‘Like a Mask Dancing’: Law and Colonialism in Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| Author | Ambreena Manji |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00170 |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 27, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 2000
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 626–42
‘Like a Mask Dancing’: Law and Colonialism in Chinua
Achebe’s Arrow of God
Ambreena Manji*
Whilst the study of law and literature is now well established in the
western academy, little attention has been paid to portrayals of law in
African literature. In addition, studies of the colonial state by lawyers,
political scientists, and historians have neglected African fiction’s long
engagement in this area. Achebe’s fiction prefigured many of the issues
engaging critics and theorists on the wider social scientific terrain.
This paper draws on Achebe’s simile – ‘the world is like a mask
dancing’ – to delineate an approach to power and authority. The
lesson of Arrow of God – that the ‘legal world’ cannot be understood
by standing in one place – is of wider significance to those engaged in
the study of law and society.
INTRODUCTION
The world is like a Mask dancing. If you want to see it well you do not stand in
one place.
1
The fiction of Chinua Achebe may be described as the foremost novelistic
exploration of law and colonialism in Africa. Whilst the study of law and
literature is now well established in the western academy,
2
almost no
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1 C. Achebe, Arrow of God (1986) 46.
2 SeeJ.S. Koffler, ‘Forged Alliance: Law and Literature’ (1989) 89 Columbia Law Rev.
1374–93; R. Posner, Law and Literature: A Misunderstood Relation (1998); S. Fish
‘Don’t Know Much About the Middle Ages: Posner on Law and Literature’ in Doing
What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric and the Practice of Theory in Literary and
Legal Studies (1989) ch. 13; R. Weisberg, ‘The Law-Literature Enterprise’ (1988) 1
Yale J. of Law and the Humanities 1–67.
*Department of Law, University of Keele, Keele, Staffs ST5 5BG, England
An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Law and Anthropology Conference held
at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Wolfson College, Oxford, November 1999. I am
grateful to the participants on that occasion for their comments. My thanks to Peter
Fitzpatrick, John Harrington, Kenneth Omeje, and Gordon Woodman for reading and
commenting on earlier drafts and to the referees of the Journal of Law and Society for their
suggestions
attention has been paid to portrayals of law in African literature.
3
In addition,
studies of the colonial state by lawyers, political scientists and historians
have neglected African fiction’s long engagement in this area.
This paper will argue that Achebe’s particular brand of realist fiction
prefigured many of the issues engaging critics and theorists on the wider
social scientific terrain. In the social sciences, this position is represented by
those who problematize law from a postmodern or legal pluralist
perspective. In particular, Achebe’s self-imposed task of demythologizing,
which is discussed below, parallels that of theorists such as Hobsbawm and
Ranger,
4
Chanock,
5
and Fitzpatrick.
6
Such theorists have drawn our attention
to the dangers involved in the use of law in the construction of community,
identity or tradition. Given the scant attention which has been paid to law in
African literature, it would be premature to be discouraged by Posner’s
comment that it is a ‘great false hope’ that literary theory will change the
way lawyers think. This paper, therefore, shamelessly and ‘busily ransack[s]
the social sciences and the humanities for insights and approaches with
which to enrich our understanding of the legal system.’
7
In Arrow of God, Ezeulu, the central character of the novel, advises his
son ‘[t]he world is like a Mask dancing . .. [i]f you want to see it well you do
not stand in one place.’
8
The simile of a mask dancing,
9
used by Ezeulu to
explain to his son why he must be sent to a mission school, is intended to
communicate the need to move with the times.
10
In this paper, I draw on the
simile to delineate an approach to power and authority which, I argue, is
central to Achebe’s understanding of the ‘legal world’.
11
Furthermore, I
show how the lesson of Arrow of God – that the ‘legal world’ cannot be
627
3 Save for the passing reference to Chinua Achebe’s portrayal of law by L. Nkosi, ‘At
the Crossroads Hour’ (1998) 20 London Rev. of Books 13–15, which originally
aroused my interest in this subject, searches of databases have revealed no writing on
law in African literature.
4 E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (1983).
5 M.Chanock, Law, Custom and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and
Zambia (1985).
6 P. Fitzpatrick, Dangerous Supplements: Resistance and Renewal in Jurisprudence
(1991); The Mythology of Modern Law (1992).
7 R. Posner, Law and Literature: A Misunderstood Relation (1998) 1.
8 Achebe, op. cit., n. 1, p. 46.
9 Achebe’s writing is filled with proverbs and similes. For a discussion of their
importance to Achebe’s writing, see B. Lindfors, ‘The Palm Oil With Which
Achebe’s Words are Eaten’ in Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, eds. C.L.
Innes and B. Lindfors (1978) 47–66.
10 For a discussion of the African vernacular style in which this passage is written, and
alternative ways in which it might have been rendered, see C. Achebe ‘The Role of
the Writer in a New Nation’ (1964) 81 Nigeria Magazine 157–60.
11 Fora related discussion of the idea of a ‘legal world’ from a feminist standpoint, see
A. Manji, ‘Imagining Women’s ‘‘Legal World’’:Towards a Feminist Theory of Legal
Pluralism in Africa’ (1999) 8 Social and Legal Studies 435–55.
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