Subversion And Containment:The Historical Writing In A Man Of The People

Being regarded as the founding father of modern African literature,Chinua Achebe is a committed writer who works with social mission and obligation.Achebe won the Man Booker International Prize in 2007.His first novel,Things Fall Apart,has been often considered as his magnum opus,which is included in Time 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.Therefore,this novel has received various interpretations,whereas the other four novels have not.A Man of the People as his fourth novel is different from his early novels,which is set in a post-colonial country.It has been mainly studied from the perspectives of feminism and post colonialism.Nevertheless,some critics have noticed the connection between the history and the text,especially the projection of the Nigerian history in the novel,whereas they have ignored the active relationship between the novel and the Nigerian history.This thesis employs the theories of “the historicity of texts and the textuality of history” and “the subversion and containment” to explore the active relationship between the Nigerian history and A Man of the People and the subversion and containment between the center and the margin.Montrose's “the historicity of texts”and “the textuality of history” represent the dynamic relationship between history and other texts that the New Historicists deal with.What Greenblatt theorizes as the subversion and containment means that subversion is generated by the power and finally consolidates the power itself.Two issues are mainly discussed in the thesis,which are the historical writing ofthe novel and the subversion and containment in the novel and between the novel and society.A Man of the People is inevitably shaped by the Nigerian culture and history,especially those of the First Republic,but it also provides different voices that shape the Nigerian history.The form of first person narration and the opposite aspects of the same event subvert the authority of the “History”.The author of the novel discusses Nigeria in the period of colonization and First Republic and predicts the military ruling,indicating his wishes about the Nigerian politics in the future.In addition,the novel does not merely function as the reflection of Nigerian history or the projection of the Nigerian ideology.The novel delineates the subversive forces existing in Nigeria,which have been inevitably contained by the power.The subversion and the containment mainly exist between the black and the white,the female and the male,and the elite and the ruler.The novel as the subversion to the main ideology is finally contained by the power.This thesis has come to the conclusion.Firstly,the novel takes part in the writing and constructing of Nigerian history,expressing Achebe's opinions about Nigerian politics.Secondly,the voice of the silent subaltern has been finally heard in the novel because of Achebe's keen insight into Nigeria.This thesis discloses the novelist's concern about the subaltern and the oppressed and the subversive attempt to the power mechanism operating in Nigeria.A new historicist reading of A Man of the People verifies the new historical writing and construction in the fiction and the non-essential difference between text and history as narration,which may provide an angle for the domestic study on Achebe and the African literature.The thesis consists of four parts.The first part includes the background,literature review and critical approach.The second part is composed of four chapters and the first chapter concentrates on the historicity of texts and the textuality of history.The second chapter is the subversion and the containment of different races.The third chapter is the subversion and the containment of both genders,and the third chapter is the subversion and the containment of different classes.The last part is the conclusion,which summarizes the main statements and the implications of the study.