Resettlement of myth in the African literature

The resettlement of the myth is one of the major characteristics of the post-colonial literatures. The configuration of myth found in the narratives of the state is to encode the resistance to the hegemonic drives. It also emphasizes the evidence of precolonial cultures and methods of organizing.

Myth is the belief of a particular culture in relation with its practices and existence. The myth of a particular culture emphasizes its deep rooted beliefs and practices which establishes the culture itself an entity.

Analyzing the resettlement of myth in the African literature especially focusing on the works of Achebe, we will find that the myths are not of themselves political; they are in some senses inactive until and unless motivated by the context. As they are always motivated or set in motion by political context, neutral myths do not exist as such except theoretically. The myth is nothing but a concept or belief until and unless it is brought into a particular discourse, viz. political, sociological, religious, cultural, etc. Africa has always been known as a dark continent and inheriting a dark myth. The representation of African myth is one of the products of colonial discourses in which the white narrator represented the black objects as the products of black myth. Thus the cannibals and wild life and, of Couse, a fantasy world inhabited by bush men, witch-doctors, mysterious being emerged into the European genres of colonial discourse.

The myth of African culture has an immense influence on the lives of the inhabitants. They are thoroughly regulated and organized by the mythical practices and rituals which become the part of their blood. With the arrival of the colonizers the cultural, sociological, religious and traditional myths turned to political and it gave a free way for the colonizers to regulate and organize their objects rationally. Thus, gradually the great socio-cultural and religious myths were replaced by the political myth through which the colonizers exploited and teased the original. But with the favours and advances of postcolonial literatures this stereotype of African mythology, i.e., the projection of African culture and the myth within the political sphere and the creation of European concepts of Africa on the mysterious African myth, is contested by the African creative writers like Achebe with a sense of pride and commitment.

The representation of the myth in the political context neutralizes the original socio-cultural and religious/spiritual myths. So, these neutralized myths make an advance in the postcolonial literature. But the postcolonial writers use the political myth in order to reevaluate the Africa with in a nonwestern frame work.

Achebe uses Negritude as cultural and political myth in his novels in order to rediscover Africa and the African to establish a new social order thus to contest the colonial hegemony and power produced as a result of European organization through the political myth on its objects. Usage of cultural myths, i.e., the characters of two variant culture, viz., traditional and modern, brings before us the sanctity of the native culture and myth where the character is let free from all stresses and complication of modern tradition. Here, the writer regenerates the lost cultural, social, religious myths.

Achebe uses many religious myths in order to contest the modern religious myths. For the native religious myth, religion is more personal concept of God. We don’t find any established form of religion in the precolonial Africa. But with the arrival of the Europeans the religious myths which are personal as well as communal are replaced by the institutionalized form of religion, i.e. Christianity. The postcolonial writers use the personal concept of god in order to centralize the original native religious myth.

Thus myth plays a significant role in the postcolonial literature especially in the African writing which is sanctified more by its rich myths. The usages of myths in the postcolonial writing is a direct contestation of the practices of the established norms and principles of the west in the form of political myth on its object.