It takes a village: The Transmission of Igbo values in “Chike and the River”
It takes a village: The Transmission of Igbo values in “Chike and the River”
I have previously examined a number of key young adult dystopian texts, with particular consideration for the ways in which the authors depict young protagonists as enactors of societal change. Much has changed since 1966 when Chike and the River was first published – namely, modernisation, which coincidently is a recurrent theme in the book. And yet, in contemporary Nigeria with increasing nationwide insecurity and disillusionment, the question of young people as agents of social change has never been so relevant.
A select number of African (children) writers have authored texts with portrayals of African natives that closely resemble the late 19th to early 20th century Western colonial adventure tales’ in their problematic portrayals of Africans, Indians, and other ex-colonised nations (see, for example, Juju Rock by Ekwensi prior to its revision). As Achebe himself revealed in an essay titled ‘My Daughters,’ Chike and the River was written out of a sense of urgency to counter the often ‘condescending’ and ‘demeaning’ portrayals of Africa and the African child presented in the ‘expensive and colourful children’s books imported from Europe’ that Achebe’s daughter read as a child (Achebe, 69). Chike and the River counters these portrayals and the understanding of Africa and the African child that such portrayals imply - namely, a romanticised understanding of Africa as the inhabitancy of primitives or savages (Yenika-Agbaw 5) – and instead, draws on an African world view in its attempt to present an authentic representation of the African child.
Hunt, and other seminal theorists within the field of children’s literature, have argued that ‘Children’s writers…are in a position of singular responsibility in transmitting cultural values…’ (3). Chike and the River is also about the transmission of Igbo and Western cultural values both in the text and to Achebe’s intended young readership, specifically in light of the intersection of British cultures and Nigerian cultures. In this article, I consider four ways in cultural values are transmitted through Chike and the River.
Enculturation is first achieved in Chike and the River through the Achebe’s depiction of Umuofia and Onitsha, specifically the tradition-modernisation dichotomy these two locations signify. Umuofia is depicted as a village seemingly unadulterated by the industrial and urbanising forces of the West, as is suggested by the village’s rurality and Chike’s mother’s dependence on agriculture: ‘she [Chike’s mother] grew most of the food they ate,’ (15). Chike’s mother’s advice, that he ‘Listen to whatever [his] uncle says and obey him’ (16) and her warnings about the dangers that lie in Onitsha, ‘a big city, full of dangerous people and kidnappers’ (16) and the River Niger, where ‘many people get drowned’ (16) reveal this in exposure tentativeness to the urban world, but also an emphasis on prioritisingtradition, namely, respect for and obedience to elders in Umuofia, and Igboland. Concealed beneath this top-down adult teller-to-child listener structure is a power imbalance in Chike’s relationship with his mother. Here, Chike’s mother occupies a position of power, as is implied by the positioning of her use of the action verbs ‘Go’ and ‘Listen’ (and the authoritative tone these verbs convey) against the mediation of the subject’s (Chike’s) own speech and emotions through the omniscient and covert heterodiegetic narrator (Genette 64 - 71; Nikolajeva, Aesthetic approaches to children’s literature: an introduction 183 - 185).
The omniscient and covert heterodiegetic narration has the effect of further foregrounding the adult voice in the narrative. Chike’s mother’s continued regulation of Chike’s behaviour, mitigating against possible rebellion against her (and the tradition she embodies), despite Chike’s escape from the ‘bush village’ (15), further emphasises the prioritisation of tradition and Chike’s mother’s position of power. In Discipline and Punishment, Foucault explores a shift in how power and discipline manifest from corporeal form of discipline (epitomised in, for example, the prison system) to a panopticon and ‘capillary-like’ surveillance framework (26). In his journey from Umuofia to the modern ‘big city’ of Onitsha, Chike’s mother’s parental, authoritative, and regulative presence loses its corporeality, as it becomes an invisible force that regulates Chike’s conformity to tradition, and his desire to cross the River Niger. Respect for and obedience to one’s elders are, therefore, also conveyed through Chike’s mother’s pervasive (if not invisible) presence and are legitimatised, as cultural values, in Chike’s relationship with his mother. This gives the reader indirect access to Chike’s emotions: ‘joy,’ ‘thrill’ and ‘tiredness,’ to name several (15); and foreshadows what will be the continual assertion of the adult voice, in the form of proverbs and sayings, throughout the text. While omniscient and covert heterodiegetic narration does lend itself to Achebe’s ideological ends, it restricts the reader’s engagement with Chike as a person, instead, rendering Chike a flat, two-dimensional character whose voice, thoughts, actions, and ‘personality’ (Uko, 455) are dictated by the plot, not unlike the anthropomorphised animals that feature prominently in the African folktale tradition.
