Hegemony and Resistance in Chinua Achebe's Anthills of Savannah

10.2478/bjlp-2023-0000039

Abstract

Postcolonial Literature is Literature from nations colonized by European governments. It typically discusses the issues, difficulties, and effects of a nation's colonization and its aftermath effects. It primarily addresses issues related to a colony's political and cultural freedom. However, it also touches on topics like racism and colonialism. Colonialism was upheld not only by physical force but also through the power of speech. To maintain colonialism, discourse (which includes poetry, novels, travel memoirs, etc.) had to establish a kind of world order in which the superiority of the colonial and inferiority of the colonized subjects was presented as the original and natural order and any departure from this was deemed unnatural. For "colonizing the mind," particular modes of representation and knowledge systems, including those from history, biology, anthropology, literature, philology, and philosophy, were strategically employed to uphold this world order. In a present research paper, the African point of view is represented by the postcolonial writer Chinua Achebe, who discovers the racial and colonial oppression in the fictional setting of Kangan in the novel, Anthills of Savannah. Using myths, legends and idiomatic expressions, the writer celebrates the uniqueness of African culture and sensibility. The researcher also intends to explore the women characters and their significant role in building African culture and sensibility and fighting against capitalism.