..., and that even going to England for studies will not change one’s basic character. I11 Achebe’s third and longest novel, Arrow of God (1964), is replete with proverbs. The story, set in the Igbo village-group of Umuaro, centers about Ezeulu (l?zt%l3 “Chief [ofl UhJ...

... is to reconsider the function of modernism in the literature of decolonization. The following example comes from Achebe’s novel, Arrow of God: Ezeulu went into his barn and took down one yam from the bamboo platform built specially for the twelve sacred yams. There were eight left. He knew...

... Apart and Arrow of God are belied by a sense that characters like Okonkwo and Ezeulu cannot adequately grasp the rationality of the colonial order. It is not simply that such men are defeated by a technologically superior power but that the rules...