Arrow of God
Arrow
of God, published in 1964, is the third
novel by Chinua Achebe.
Along with Things Fall Apart and No
Longer at Ease, it is considered part of The
African Trilogy, sharing similar settings and themes. The novel centers on
Ezeulu, the chief priest of several Igbo villages in Colonial
Nigeria, who confronts colonial powers and
Christian missionaries in the 1920s. The novel was published as part of the
influential Heinemann African
Writers Series.
The
phrase "Arrow of God" is drawn from an Igbo proverb in which a
person, or sometimes an event, is said to represent the will of God. Arrow
of God won the first ever Jock Campbell/New Statesman
Prize for African writing.
Plot summary
The
novel is set amongst the villages of the Igbo
people in British Nigeria during the 1920s. Ezeulu is the chief priest of the god Ulu, worshipped by the six villages of Umuaro. The
book begins with Ezeulu and Umuaro fighting against a nearby village, Okperi.
The conflict is abruptly resolved when T.K. Winterbottom, the British colonial
overseer, intervenes.
After
the conflict, a Christian missionary, John Goodcountry, arrives in Umuaro.
Goodcountry begins to tell the villages tales of Nigerians in the Niger
Delta who abandoned (and battled) their traditional
"bad customs" in favor
of Christianity.
Ezeulu
is called away from his village by Winterbottom and is invited to become a part
of the colonial administration, a policy known as indirect
rule. Ezeulu refuses to be a "white
man's chief" and is thrown in prison. In Umuaro, the people cannot harvest
the yams
until Ezeulu has called the New Yam Feast to give thanks to Ulu. When Ezeulu
returns from prison, he refuses to call the feast despite being implored by
other important men in the village to compromise. Ezeulu reasons to the people
and to himself that it is not his will but Ulu's; Ezeulu believes himself to be
half spirit and half man. The yams begin to rot in the field, and a famine
ensues for which the village blames Ezeulu. Seeing this as an opportunity, John
Goodcountry proposes that the village offer thanks to the Christian God
instead and they may harvest what remains of their crops with
"immunity".
Many
of the villagers have already lost their faith in Ezeulu. One of Ezeulu's sons,
Obika, dies during a traditional ceremony, and the villagers interpret this as
a sign that Ulu has taken sides with them against his priest. For this apparent
judgement against Ezeulu and the promised immunity by the Christian God, at the
Christian Harvest, taking place a few days after Obika's death, many men
embrace Christianity by sending their son there with yams.
Themes
Ulu,
the villages of Umuaro and Okperi, and the colonial officials are all
fictional. But Nigeria in the 1920s was controlled by British Colonial
authorities, indirect rule
was tested as a governing strategy, and many of the Igbo
people did abandon their traditional
beliefs for Christianity. The novel is considered a work of African literary
realism.
Achebe's
first novel, Things Fall Apart, tells the tale of Okonkwo, a leader in his community until
colonialism enters. Arrow of God similarly describes the
downfall of a traditional leader at the hands of colonialism. The central
conflicts of the novel revolve around the struggle between continuity and
change, such as Ezeulu refusing to serve Winterbottom, or between the
traditional villagers and Ezeulu's son who studies Christianity.
References
· · Smith, Daniel
Jordan (September 22, 2001). "'The arrow of God' pentecostalism,
inequality, and the supernatural in South-Eastern Nigeria". Africa.
Edinburgh University Press. 71 (4): 587. doi:10.2307/1161581. ISSN 0001-9720. JSTOR 1161581.
·
Mathuray, Mark (2003). "Realizing the Sacred: Power and Meaning
in Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God". Research in African Literatures. 34
(3): 46. doi:10.1353/ral.2003.0071.
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