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‘Like a Mask Dancing’: Law and Colonialism in Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God
Author(s) -
Manji Ambreena
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of law and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.263
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1467-6478
pISSN - 0263-323X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6478.00170
Subject(s) - colonialism , power (physics) , politics , law , arrow , postcolonial literature , dystopia , state (computer science) , sociology , history , political science , quantum mechanics , computer science , programming language , algorithm , physics
Whilst the study of law and literature is now well established in the western academy, little attention has been paid to portrayals of law in African literature. In addition, studies of the colonial state by lawyers, political scientists, and historians have neglected African fiction's long engagement in this area. Achebe's fiction prefigured many of the issues engaging critics and theorists on the wider social scientific terrain. This paper draws on Achebe's simile –‘the world is like a mask dancing’ ndash; to delineate an approach to power and authority. The lesson of Arrow of God – that the ‘legal world’ cannot be understood by standing in one place – is of wider significance to those engaged in the study of law and society.