There
have always been two traditions (structuralism and post-structuralism)
in philosophy. One asserts that there are truths that are universal and
eternal. They stand outside history and the physical world. Contemporary
studies in African Literature have been forced to recognize the
challenge of an alternative interpretive model by way of
post-structuralism, even of postmodernism. Literary studies in Africa
are greatly steeped in the modernist forms today. This research is an
exploration of the varied possibilities in terms of meanings,
oppositions and contrastive perspectives that exist and are manifest in
Achebe's works. In order to achieve this, this study carries out an
in-depth analysis of the post-structural and linguistic meaning embedded
in Chinua Achebe's â€-African Trilogyâ€-: Things Fall Apart (1958), No
Longer at Ease (1960), and Arrow of God (1964). This study employs
post-structuralism as deployed by Graham Hough (1966) framework in order
to achieve the following objectives; to investigate the notion or view
held by the colonizer of the supposedly inherent defects in traditional
African civilisation; re-construct the notion by examining the binary
oppositions of the colonial encounter that led to clashes; assess the
linguistic dimensions with which the different and oppositional meanings
of situations are the reader's own and not necessarily the truth of
history; and evaluate Achebe's works as not a sociological text that is
necessarily responsible for bearing with history but a literary product
that allows readers to construct layers of meaning out of the interplay
of structures within the novel. The methodology adopted for this
research is essentially qualitative (library and text-based). The study
revealed that on the notion or view held by the colonizer of the
supposedly inherent defects in traditional African civilisation is vague
and based on the opinion of the Europeans or the structuralist writers
of the history of Nigeria and Africa at large. In order to reconstruct
notions of Westerner about Africa and Nigeria in particular, the
examination of the binary oppositions of the colonial encounter that led
to clashes indicated that, they were obviously a deviation from the
culture of the land and imposed adoption of the European culture which
brought clash of cultures in most cases and a delegation of the Nigerian
Igbo culture. The study reveals that Achebe's works are not seen as a
sociological text that bears with history but a literary product that
allows readers to re-construct layers of meanings outside of the
interplay of structures within the novels. This study contributes to the
body of literature in the aspect that it presents the post-structural
facts of the history of the Igbo people, Nigeria and Africa at large,
unlike most critiques that had focused on the sociological and
historical domination of the colonial events in the region. This study,
on the other hand, indicated that literary works of first generation
writers can be critiqued under the purview of post-structuralism or
post-modernism in other to project factual (historical) events as
represented in the texts. Suggesting that, there should be a conscious
attempt to review hierarchies such as man/woman, British
civilization/traditional, African civilization, colonialism/traditional
African values etc., with a view to challenging the fixed views assumed
by such hierarchies and the values associated with such rigid beliefs
and or truths.