Achebe juxtaposes this prioritising of tradition in Umuofia (exemplified in obedience to and respect for elders) against its fragmentation in the modern, individualistic cities of Asaba and Onitsha. This kind of individualism is epitomised in the isolation and loneliness that Chike experiences whilst in Asaba; an isolation that, arguably, reflects Durkheim’s ‘anomie’ – or a state of normlessness that arises from individualistic, modern societies – a condition in which the bonds between society members become fragmented (Lukes, 207). As Chike observes, “In Umuofia, every thief was known, but here even people who lived under the same roof were strangers to one another.” (18). The phrase ‘In Umuofia’ implies a rural ‘out there,’ whereas the word ‘here’ refers to the ‘big city’ Onitsha (15-16). The proximal deictic, ‘here’ and ‘there,’ conveys Chike’s physical estrangement from home, and signposts a tension between two very different social and cultural value systems. To this extent, then, it might be said that Chike is a boy trapped between two value systems, or the tradition of the pre-colonial past (as embodied in Umuofia) and modernity and colonialism of the urbanised postcolonial present (as embodied in Onitsha).
Enculturation of Igbo cultural values – specifically, courage and the pursuit of education - in Chike and the River is also achieved through the plot. Chike’s journey from the safety of his home in Umuofia to a ‘big city’ (15) deviates from the ‘home and away’ pattern that is epitomised in, for example, Alice’s abrupt return to the riverbank from Wonderland, or Wendy’s flight to and back from Neverland. Rather than circular, Chike’s journey to Onitsha, followed by Asaba is linear and episodic (Nikolajeva, From Mythic to Linear: Time in Children’s Literature, 138), as the book’s ending suggests. Achebe never intimates of Chike’s return home following his adventures in Onitsha and Asaba, by the book’s end. The linearity of Chike’s journey is epitomised in Chike’s act of exposing the thieves by the story’s end, and in the school scholarship Chike is consequently given: ‘the company which owned the shop [which was almost robbed] had decided to award a scholarship to Chike which would take him right through secondary school’ (65).
Chike’s reward reflects the value that is still placed on pursuing education in contemporary Nigeria (Smith 69). Bullen and Parsons’ assert that ‘[children] in the popular imagination…[are] an impetus for social change,’ whose ‘very existence offers a sense of hope for the future,’ (127). Chike’s journey and reward might interpreted as the fulfilment of the aspiration shared by many Nigerian school children to pursue an education and to escape poverty (Odejide, 79). Alternatively, the reader can view Chike and the River as the story of a schoolchild who surmounts several obstacles - each cumulating to create an image of the condition of contemporary Nigeria. Put another way, Chike encounters corruption (the fraudulent magician, and the thieves), and in surmounting these challenges, he enacts what Roscoe calls the ‘visionary optimism of the adult world’ (132).
Chike’s courage is the impetus, first for his elevation to a ‘hero’ (16) status and second, for ‘social change,’ that being the prevention of the thief’s escape. These interpretations of the child as the embodiment of adult optimism reflect what Beauvais calls a ‘temporal otherness’ (4). Here, ‘temporal otherness’ will be understood as an inter-generational disconnect between the adult generation and young people. Though not explicitly presented in the text, the manifestation of this temporal disconnect is implied in the book’s final chapter - the capture of the thief. Chike’s account of events are in direct contrast to the captured thief’s fabricated account of the affair. Taken from a contemporary perspective, the positioning of Chike’s truthful account against the thief’s deceitful account reflects the sense of dislocation in contemporary Nigeria between the older generation, for whom corruption and injustice are taken-for-granted occurrences, and the seeming proclivity for social justice that Chike, the child, is said to symbolise.
