„AFRICAN LITERATURE AND THE CHANGING WORLD: THE ANTITHETICAL IDEOLOGIES OF INDIVIDUALISM AND COMMUNALISM IN CHINUA ACHEBE‟S NOVELS.

Abstract

The synergic nature of African culture is endowed with cultural values that promote peace, oneness, harmony and care for one another. Thus, the ideology of communalism is a highly esteemed African practice which works for the survival of the people and for the common good. This principle and practice of communalism have held the African culture from total annihilation. This is even in spite of occasional individual dissidence found among those communities. African literature has dealt with matters of cultural importance, highlighting individual and collective tendencies which have reflected certain ideologies in fictional texts and narratives. Chinua Achebe, a leading literary African writer has extensively promoted African communality in fictional texts. Hence to explore the fact of African Communalism and the conflict of individualism, selected novels of Achebe including; Arrow of God, Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease, are to be examined to present characters that are seen as non-conformists. This study is aimed at making a literary exploration on the longstanding ideology of communalism, in the spirit of ofuobi/anyibuofu. It will specifically make a critical evaluation of the dissenting activities of the key individuals in the texts and the consequences of their actions. The conclusion will promote a re-orientation and re-ordering of individual psyche to the assimilation of cultural ideologies in our changing world.