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Christopher Anyokwu University of Lagos, Nigeria Fifty Years on: Problematizing the Heroic Ideal in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart****. ABSTRACT. Chinua Achebe’s classic novel Things Fall Apart , clocks 50 in 2008, and, expectedly, the global literary community is celebrating this great African masterpiece, a permanent staple of the academic curriculum of most tertiary institutions of learning around the world. As part of the commemoratives in honour of the work and its creator, I have chosen to do a reappraisal of a tiny aspect of the numerous interpretive interest which Things Fall Apart continues to generate, namely, the subject of heroism. Mainstream or conventional readings of Things Fall Apart ascribe the hero of the novel to the novel’s protagonist, Okonkwo, and, consequently cast Unoka, Okonkwo’s father, and Nwoye, Okonkwo’s first son, in a bad light. We are constrained to re-examine these positions, and, thereby contest their apparent validity. We also use various literary theories to evaluate Okonkwo’s claim to heroism as we profile his tragic, grace-to-grass career. KEY WORDS Heroism, Tradition, Change, Ethics, Tragedy, Epic, Culture, Modernity.
Since the advent of its publication in 1958 Things Fall Apart as a novel has attracted much critical commentary both by African scholars and critics as well as non-African literary scholars. We might note in passing that the choice of the novel’s title partly explains the aura of momentousness and pioneering distinctiveness which surrounds it as a piece of cultural production. For one thing, the novel’s title is taken from W.B. Yeats’ much-anthologized poem, “The Second Coming”, a poem which is thought to make reference to “the apocalyptic theory of history”, tellingly imaged by the “gyre”, which in turn signifies the precarious fractiousness of contemporary society (Booker, 2003, 240). For another, Achebe’s novel at its inception was something of a curiosity coming as it did during the dying years of British colonialism in Nigeria, in particular and Africa in general. Yet this “curio” element of Things Fall Apart has refused to wane or go away fifty years later. Needless to say the novel which is a staple of literary curriculum across the world has spawned its own burgeoning industry of theoretical and critical hermeneutics and texte du explication. This ceaseless and unrelenting “quarrying” of the novel’s capacious caverns attests in large part to its enduring relevance as the fulcrum of African literary canon. Also, the novelist has been able to capture for all time the baffling ambivalence of the historical moment inscribed in the novel, rendered inimitably in a marvellous strategy of studied understatement and, more importantly, in a feat of self- cancelling, self-ironizing whirligig. Indeed, it is hardly possible for a critic of the novel to wade his way through the accretive sedimentation of received opinions and perspectives on Things Fall Apart given the notion that five decades of consistent analysis of the novel should have exhausted most of the talking points arising from it. It is this kind of scenario which provoked Chinweizu to lament in a newspaper interview he granted Sunday Sun that some of our older, pioneer texts have “been criticised to death”.
inhabit and to which they relate in diverse ways. What this allegory signifies, in the particular historical and cultural context of Achebe’s novel, is the state of internal crisis into which this society is plunged, a crisis that we have come to appreciate as intrinsic to its presiding ethos (134). Since the collective destiny of the Umuofia tribe is tied to the fate of this family history, we need to pay closer heed to how Achebe adroitly characterises the troika, with particular emphasis on the main character, Okonkwo himself. In the opening chapter of Things Fall Apart, we are told that Okonkwo’s wrestling victory over Amalinze the cat “was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights” (3). This novelistic expropriation of oral tradition, or, more specifically, epic tradition, aligns the narrative action with the demands of epic narrative. To that extent, the concept of heroism should more appropriately be investigated within the methodological paradigms of traditional (African) oral narrative. Furthermore, the narrative action of Things Fall Apart clearly falls between the 1850s and the early 1900s, a period of time when the British colonialists were busy gearing up to carve up the so-called Dark Continent and despoil her in the name of colonialisation and Christian evangelism. If we therefore grant that Okonkwo is a figure in a pre-literate, pre- colonial (at the initial stages of his career) traditional African society, we shall then judge his “heroic” credentials on the touchstone of the epic tradition, on the one hand, and, the aesthetico-epistemological criteria of Euro-Christian ideology, on the other. The question is, Who is a hero? What are the features or/and characteristics of a hero? And, by what yardsticks may a hero be measured? To reformulate this series of posers, let us avail ourselves of Dean A. Miller’s comment on this definitional problem: The matter and method of deciding what questions are put to material selected and collected in pursuit of the typological hero seem to me most vital. Obviously I think that the right questions have not been asked with enough rigor, severity, or frequency, especially in respect to a significant definitional problem: the relationship of a central, even archetypic model of the hero to the constellation of heroes , in their sometimes subtly differentiated modal operations, and guises … we ought to try to decode the specified heroic forms,
