Cultural Memory and the Poetics of Resistance: Reclaiming African Identity Through Narrative in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

Abstract

Cultural memory maintains a collective identity and serves as a site of resistance to the erasure caused by colonialism in African literature is the primary focus of this article. Specifically, the article uses Chinua Achebe’s book Things Fall Apart as the center of its analysis. This article investigates oral traditions, proverbs, communal ritualistic behaviours, and storytelling as forms of cultural memory; these cultural memories serve as living archives of the beliefs and values that shaped pre-colonial Africa). Meanwhile, Achebe uses narrative as a tool for reclaiming and reconstructing the historical consciousness of the Igbo people in relationship to colonialism’s systematic attempts to marginalize their ways of knowing and being . This article argues that African literary production is a fundamental act of epistemic resistance and cultural continuity. This article draws on the same theoretical frameworks and scholarly sources for the development of an interpretive framework focused on cultural memory, identity preservation, and narrative as transformative forces in postcolonial contexts.