Language and Landscape: Conflict in Chinua Achebe's Anthills

of the Savannah
Paoi Hwang

Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas, Volume

2, Number 2, June 2004, pp. 161-174 (Article)
Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press
DOI: 10.1353/pan.0.0067

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pan/summary/v002/2.2.hwang.html

Access Provided by Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar at 11/09/12 8:23AM GMT

Language and Landscape: Conflict in Chinua Achebe's

Anthills of the Savannah
Paoi Hwang
National Taiwan University
This paper will discuss Anthills of the Savannah, which, incidentally,
has the most pictorial title of all Chinua Achebe's novels, focusing on
the relationship between language and the environment staged in this
narrative and, in particular, on the very English concept of picturesque
landscapes.1 I shall attempt to trace the trajectory of the picturesque
and landscape painting within the English language and address the
problems that arise as a result of its subsequent export to the British
colonies. Two basic questions underlie the argument. If Achebe believes
that the English language can be a useful tool for the African writer
to reclaim his ancestral heritage, does he also believe that it can lose
enough of its cultural past to be made suitable for the African
environment? And does Anthills of the Savannah, his most recent novel
and one in which many themes from his other works converge, convey
a successful mastery and subjugation of the English language?
The English-language postcolonial writers seem to have inherited
a certain pictorial rhetoric from their past. One of the main reasons for
this is the imperial fascination with landscape. W. J. T. Mitchell has
noted that landscape conceptualization first flourished in China at the
height of its imperial power; England's fascination with it likewise
began when it experienced imperial success (Mitchell 1994: 9). But,
the start of Western landscape awareness has always been attributed
to the Dutch, whose mid-seventeenth-century transformation from a
rebellious colony to a maritime empire happened to coincide with its
export of landscape painting. In the eighteenth century the idea, meaning,
1 Chinua Achebe's well known views on the use of English by African writers are
premised on the belief that in a postcolonial context no language can remain a "colonial"
language; see Achebe 1975: 15, 30-32, and 52.
Partial Answers 2/2 (2004)

162 Paoi Hwang

and usage of the word "landscape" underwent a very interesting change.

According to John Barrell, landscape began as a painter's word that
was initially used to describe "a pictorial representation of the

countryside," either as subject of a picture or background of a portrait.

Later, however, the word was used more broadly to mean a piece of
countryside, a visual phenomenon. In fact,
[t]here is no word in English which denotes a tract of land, of

whatever extent, which is apprehended visually but not, necessarily,

pictorially. The nearest is probably "terrain," but in practice the
uses to which this word can be put are very limited. . . .The word
we do use, of course, is "landscape": we can speak of the "landscape" of a county, but in doing so we introduce, whether we want
to or not, notions of value and form which relate, not just to
seeing the land, but to seeing it in a certain way - pictorially. (1)
The marriage of landscape aesthetics to the English language was a
gradual and complex process. The eighteenth-century English interest
in landscape and landscape-art manifested itself in many different
forms such as painting, gardening, and literature, and increased travel
was seen as a reason for its widespread popularity. However, a possibly
more significant factor was that it was perceived as a practice of the
cultivated.

According to Barrell, to display "a correct taste in landscape was

a valuable social accomplishment," hence the principles behind it were
"learned so thoroughly that in the latter eighteenth-century it became
impossible for anyone with an aesthetic interest in landscape to look
at the countryside without applying them, whether he knew he was
doing so or not" (5,6). These artistic principles, which will be discussed

in detail later, led to the creation of a vocabulary that reflected a

disturbing interchangeability between aesthetic values and social or
class norms. The desirability of acquiring an eye for landscapes was
compounded by the social connotations of taste, and landscape terms
became assimilated into political and social metaphors:
"viewpoint" or "point of view" is an intellectual term, one has
"elevated" thoughts by being in an "elevated" position, one's

life gains "perspective" as well as the landscape (painted or real),

one should accept one's "walk" of life, one ought not to have
ideas above one's "station," one's life has "landmarks" if one

Language and Landscape 163

"surveys" it properly, and to "command" bright "prospects" is

more than just having mental snapshots of the view, or "panorama,"
from an "eminence," preferably from a "seat" (garden seat or
family seat). (Brownlow 1983: 22)
The process by which the English society and language achieved their
unique vocabulary of picturesque appraisal was a popular topic for
debate in the eighteenth century. The names of Joseph Addison, Edmund
Burke, William Gilpin, and Uvedale Price have been linked to the
formation of this particularly English aesthetic experience. The argument
for the picturesque has been inextricably linked with theories of the
beautiful and the sublime:

