Daniel Apatiga
Reading Response #1 on Chinua Achebe
In Achebe’s essay, "Named for Victoria, Queen of England," Achebe
discusses his interest in his own past, his culture’s history (that of the Ibo
people “in Eastern Nigeria”), and devolves his own identity to his audience in
a way that conveys a moral lesson (Achebe, 30). Through his own
experiences, Achebe criticizes the tendency of monotheistic religions to look
down upon other, non-monotheistic religions. He views his region's
prevalent animism religions, which differs from tribe to tribe at times, with a
cultural anthropologic discernment. Achebe is very wise in this respect,
at least, given his Christian upbringing, because he does not take a higher,
arrogant position than most fundamentalist Christians. Achebe also
believes one should not be ill-informed of one's own culture. As a
non-practicing Christian, I take a cultural anthropologic
approach when facing different cultures that have opposing viewpoints.
This can be done by silently saying to one self, “despite my disagreements with
so-and-so’s heathen religion, I will not attempt to insult his/her religion or
look down upon it in any way.” In the retelling of his maternal grand
uncle influence over him, Achebe also states that his maternal grand-uncle was
the “embodiment of tolerance.”
Another aspect of Achebe's essay that most intrigues me is his criticism of his
father’s “prodigality,” which means being excessive and wasteful of one’s
resources—the kind that makes one wonder whether his relationship to him was a
good one (OED). This was later proved to be a humorous anecdote. At
first, this portion of his essay reminded me of works by Dostoevsky that I have
read, namely, The Brothers Karamazov, in which the brothers
severely criticize their buffoon father for not giving them enough sustenance
to live on, as was promised. But as I read on, Achebe does not have the exact same parallel with his own father as
Dmitri did with his father, but rather, had a positive relationship like
Alyosha does in The Brother’s Karamazov. Achebe changes tone when he describes how the missionaries came to
his maternal grand-uncle despite his constant questioning and danger, possibly,
because of his constant questioning.
