Language, Dignity and Democracy: The Work of Chinua Achebe
Mary Ann McGrail
Independent Scholar
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Delivered to the American Political Science Association
September 1, 2006
[Not for citation.]
Abstract
This paper discusses the work of Chinua Achebe generally, relying on his fiction,
essays, poetry, and recent interviews, focusing in particular on his view of the writer as
creator of beneficent fictions intended to allow readers to better experience the world, and
as a contributor to the moral and political health of communities and political systems.
Achebe’s fiction focuses on the creation and destruction of the values of village
communities, political organizations, on political leadership, idealism, and political
failures. As an African writer, who began writing during a period of transition from
colonialism, he is particularly concerned with restoring the dignity of African history and
Africans. His strategy as a writer included exposing the racism of much of Western
literature on Africa. His core project – the portrayal of human dignity - is, in his view,
the writer’s primary responsibility, and the writer is essential to the health of any political
society. Achebe writes frequently about the purpose of the writer, the most serious
writing being that which focuses on communal resolutions of moral and political
questions. Human dignity, which is at the core of his work, is dependent on truthful
fiction and the precision of language which, when it is falsified or corrupted, undermines
society. Precision in language and beneficent imaginative capacity are the essential
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