The portrayals of people's power in three selected post-colonial novels of Chinua Achebe

• Main Author: Akanbi, Afolabi Olarongbe
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English; English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: HF5549-5549.5 Personnel Management. Employment
• Online Access: https://etd.uum.edu.my/8774/1/s900287_01.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/8774/2/s900287_02.pdf; https://etd.uum.edu.my/8774/3/s900287_references.docx; https://etd.uum.edu.my/8774/

Chinua Achebe is a renowned African writer whose works have been widely studied. The present study approaches Achebe’s three novels from followership perspective against the familiar leadership perspective in previous studies. Studies on Achebe’s works which focus on followership remain unexplored. Therefore, this research was conducted with three objectives: a) to describe how Achebe portrays the followers and their powers in Arrow of God, A Man of the People and Anthills of the Savannah from the post-colonial period and to explain why they were portrayed in such a manner, b) to identify the typologies of followership in these novels, and c) to show how the followers’ actions contributed to leadership failure in these novels. The theoretical perspectives that framed the study were Homi Bhabha’s Post-Colonial Theory that is, Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse and Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The data were obtained by analysing the novels using literary analysis. Literary devices such as metaphor, simile and personification were applied to explain the findings. The findings show that the ways the followers exercised their powers are different in the three novels. The followers in A Man of the People behaved as objects who exercised their powers blindly in support of the leaders which led to the leader’s failure. However, in Arrow of God, the followers behaved as subjects who exercised their powers to challenge the leader which led to a change of the status quo. The absolute powers accorded the leader initially contributed to his failure. In Anthills of the Savannah, the two typologies of followership (objects and subjects) are present. Some followers who condoned the wrong actions of the leader contributed to leadership failure. The findings have established the need to study Achebe’s novels from followership perspective. The study has also enriched the body of knowledge on followership research. The application of Homi Bhabha’s theory which is commonly used for leadership in post-colonial discourse has been found to be also suitable for followership studies.