operations, and styles that one society or another will isolate, celebrate, and iconise out of all the shapes and generic varieties of heroism at hand (ixx). Miller is by no means done yet. He inquires further: What is the nature of heroic individuality, and why and how is the hero so often defined by means of a code generated by a collectivity or group of his “peers”? How is he simultaneously placed above humankind, and therefore somewhere near the gods, and below the human, mixed with and mixed into the animal and even the monstrous, the teratic world? Why should a hero… carry not one sword, but two? And, finally, what stands behind or emerges from his perpetual and obsessive affaire du coeur with death itself? (x). Now the question, who is a hero? “An individual is named the “hero” of a particular incident, which means that he or she had intervened in some critical situation in an extraordinary fashion, acting outside, above, or in disregard to normal pattern of behaviour, especially in putting his or her life at risk “(Miller 1). Thus, the traditional idea of heroism involves the element of the supernatural – “the supernatural tints and taints; the crude interventions of gods and the friendship or, even more grotesque, the imagined kinship of the hero with human-like animals, the encounters with monsters, the magical flights and otherworld adventures – the heroic defiance, in a word, of physical laws, in the impossible combinations of the human with the animal and the divine” (2). The French Dictionnarie de l’Academic of 1769 (its fourth edition) revealed a “progressive degradation” of the term: first, hero is given as a “demigod”, then “a man who distinguishes himself in war by extraordinary acts”, and finally as “a man who, on some occasion, betrays the marks of great pride ( grande fierte) or of a remarkable nobility” (qtd. in Miller 2). To pursue our search for the conceptual history of the hero further, we turn our attention to Liddell and Scott’s A Greek-English Lexicon : The word itself is Greek – heros – and thus our initial view of the type is influenced by ancient Greek definitions. According to Miller, “[T]he dictionary’s list of definitions lets us believe that a kind of linear development occurred in Greek: from Homer’s archaic usage, where “hero” is used for “any free man” or, possibly, any significant man or “gentlemen” prominent in the epic or not; to Hesiod, who
However and in spite of this fine line trod by Eagleton, he goes on to quote Dorothea Krook in her Elements of Tragedy , arguing, “[T]he hero must be representative of humanity as a whole, but at the same time elevated above his fellows. His suffering must be expiatory, must be conscious rather than blind and must be accepted by both him and ourselves as necessary. This is so even if his transgression, like Oedipus’s, is unconscious; the fact remains that cosmic order has been disrupted, and must be restored whatever the cost in human agony” (76). We have so far tried in the foregoing excursus to sketch in broad strokes the constitutive issues involved in the drawing the portrait of the “hero” in the Eurocentric epic and classical tragic traditions. We shall for now suspend comment on the Judeao-Christian motif immanent in the sub-textual as well as the inter-textual resonance in Things Fall Apart. We shall, of course, return to it in the latter part of this paper. But for now, let us briefly consider what might be termed the traditional (African) epic heroic ideal. In his important study entitled The Epic in Africa: Toward a Poetics of the Oral performance , Isidore Okpewho avers in his piquantly felicitous prose that the epic hero is distinguished by a number of attributes, among which include the hero’s parental origins, his circumstances of birth, his unusual or “strange” early life, his outstanding physical attributes; his sense of inordinate ambition and his overweening pride or brusqueness. Okpewho furnishes illustrious examples of the traditional hero: Sunjata, the emperor of the ancient Mali Empire, Telamonian Ajax of the Achaean forces; Odysseus; Gilgamesh and Beowulf, Hektor and Ozidi and Achilles. Since the epic is primarily a product of a heroic culture based as it is on the warrior ethic, personal honour and fame or, the claim to heroism is achieved through martial skill. Therefore in the traditional heroic myth the folk hero is set apart by his war-likeness, bravery and strength, both of body and mind. In Okpewho’s words:
