Chinua Achebe's Novel Arrow of God

Chinua Achebe, in his novel Arrow of God, explores in the character of Ezeulu the nature of the relationship between the human and the divine. Ezeulu is an old man, the Chief Priest of the tribe of Umuaro, at a time of great transition for the tribe and for the old man. It is a fascinating and intense story not only for its novelistic value but because it deals with issues which touch every reader---faith, one's own role in life and in society, aging, the relationships among human beings, nature and God, power relations in a community, racial relations, and many others. In other words, it is not a work about an exotic locale and people of a different era with no relation to our own. The story of Ezeulu and his people is a universal story with direct and moving applications to every society in every time.

For example, Ezeulu is immediately shown by the author to be a man who is questioning his great power at the same time that he is being challenged as a leader. He is in that sense a tragic hero, pushed by his own nature and by social and divine forces to take extreme stands which test him to the limit. He debates within himself the meaning of his life and his role in society in a fierce internal conflict which reminds the reader of Hamlet's soliloquies:

Whenever Ezeulu considered the immensity of his power over the year and the crops and, therefore, over the people he wondered if it was real. . . . He was really a watchman. His power was no more than the power of a child o

Related Essays

Chinua Achebe Chinua Achebe was born in the village of Ogidi in eastern Nigeria in 1930, and at the time of his birth, Nigeria was a British Colony (English). .... (1276 5 )

Chinua Achebe Chinua Achebe was born in 1930 in Nigeria as Albert Chinualumogu Achebe. He was very much a product of the British colonial culture .... (10624 42 )

Chinua Achebe's View of a Post-Colonial Society .... A writer like Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart offers an inside view of a post-colonial society and of how the colonial era continues to affect that society .... (890 4 )

Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart: Tests His Ability to Hide His In Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart, he recounts the story of Okonkwo, an African villager whose primary goal in life is to outshine his father. .... (522 2 )

Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart reflects historical fact as it fictionally portrays traditional African life in a Nigerian village before and after the .... (1625 7 )

Category: Literature - C