Yam as a narrative element in Achebe’s rural novels

Abstract

The Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe devotes his great success to his two rurally set novels: Things Fall Apart (1958) and Arrow of God (1964). Both novels coincide in portraying the autochthonous ways of living of the Ibo people precisely when they start a new moment of crisis with the British colonial occupation. Among the most relevant elements that shape this new narrative scenery, the fact that yam is the basic food in traditional Ibo diet becomes strongly meaningful in both novels. According to this, the aim of this paper is to analyze the role of yam in the development of the narrative plot of both novels. Among the results of this research, I may advance some of those derive from an apparently minor circumstance: yam is a tuber, not a cereal. Thus, it is associated to this dietary factor most of the features that Achebe attributes to the Ibo community.