… the hero furiously craves for an opportunity to put his estimation of himself to the proof. Love of danger is thus a frequent corollary of self-esteem. The hero may not always die from the risks that he takes; in fact, his survival is proof of his invincibility or durability. But should he die, his death is not the pitiable or despicable one of a Narcissus, but rather an awe-inspiring one, because of the circumstances in which the life is hazarded (101). Hence, Isidore Okpewho argues quite convincingly that the hero is “quite simply a comprehensive symbol of the ideals of human society and the dangers attendant upon such exaggerated expectations” (131). Many a hero accordingly owes his existence mainly and principally to a communal crisis – “The hero is welcome only on troubled days” as Seydou Camara says in Kambili (qtd in Okpewho 127). As the epic hero takes his place as the bridgehead of communal destiny, his sights are set on “[H]onour, distinction, the dignity of life, a sense of transcendence of the limitations of common mortality – these then are major concerns of the heroic spirit, ideals that the heroic personality aims to actualize” (123). It is important at this juncture to briefly ponder the role of the Igbo belief in chi vis-à- vis the issue of heroism in Things Fall Apart. To help us do this, we shall turn our attention to Achebe’s own famous essay entitled ‘Chi in Igbo Cosmology’. In this article, Chinua Achebe in his typically thorough fashion examines the various aspects of this major Igbo belief. He tells us that: There are two clearly distinct meanings of the word chi in Igbo. The first is often translated as god, guardian angel, personal spirit, soul, spirit-double, etc. The second meaning is day or daylight but is most commonly used for thosetraditional periods between day and night or night and day. Thus we speak of chi ofufo meaning day break and chi ojiji , nightfall (93). Achebe goes on to inform us that “in a general way we may visualise a person’s chi as his other identity in spirit land – his spirit being complementing his terrestrial human being ; for nothing can stand alone, there must always be another thing standing beside it” (93). Clearly, we must by now come to terms with the fact that, as Achebe himself argues rightly, “without an understanding of the nature of chi one could not begin to make sense of the Igbo world-
because, in spite of the overbearing role of one’s chi in one’s earthly situation, one is expected in the final analysis to have a say in one’s own affairs. Now having provided the foregoing theoretical background to our discussion of the concept of heroism in Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart , we shall proceed to examine the finer details of Okonkwo’s tragic career vis-à-vis the fate of his father, Unoka and his son, Nwoye. We are inevitably comfronted with the question again: Is Okonkwo a truly tragic (or epic) hero? Or can we in good conscience consider Unoka, or, even, Nwoye, the true hero of the novel? However, while attempting to answer these questions, we must bear in mind the cultural context within which the high drama of this family saga, on the one hand, and, on the other, the collective fate of Umuofia is framed. Perhaps, for us to be able to clearly chart the contours and the trajectory of the tragic career of the novel’s protagonist, Okonkwo, it might be necessary and useful for us to, first and foremost, subject the subplot of the Unoka story to a closer exegetical inquiry. In the words of the novel’s narrator: He was tall but very thin and had a slight stoop. He wore a haggard and mournful look except when he was drinking or playing on his flute. He was very good on his flute, and his happiest moments were the two or three moons after the harvest when the village musicians brought down their instruments, hung above the fireplace. Unoka would play with them, his face beaming with blessedness and peace. The narrator goes on to tell us that, “Unoka, the grown-up, was a failure. He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat. People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back” (4). Unoka, we are told, is lazy and improvident. Incapable of thinking about tomorrow, he lives for the moment, a man of peace and gentleness. What is more, he is said to be a coward who hates warfare or even the sight of blood, a way of life for which his people are renowned. As if to rub in this despicable image of Unoka, Chinua Achebe deftly juxtaposes him with another musician like him:
