I am still exploring the significance of this Trickster tale in context of the novel but if anyone has read the novel (or not) and would like to offer interpretations feel free! I just had to share!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Trickster Tale in 'Things Fall Apart'
In my Postcolonial Literature class we just read the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, which is amazing and I recommend it of course. In my favorite (and Khwaja agree it is the most powerful/important) chapter of the book one of the main character's wives, Ekwefi and her daughter Ezinma are taking turns telling stories and it is Ekwefi's turn to tell a story. The story she tells is of a trickster character, Tortoise! Also, an important note is that the book is set in an Ibo village in Nigeria. The story tells of Totoise who wants hear of a great feast all the birds have been invited to in the sky by the sky people. Of course, he just after the food but he convinces the birds to let him come and each give him a feather so he can fly by convincing them he is a changed man. On the day that are leaving for feast Tortoise tells them that there is an age-old custom they must follow that when you go to a great feast you make up a new name for yourself. They have never heard of this custom but they still agree. Tortoise chooses the name 'All for you.' When they arrive at the feast and about to eat Tortoise asks the sky people who they made this feast for. A man replies, "For all of you." So Tortoise since he told them that was his name declares that of course all the food was made for him so the birds can only eat after he has eaten his fill. The birds in anger do not from the few scraps that are left and leave Tortoise in the sky taking each of their feathers with him so he cannot fly home. Tortoise asks Parrot to tell his wife to put everything soft that they own outside but Parrot in revenge tells her that Tortoise asked her to put everything hard they own outside. Tortoise saw his wife doing this but didn't know from the view that they were hard things so he jumped and broke his shell when he landed. He survived but that is why the tortoise's shell is not smooth.
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Marian, if you don't already know the "Nobody" story from Homer's "Odyssey," you're going to enjoy seeing the parallels with the Tortoise tale. I have not read this novel, as it happens, so I can't speak to the resonance of this particular story within the book. Is it important that a woman tells the story? I can say that what interests me is the tension between the one and the many. Tortoise chooses a name that allows him to supplant, temporarily, the entire group. Assuming that the novel's setting is a tribal society, in which there may be a strong emphasis on the collective, this Tortoise tale may be asking something about the possibilities and limits of an individual's aspirations, obligations, etc. within such a society. That sounds like a trickster-ish theme to me!
ReplyDeleteWow for not having read the novel that interpretation of the tale within the novel was spot on! I may even write a paper about this for that class now :)
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