other story narrated with the African voice. This narration depicted the Africans as a society which already had perfectly harmonic social structure and rich cultural diversity, which was in fact destroyed by the Europeans. Now, instead of seeing the Africans as a mentally incompetent "inhumane" species, the world witnessed a society of clever and hard working traders who had their lives compromised by the Europeans. Thus, by publishing an alternate side to the ongoings of colonization in the context of the 1900's (where the European voice was prevalent), Achebe's publishment of Things Fall Apart at this time had a rebellious and refreshing nature attached to it since, the retaliation and the voice of the victims of colonization was unheard of.

2) Select a specific quote from the interview or a general idea from the discussion and write a brief reflection.

A general idea which was prevalent throughout the interview was the idea of a single story. This was seen several times when Achebe talked about the over cosumption of the "American Culture", Nigerian Media Coverage and even the Literature published in the 1900's about colonization. A single story referes to a one sided or bias account, which doesn't take the other sides' feelings or emotions into context. Throughout the interview Achebe has suggested that when a single story is prevalent this is very dangerous and harmful for society since they are completely misled by the side supplying the propoganda. According to Achebe, single stories are generally produced by "those who win" and "those who lose are forgotten". This means that those who are politically powerful can mould the stories in their way to portray themselves as rightoues and associate themselves with postive traits even if these aren't true because the other less powerful political countries don't have the voice to testify against them. Sometimes news corporations only portray the negative aspects of countries with a single story of negativity since it sells better, and thus leave the other positive story of the country out. For the international viewer this can be very harmful since they will form thier assumptions on that country based on the single story supplied by the news corporations. This is evident in Nigerian news media's constant portrayal of Nigeria as a country ridden with poverty, sadness and desperation, and neglection of Nigeria's successful business's. The idea of single stories can also be connected to the colonial literature published in the 1900's in which the European authors depicted the African people as "savages", with no "mental competency" and "civilization". When this literature was consumed by the readers worldwide they would have created thier assumptions on the African population based on the depictions seen in the books written by the European authors without directly interacting with the Africans or listening to their side of the story.

Thus, in conclusion it can be observed that single stories are highly dangerous whenever deployed since the sole presence of just one story fails to display the emotions, thoughts and feelings of the other side, creating an incomplete and even incorrect image in the viewer's mind.