:Resisting the Patriarch Flora Nwapa's Efuru Writing Back to Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Abstract

Achebe published his debut novel Things Fall Apart in 1958, two years before the British colonization of Nigeria ended. He aimed to write his own story to discredit the colonial discourse presenting Africans as savages, incapable of learning or practicing civilization unless taught by the European colonizer. In his novel, Achebe portrayed the Igbo society in its entirety, including its imperfections, right before the British colonization of Nigeria in general and Igbo land in particular. He displayed the sophistication and complexity of Igbo cultural and social system which the British colonization had purposefully obliterated. Thus, through Things Fall Apart, he refuted the European portrayal of the “Savage” African and rightfully gained the title Father of Nigerian Literature. Achebe's expressed pride and clear-sighted view of his society, its culture and civilization right before British colonization, affected the way all Nigerian writers presented their society in their literary works after him. He guided other African writers in their attempt to write "their own story" and explore their society with its complexities, sophistication and even flaws. He gave them the confidence to do so without being affected by the colonizers' discourse presenting Africans as savages who had to look up to Europeans to teach them the meaning of civilization. Among those he helped publish their stories was Flora Nwapa. Flora Nwapa wrote her debut novel, Efuru, in the early sixties. Achebe helped her publish it later on in 1966. She was the first Nigerian woman to write and publish fiction. Thus, she was the first Nigerian female to "Come to Voice" which is a form of resistance because black women have been historically silenced in Eurocentric patriarchal discourse. By publishing her novel, Nwapa encouraged other female writers to break through the western patriarchal tradition of silencing women. Nwapa herself as well as the titular heroine of her novel validated pre-colonial Igbo society belief in women's inherent strength, power and ability to achieve.