Literature Quiz on Achebe and Okara's Works

1. Achebe – II

2. Monday Quiz • 1. What’s the title of Ikem’s lecture? • 2. Of the peasants, the workers and/or the students, who would Ikem trust to run the government? • 3. What happens to Mad Medico? • 4. How does Chris know that Ikem was murdered in cold-blood, instead of shot by a police officer during an act of self-defense? • 5. Who is Emmanuel? • 6. Why is Beatrice suddenly kind to Agatha? • 7. Who are the three green bottles? • 8. How does Chris escape the policeman who stops him at the check point?

3. Gabriel Okara • Gabriel Okara – (1921 - ) Nigeria. His work deals with both colonial past and neocolonial present. The following poems contrast Western and African cultures, focusing on the differences and underplaying the complementarity that is possible between cultures and necessary to create harmony in the world. He decries the mockery and rejection of his culture by the West and he describes how, in the neocolonial era, the African elite is alienated from African culture and develops self-hatred.

4. Piano and Drums • When at break of day at a riverside • I hear jungle drums telegraphing • the mystic rhythm, urgent, raw • like bleeding flesh, speaking of • primal youth and the beginning. • I see the panther ready to pounce, • the leopard snarling about to leap • and the hunters crouch with spears poised;

5. Piano and Drums • And my blood ripples, turns torrent, • topples the years and at once I’m • in my mother’s lap a suckling; • at once I’m walking simple • paths with no innovations, • rugged, fashioned with the naked • warmth of hurrying feet and groping hearts • in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing.

6. Piano and Drums • Then I hear a wailing piano • solo speaking of complex ways • in tear-furrowed concerto; • of far-away lands • and new horizons with • coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint, • crescendo. But lost in the labyrinth • of its complexities, it ends in the middle • of a phrase at a daggerpoint.

7. Piano and Drums • And I, lost in the morning mist • of an age at a riverside keep • wandering in the mystic rhythm • of jungle drums and the concerto.

8. You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed • In your ears my song • is motor car misfiring • stopping with a choking cough; • and you laughed and laughed and laughed. • In your eyes my ante- • natal walk was inhuman, passing • your omnivorous understanding • and you laughed and laughed and laughed. • You laughed at my song, • you laughed at my walk. • Then I danced my magic dance • to the rhythm of talking – • drums pleading, but you shut your • eyes and laughed and laughed and laughed.

9. You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed • And then I opened my mystic • inside wide like • the sky, instead you entered your • car and laughed and laughed and laughed. • You laughed at my dance, • you laughed at my inside. • You laughed and laughed and laughed. • But your laughter was ice-block • laughter and it froze your inside, froze • your voice, froze your ears, • froze your eyes and froze your tongue.

10. You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed • And now it’s my turn to laugh; • but my laugher is not • ice-block laugher. For I • know not cars, know not ice-blocks. • My laughter is the fire • of the eye of the sky, the fire • of the earth, the fire of the air, • the fire of the seas and the • rivers fishes animals trees, • and it thawed your inside, • thawed your voice, thawed your • ears, thawed your eyes and • thawed your tongue.

11. You Laughed and Laughed and Laughed • So a meek wonder held • your shadow and you whispered; • “Why so?” • And I answered: • “Because my fathers and I • are owned by the living • warmth of the earth • through our naked feet.”

12. Agostinho Neto – (1922-1979) Angola. • A militant worker for Angolan independence, he served several terms of imprisonment under the Portuguese colonial regime. As president of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, he lead his country to independence and became its first president in 1975. His poetry is about the plight of the peasants and workers in Angola. They are in a state of deprivation, cut off from the joys of life and relegated to a world of servitude by the bearers of “Western Civilization.”

13. I live in the dark quarters of the world without light, nor life. Anxious to live, I walk in the streets feeling my way leaning into my shapeless dreams, stumbling into servitude. -- Dark quarters worlds of wretchedness where the will is watered down and men are confused with things. I walk, lurching, through the unlit unknown streets crowded with mystery and terror, I, arm in arm with ghosts, And the night too is dark. Night

14. Kinaxixi (a working class residential area in Angola) • I was glad to sit down • On a bench in Kinaxixi • at six o’clock of a hot evening • and just sit there . . . • Someone would come • maybe • to sit beside me • And I would see the black faces • of the people going uptown • in no hurry • expressing absence in the • jumbled Kimbundu they conversed in.

15. Kinaxixi (a working class residential area in Angola) • I would see the tired footsteps • of the servants whose fathers are also servants • looking for love here, glory there, wanting • something more than drunkenness in every • Alcohol • Neither happiness nor hate • After the sun had set • lights would be turned on and I • would wander off • thinking that our life after all is simple • too simple • for anyone who is tired and still has to walk.

16. Sheets of tin nailed to posts driven in the ground make up the house. Some rags complete the intimate landscape. The sun slanting through cracks welcomes the owner After twelve hours of slave labor breaking rock shifting rock breaking rock shifting rock fair weather wet weather breaking rock shifting rock Old age comes early a mat on dark nights is enough when he dies gratefully of hunger. Western Civilizations