Okoye was also a musician. He played on the ogene. But he was not a failure like Unoka. He had a large barn full of yams and he had three wives. And now he was going to take the Idemili title, the third highest in the land (5). This comparative portraiture of Unoka in relation to his friend and contemporary, Okoye, helps put Unoka’s unenviable track record in bolder relief; and at his death, “he had taken no title at all and he was heavily in debt. Even before his death Unoka had once consulted Agbala , the priestess of the oracle of the Hills and the Caves to find out why he always had a miserable harvest (12). The priestess had told him: “you have offended neither the gods nor your fathers. And when a man is at peace with his gods and his ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm. You, Unoka, are known in all the clan for the weakness of your matchet and your hoe…”(13). And as if all this life-long misadventure were not enough, the novelist finally clinches Unoka’s tragic story by introducing metaphysical factors as responsible for his sad life: Unoka was an ill-fated man. He had a bad chi or personal god, and evil fortune followed him to the grave, or rather to his death, for he had no grave. He died of the swelling which was an abomination to the earth goddess … He was carried to the evil forest and left there to die (13). From the excerpted passage above, we can see that Unoka’s failure has been partly blamed on his “bad Chi ”. According to Achebe, The Igbo believe that a man receives his gifts or talents, his character, indeed his portion in life generally-before he comes into the world. It seems there is an element of choice available to him at that point; and that his chi presides over the bargaining ... (97). Therefore, Unoka’s failure in life is a consequence of the “primordial bargain he had willingly struck with his chi ” (97) in the spirit realm before his earthly sojourn. Hence, even if he had wanted to lead a particularly illustrious life, his “bad” chi would have frustrated him. The Igbo name Chie Ekwero , meaning “his chi does not agree” bears out our contention. Achebe further argues in the paper that if a man fails in life, it is due to “either the man has particularly intransigent Chi or else it is the man himself attempting too late to alter that
own life is naturally projected. If anything, the writer seems to offset admirably Okonkwo’s own heroic credentials against his father’s life of nullity: Okonkwo defeats Amalinze the cat who had held the wrestling title for a record seven years, thus bringing fame to his clan, Umuofia. He is thenceforth regarded as the greatest wrestler in the nine villages that make up the Umuofia clan; he is also a wealthy farmer, rising from great poverty and misfortune to be one of the lords of the clan; a husband of three wives and father to eight children. Okonkwo is recipient of two traditional titles, thanks to his “inflexible will” to succeed where his father has failed. Additionally, Okonkwo is said to have shown incredible prowess in two inter-tribal wars so much so that he has to his credit five human heads brought back from war. It is this enviable track record of Okonkwo’s that makes Achebe open the novel by declaring that: “Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements” (3). And, the further underscore Okonkwo’s greatness, Achebe invariably compares him to the founder of their town who engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights (3). Clearly, Achebe deliberately portrays Okonkwo as a prodigy, the very measure of possibility and the symbolic touchstone of full potential in the traditional Igbo (African) world. Indeed, besides his martial and allied achievements, Okonkwo is drawn as tall and huge, with bushy eyebrows. He breathes heavily and walks as though on springs (3). This impressive self-presence and physicality redound to his fame and greatness in the land. Little wonder, then, we are told that “Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered” (6). In a word, Okonkwo is characterised by the novelist as the embodiment and the express image of achievement. Be that as it may, this superstructure of achievement is based on a quicksand of sorts: But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and the weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo’s fear was greater than these. It was not external but
lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father (10). As earlier highlighted, the Umuofia clan depends largely on values of valour, manliness, and industry; and Okonkwo’s father has come to represent for Okonkwo the very image of negation and all that the Igbo culture desperately abhors. Will he, carrying in his veins his father’s DNA of utter failure, replicate his father’s ‘useless’ life? That is the genesis of Okonkwo’s fear. Fear is the chink in Okonkwo’s armour and his so-called “achievements” are all efforts at papering over the cracks. But does he succeed? Achebe at this juncture introduces into the narrative scheme the story of Ikemefuna: the fear of failure as hamartia and his vaulting arrogance of achievement as hubris , Ikemefuna comes across as the ultimate test of Okonkwo’s claim to greatness. As part of his desire to erase the embarrassing memories of his father, Okonkwo abhors any open display of affection, gentleness and warmth. “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children” (9). As far as Okonkwo is concerned, anger is the only fit and proper emotion he can deign to openly express; and “anger” being short of “danger” by a letter “d” undercuts Okonkwo’s “greatness” or “heroic” stature as he becomes slave to it. During the week of peace, for instance, Okonkwo commits nso-ani (abomination) by battering Ojiugo, his youngest wife, for not making his lunch before she goes to plait her hair. Delivering the verdict of Ani, the earth goddess, her priest, Ezeani chides Okonkwo: “… You have committed a great evil … the evil you have done can ruin the whole clan. The earth goddess whom you have insulted may refuse to give us her increase, and we shall all perish” (22). Okonkwo promptly shows compunction and therefore makes amends through performing ritual sacrifices for breaking the sacred peace. And, for a brief spell there is relative peace in his household. Achebe later narrates that, Ekwefi, Okonkwo’s second wife, is thoroughly beaten by him for cutting a few banana leaves to wrap
