THE FEMALE PROTAGONIST AS NATION-BUILDER IN CHINUA ACHEBE ANTHILLS OF THE SAVANNAH

THE FEMALE PROTAGONIST AS NATION-BUILDER IN CHINUA ACHEBE ANTHILLS OF THE SAVANNAH

ABSTRACT

Post-independent African nations have always floundered and are still floundering as a result of rudderless leadership – a phenomenon Chinua Achebe is always critical of in his works. The floundering of post-independent African nations is an offshoot of the failure of devoted engagement of the task of nation-building by post-independent African leaders, thus bringing in its trail tremors, corruption, poverty, oppression, exploitation, dictatorship and underdevelopment. Characteristically, in his allusive and suggestive language which challenges the reader to make discovery through self-examination and reflective thinking, Achebe beams light on the flawed approach to nation-building by post-independent African nations coupled with a panacea in Anthills of the Savannah. Towards a stable and developed post-independent African nation (typified by Kangan) using the post-colonial theory in the textual analysis and explication of Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah, this research sees Beatrice the female protagonist who has moral, intellectual and mythical capabilities as a nation-builder equipped to develop and defend the post-colonial identity and dignity, reverse the downward developmental trend and arrest the progressive degeneration in the task of nation-building in post-independent African nations. Much as this research awakens Africans to the right course in nation-building, it also challenges the hasty pathological tendency towards feminization of Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah in critical perspectives.