Chike and the River, as a text, also transmits Igbo cultural values in the inclusion of Igbo and British proverbs. Achebe’s decision not to include in verbatim proverbs in the Igbo language is somewhat ironic as his (adult) texts usually incorporate Igbo phrases and terms (see, for example, Things Fall Apart, and Arrow of God). This deliberate non-inclusion of in verbatim proverbs in the Igbo language may rest on the assumption that Chike and the River’sintended readership has not yet reached the stage of maturity in which they can understand proverbs in their native tongue. Indeed, Nwonwu asserts that Igbo elders interpreted a child’s ability to decipher and use Igbo proverbs as an indicator of their maturation into adulthood would support such a suggestion (xiii-xiv). Nonetheless, juxtaposing British against Nigerian culture (as the integration of both Igbo and British proverbs implies) creates a convergence of cultures, that resembles what Bhabha calls ‘the "inter" - the cutting edge of translation and negotiation, the in-between space’ (56).
Chike does internalise the proverbs he learns; however, he does on occasion subvert the lesson they embody. For example, Chike makes a new proverb of his own. He says: A man who can walk through the Nkisa with his bare feet should not be afraid to sail the Niger in a boat’ (30). He uses the proverb he has learned from his elders (his Uncle) as a means of reasoning against his mother’s warnings ‘to not go near the River Niger’ (16). His use of the phrase ‘should not’ implies that a is a logical consequence of b: the license ‘to sail the Niger in a boat’ without fear is a logical consequence of a person’s ability to ‘walk through the Nkisa’ with their bare feet.’ Chike’s subversion and manipulation of this proverb is significant as it suggests his active engagement with the values that such proverbs have come to embody. However, it is more than that. Okpewho proposes that the ‘proverb is the skillful use of language’ (229). In creating his own proverb, Chike tells his own story, and his subversion of the proverb indicates his burgeoning mastery over it. As a child, the ‘skillful use of language’ he demonstrates in mastering the proverb is both transgressive and strategic, as it positions Chike in a space defined by a kind of creative potential – a space that resembles Morresi ‘s description of ‘a locus for creative “inter-cultural dialogue” (86).
In this space, the rests on a mastery of both British and Nigerian cultural knowledge, Chike negotiates the construction of his identity and is empowered to meet his goal – to cross the River Niger. He draws on the Igbo and British cultural values he has acquired through the socialisation he has received from his mother and other adult figures. His mastery of the Igbo proverb affords him some power, and the scholarship he is awarded by the book’s end signposts his emancipation from a potential financial obstacle - the need to pay school fees. Despite this, in the end, he returns to his original ideological position - as a child subjugated under adult authority, constant adult (and peer) supervision and didactic impulse that the school embodies.
The interactive relationship between the teller, the told, and the audience, that defines the oral tradition is largely lost in Chike and the River as printed text. Nonetheless, Achebe does seem to draw on the folktale form to transmit Igbo cultural values. Oral literature here refers to ‘literature delivered by word of mouth’ (Okpewho 3). Well-known Igbo folktales, like ‘How the Tortoise got its bumpy shell,’ rely heavily on the oral medium - the passing down of folktales from one generation to successive generations – for their survival as a literary, performative art form. In Igbo communities, the tradition of folktale story telling was a communal activity that both instructed and entertained listeners (Nwachukwu-Agbada 19). In these communal telling’s adults are, to a large extent, the primary repositories and communicators of cultural heritage and cultural knowledge. This relationship between the elder storyteller and his listeners rests on the assumption that the elder’s status as one well-accustomed to Igbo values and culture, qualifies him to enculturate children (recent entrants into the Igbo community) by transmitting the folktales that embody these values.