which is erased for him forever by the young boy’s ritual killing, an act against nature in which his father participates. The fate of Ikenefuna, its stark revelation of the grim underside of the tribal ethos, engenders the emptiness in his heart that predisposes Nwoye to Christian conversion. The terms in which his conversion is described make clear the conjunction between social and moral issues as the determining factor. It is not without significance that the conversion itself is presented as an inner drama of sensibility in which a new poetry takes the place of the ancient, fills a spiritual and affective void … (133). Insofar as Okonkwo stands in loco parentis to Ikemefuna for a period of three years, the boy automatically becomes his ‘son’ – or adopted son and he, the surrogate paterfamilias. The parental obligations sanctioned by tradition ought to have been discharged by Okonkwo towards his charge but he fails to do this. Also, his homicide is considered by the novel’s narrator to be “an act against nature”, that is to say, it violates cosmic laws and spiritual principles which undergird human social existence. And since the Umuofia authorities, ostensibly acting on the orders of their deity, participate in the killing, the tribal society loses all legitimacy and/or any sense of institutional cogency for Nwoye. Nwoye’s loss of faith in his ancestral religion and his conversion to Christianity has been correctly interpreted by Irele as both social and moral issues which at a deeper epistemic level signal “an inner drama of sensibility”. Significantly, the singularity of Nwoye’s saga signposts the ‘demise’ of the indigenous worldview and the emergence of an alien but superior epistemic system. Okonkwo is scandalised by Nwoye’s conversion and promptly disinherits him. Not even his “wilderness experience” in Mbanta can mitigate Okonkwo’s rigid traditionalism and his rugged individualism: His life had been ruled by a great passion to become one of the lords of the clan. That had been his life-spring. And he had all but achieved it. Then everything had broken. He had been cast out of his clan like a fish on to a dry, sandy beach, panting. Clearly his personal god or chi was not made for great things (92). Chinua Achebe also notes in his essay ‘ Chi in Igbo Cosmology’, “that the Igbo postulate the concept of every man as both a unique creation and the work of a unique creator. Which is as
far as individualism and uniqueness can possibly go!” (98). He yet again argues that “fierce egalitarianism’ is a “marked feature of Igbo political organisation” (98). Yet, the individual is not an island to himself; he must ultimately obey communal rules and regulations in his public and private life. According to Achebe: The obvious curtailment of a man’s power to walk alone and do as he will is provided by another potent force-the will of his community. For whenever Something stands, no matter what, Something Else will stand beside it. No man however great can win judgement against all the people (99). Okonkwo’s tragic (or is it pathetic ?) fate demonstrates the fact that contrary to the Igbo belief, as encapsulated in the popular proverb: onye kwe chie ekwe (when a man says yes, his chi affirms), one’s chi , as noted earlier on, will not always support one, especially if one goes beyond the pale of custom or does things inimical to the common good. Like Thomas Hardy’s Michael Henchard ( in The Mayor of Casterbridge ), Okonkwo’s downfall stems from his flawed character. This is in line with the popular dictum, namely “character is fate”. Yet, to what extent Okonkwo’s character is a product of nature (that is, genetic coding plus his chi’s role) or that of nurture (that is, socio-cultural determinants) or both, remains difficult to say. In traditional African heroic narrative, we need to emphasise, the hero is not a run-of- the-mill, average man but one in whose veins runs royal human or/and divine blood. Thus, as a member of the nobility, his heroic credentials are further boosted by ‘strange’ occurrences which must attend his birth, such meteorological events as storms, lightning and thunder or an eclipse of the sun or the moon. Moreover, his formative years may be very difficult such that he might attract general scorn, pity or even ostracism; but these setbacks would be overcome by the hero through extraordinary force of will and he would gradually blossom into a “behemoth” of a man, consequently inspiring universal respect and awe. And, with his mystical fortifications by his parents and requisite training in warfare, the hero-in-waiting is ready to come into his own.
