ENG 2403 - Unit 6 Content Assessment PDF

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Unit 6 Content Assessment Paper comparing "The Headless Historian" to Things Fall Apart...

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UNIT 6 CONTENT ASSESSMENT

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Unit 6 Content Assessment Morgan Dietz Kean University

UNIT 6 CONTENT ASSESSMENT

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“The Headless Historian” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a short story that was written after Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart . “The Headless Historian” is an account of an Igbo woman in Nigeria and her experience with European colonization. Achebe’s novel is written from the perspective of an African male, rather than an African mother.

Both stories are set during the same time period, but are from different points of view. Adichie uses a widowed mother, a part of the Igbo tribe as the main focus of her story. She struggles throughout the story with raising her son after her husband dies. When she sends him to school to learn English, her life changes forever. Her son, who the missionaries named Michael, changed his belief system and fully accepted the beliefs of Christianity. She struggles to accept that her son does not believe in the customs of the tribe. Later in the story we see the struggle with culture come full circle as Nwamgba’s granddaughter recognizes the importance of her Nigerian roots rather than the whitewashed version of her reality she experienced because of her father's choices.

“The Headless Historian” could be considered fan fiction because it has many of the same themes and ideas as Things Fall Apart . It was also written after Achebe’s novel. Adiche also uses language that is similar to what can be found in Things Fall Apart . Adichie’s story is slightly more because it brings different views to the table. Adichie decides to show the story through the perspective of a woman, which gives us more detail about the way of life in the tribe and changes the narrative when comparing it to the point of view of a man in Things Fall Apart . The identification of similar themes and experiences found in Things Fall Apart  and “The

UNIT 6 CONTENT ASSESSMENT

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Headless Historian” helps to validate “The Headless Historian” because it shows that the experiences and values of the tribe have been identified and experienced by more than one author. Adiche’s addition to this style of literature helps to create more interest in African literature, and also provides more information on what it was like to experience the European colonialism from the perspective of Nigerian tribe members.

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References Achebe, Chinua. (1994). Things Fall Apart. Penguin. Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. (2008). "The Headstrong Historian." The New Yorker Ejikeme, A. (2017). The women of things fall apart, speaking from a different perspective: Chimamanda adichie's headstrong storytellers: Feminism, race, transnationalism feminism, race, transnationalism. Meridians, 15 ( 2), 307-329. doi:http://dx.doi.org.kean.idm.oclc.org/10.2979/meridians.15.2.02...