Achebe draws on the folktale form to transmit Igbo cultural values in two keyways. First of all, in its narrative style, more specifically, in the tendency to tell rather than show. For example, in Chike and the River, the narrator relates to the reader that ‘He [Chike] nodded his head and sniffed because his nose was running’ (16). Here, the word ‘because’ indicates that what follows is explanatory in nature. The repeated use of ‘he’ and ‘his’ in conjunction with the text’s omniscient narrator, conveys the same sense of disconnect and impersonality that is achieved through the mediation of Chike’s personal motivations through the narrative voice of an adult and omniscient narrator (as has been previously discussed).
Secondly, the setting is fictional: what Nwachukwu-Agbada calls ‘n’out obodo’ which means ‘in a certain town or village’ (22). One might argue that both Nigerian cultural values and an impulse to preserve such values is transmitted in Chike and the River through this emblematising of Umuofia. Umuofia is a fictional village that greatly features in Things Fall Apart; the implication of this is that it is up to the reader to assume (or not assume) that there is continuity between the Umuofia of Things Fall Apart and Chike and the River. In both texts, Umuofia becomes an emblem of the impulse to preserve Nigerian cultural values – that are connected to a tradition-centered, pre-colonial past - in a postcolonial climate.
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Hopes and Impediments: selected essays. Heinmann, 1989.
---. Chike and the River. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
---. The education of a British-protected child. Penguin, 2011.
Beauvais, Catherine. The Mighty Child: Time and Power in children’s literature. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2015.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
Bullen, Elizabeth, Parsons Elizabeth. “Dystopian visions of global capitalism: Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines and M.T Anderson’s Feed.” Children's Literature in Education, 38(2), 2007, 127-139.
Fayose, Philomena O. “African children's literature: an overview.” International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, edited by Hunt, Peter, Routledge, 2004, pp. 927-935.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison. Vintage Books, 1995.
Genette, Gerard. Narrative discourse revisited. Cornell University Press, 1988.
Hunt, Peter. An Introduction to Children’s Literature. Oxford University Press, 1994.
Lukes, Steven. Emile Durkheim, His Life and Work: A Historical and Critical Study. Stanford University Press, 1985.
Mills, Claudia. Ethics and Children's Literature. Ashgate, 2016.
Morresi, Renata. “Borders, Pachangas, and Chicano/a Children’s Picture Books.” Space and Place in Children’s Literature, edited by Cecire, Maria A, Field, Hannah & Roy Malini. Routledge, 2016, pp. 75-95.
Nikolajeva, Maria. From Mythic to Linear: Time in Children’s Literature. Rownman & Littlefield, 2000.
Nikolajeva, Maria. Aesthetic approaches to children’s literature: an introduction. Scarecrow Press, 2005.
Nodelman, Perry. The Hidden Adult: defining Children's Literature. John Hopkins University Press, 2008.
Nwonwu, Francis. Philosophy of Proverbs in Igbo Culture: The Chicken Metaphor. AuthorHouse, 2014.
Nwachukwu-Agbada, J. “The Igbo Folktale: Performance Conditions and Internal Characteristics.” Folklore Forumm, 24(1), 1991, 19-35.
Odejide, Abiola. “Education as Quest: The Nigerian School Story.” Children’s Literature in Education, 18(2), 1987, 77-87.
Ohaeto Ezenwa. Chinua Achebe: A Biography. James Currey, 1997.
Okpewho, Isidore. Myth in Africa: a study of its aesthetics and cultural relevance (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Roscoe, Adrian A. Mother is Gold: A Study in West African Literature. Cambridge University Press, 1971.
Smith, Daniel. A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular discontent in Nigeria. Princeton University Press, 2008.
Spivak, G.C. “Can the subaltern speak?” Colonial discourse and postcolonial theory: a reader, edited by Williams, P. & Chrisman, L, Routledge, 2008, pp. 66-104.
Stott, Jon C. "Running Away to Home—A Story Pattern in Children's Literature." Language Arts, 1978, 55(4), 473-477.
Yenika-Agbaw, Vivian S. Representing Africa in Children's Literature: Old and New Ways of Seeing. Routledge, 2011.
Uko, Iniobong I. “The dynamics of culture on the Child’s personality in Chinua Achebe’s Chike and the River.” Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, edited by Emenyonu, Ernest, 2004, 455 – 463.
Comments
Post a Comment