gleaned within the immediate Igbo (African) universe and from far-flung reaches of the sympathetic imagination. Even so, can Okonkwo be said to have descended from royalty or divine parentage like, say, Achilles in Homer’s Iliad , Odysseus in Homer’s The Odyssey , Beowulf, Prometheus or, to cite well-known examples from African orature, Ozidi of the Izon (Nigeria) and Sunjata of the epic of the old Mali Empire? Does the world witness meteorological irruptions or cosmic convulsions at his birth, as are common in the heroic narratives of epic heroes? What extraordinary events attend his formative years? Beyond Okonkwo’s hulking physiognomy, can he be said to possess strength of mind, good counsel and organisational acumen in mobilising men and materials in dire moments of collective stress? It is true that the epic hero is marked by immodesty and overweening pride. But his intemperateness signifies the valour and greatness of the collectivity, a healthy habit of mind that gives the tribe its distinctive panache and heroic brio. Even when the hero’s hauteur results in death, there is normally an epochalising aftermath attendant upon such eventuality (Okpewho 80- 134). Okonkwo’s personality as dramatised in Things Fall Apart does not seem to measure up to these specified qualities of an epic hero. His traditional Igbo society and culture set great store by “solid personal achievements” (Okafor, 2006, 88). Thus, the Igbo notion of democratic republicanism encourages an egalitarianism which gives free, unfettered rein to individual self-actualisation. This entelechial drive is akin to the famed American Dream, an eternally elusive skein of wishful thinking which, to all intents and purposes, has resulted in more colossal deficits in human potential than tangible heroics. Okonkwo is doubly challenged both by social expectation and, more importantly, by his father’s failure in life. But Okonkwo seems well suited to this interestingly ambiguous scenario; ambiguous because, on the one hand, he is
born into abject poverty with all its abhorrent corollaries, and, on the other hand, nature more than compensates him with a physique that is complemented with a single-minded, iron-clad determination to achieve greatness. Like Soyinka’s Eman of The Strong Breed , Okonkwo fulfils himself in utter loneliness. But to reach his goal, Okonkwo, like Oedipus, has to commit parricide, albeit symbolically. Achebe remarks: “He had had no patience with his father” (3). And, since such things as affection, love, gentleness, peaceableness, and warmth remind Okonkwo of his father, he stamps them out of his own life. Accordingly he abuses his wives and children and shows brusqueness and bumptiousness towards others. Okonkwo is never a warm and likeable character, but an insufferably overbearing personality. To be sure, there is a sense in which Okonkwo’s extermination of the “female” qualities of mind – that is, the aforementioned graces – is coterminous with King Oedipus’s parricide, a crime which eventually leads to his downfall. For his part, Okonkwo’s career in extremism and excess is a direct fallout of his repression of his humane sensibilities. In this regard, he reminds us of classical Greek epic and tragic characters, especially, Achilles. Homer’s Iliad , it must be recalled, is principally a thematic elaboration of the wrath of Achilles. For good measure, Okonkwo’s tragic career is a dark tribute to unconscionable spleen: just as so many Homeric epithets and patronyms are deployed in tricking out Achilles in Iliad , so are `such laudatory epithets as “Roaring Flame”, “living fire”, among others, used in describing Okonkwo. He also brings to mind some historical as well as mythic personages in the African world. Both Thomas Mofolo’s novel, Chaka and Mazisi Kunene’s The Epic of Emperor Chaka The Zulu dramatise Chaka’s life of violence and mindless bloodlust which ultimately leads to his ignoble end in a lonely desert. Chaka’s godless catechism, namely, “mercy devours its owner” (Mofolo, 1942, 47) proves his undoing as he abhors all traces of mercy or humanity. While Chaka was a historical phenomenon, Ogun, the Yoruba god of war and iron, is a figure of myth. Wole Soyinka in Myth, Literature and the African World