Since sublimity and picturesqueness are usually defined by

distinction from beauty and from one another, and since the
principles, bases, and functions of these distinctions are ordinarily
different in different writers, no adequate and accurate account
of any one such character divorced from all others is possible.
(Hippie 1957: 3)
However, while beauty can be seen to belong to a general discourse
on the pleasing effects of nature on the human eye, the sublime as a
concept goes back to Longinus and to earlier Greek roots. Although
the five sources of sublime that Longinus lists in "On the Sublime"2
pertain to literature and rhetorical expressions, the experience of the
sublime also has moral aspects: "For the true sublime, by some virtue
of its nature, elevates us: uplifted with a sense of proud possession,
we are filled with joyful pride, as if we had ourselves produced the
very thing we heard" (Longinus 1965: 139). By the time the notion of
the sublime was treated by Edmund Burke, it came to be seen as
arising from ideas of pain, danger or terror (1990: 36). In a sense the
sublime came to mean the failure of the imagination or a loss for
words to describe a visual experience that would result in feelings of
2 The five elements of the sublime are: the command of full-blooded ideas, inspiration
of vehement emotion, use of figures of thought and figures of speech, nobility of phrase,
and the creation of a general effect of dignity and elevation (141). Longinus tended to
use the words "beauty" and "the sublime" interchangeably: the great style is both beautiful
and sublime, and these qualities please "all people at all times" (1965: 137, 155, 139).
Edmund Burke (1990: 1) notes that it is this lack of distinction in Longinus's discourse
that his own enquiry seeks to address.

164 Paoi Hwang

both awe and anxiety. This explains two topoi that are reflected in the
language used to describe Africa: sensations of elevation and feelings
of indescribable anxiety.
In The Road to Botany Bay, Paul Carter notes that the first tool
needed to conquer a land is a rhetorical one, and the process of association
that is part of language is a form of possessing the land. The sending

of travel writers to the colonies was the imperial nation's way of

vicariously claiming the land, since the successful replicating of a
"new" land in the imperial language implied that some form of control
had been exerted, because each rendition carried some familiar signs
that were indicative of the artist's own cultural interpretation. With
the British Empire massively expanding in the eighteenth century, the
picturesque functioned especially well as a means of cultural selfdefinition, for not only was it useful in marking foreign territories but
it also counteracted classical Greek and Roman art at home, ideal art

that still poses as a strong factor in the English identity (Andrews 11).
The picturesque style was perfected to represent the English landscape,
and this style was slowly transferred to the colonies. As the picturesque
developed and acquired a marked English vernacular flavor, traveling
artists disseminated its principles and settlers set out to recreate the
colonies in the image of home. As Carter concludes, "exploration
civilized [a] country by translating it into English" for "whatever its
motive, to place the Aborigine in possession of English was simply
to possess him, to help him forget he was ever at home" (63).
The special treatment accorded to the African environment in English
colonial writing is brilliantly analyzed in J. M. Coetzee's White Writing.
Coetzee notes that English poets and painters who attempted to depict
the South African landscape often failed to produce convincing results
simply because they could not find the greenery and the wet surfaces
that they were accustomed to representing. Consequently, because the
artists "fail to compel the veld to yield up its essence, they are predictably
followed by a reaction in which the veld is condemned as unresponsive
to language . . . inscrutable and indifferent" (1988: 164-65). The
treatment of the African landscape followed two main methods: either
the landscape was manipulated to make it conform to English perceptions,
for example by adding an occasional picturesque element and moulding
it in familiar iambic-tetrameter couplets, or it was more conveniently
ignored and overlooked. The anxiety that stemmed from the English
writer's failure to apply his language to the landscape also meant a

Language and Landscape 165

devaluing of the African setting as primitive and beyond civilization.

According to Coetzee, the main reason that the African landscape
never appealed to the English as sublime was because in European art
the sublime is more often associated with the vertical rather than the

horizontal, with mountains rather than plains, and with heights and
depth in contrast to expanses.
Although Coetzee's interest in the mechanics and motives of using
the English language in South Africa mirrors Carter's in Australia, his
work puts the argument in a different light. Like Ngugi and Achebe,
who are "natives" of the land, Coetzee questions the presence of a
foreign landscape perception and the significance of having the English
language in South Africa. He is just as caught up in the search for a
language that will fit Africa and be authentically African. However,
his view of what is happening in South Africa serves as a warning of
the possible failure of such an enterprise. For the South African writer,
the refutation of European languages entails a search for a more "authentic" language - one that excludes even the languages "indigenous"
to Africa because "their authenticity is not necessarily the right authenticity" but is "a natural or Adamic language, one in which Africa will
naturally express itself, that is to say, a language in which there is no
split between signifier and signified, and things are their names" (3).
This desire in South African writing to find, or even to create, a language
that is new and free of cultural baggage is largely responsible for what
Coetzee regards as the "literature of empty landscapes" or the "literature
of failure."

The prevention of such a catastrophe can be found through an early

realization that "the true South African landscape is of rock, not of
foliage; and therefore that the South African artist must employ a
geological, and not a botanical gaze," writes Coetzee, and it can be
seen that "the rocky interior thus has a living heart, revealed only to
the closely attentive observer, the lone walker of the wilds" (168). The
flaw in this argument is that the "attentive observer" only seeks what
he wants to see, and therefore what he finds beneath the "unpromising"
African landscape are still the old signs of life: water, the African violet and the aloe vera. If three questions are asked about the white
writing of Africa - "Can the African landscape be articulated in English?
Does the land speak a universal language? Can the European be at home
in Africa?" - three more can be asked about English writing by African
writers: How can a European language serve the African landscape?

166 Paoi Hwang

Is it possible for the African writer to really convey the feelings of being
"at home" in a foreign language? In what way does this matter?
Since English reached the colonies with the purpose of transforming
the native people, their culture and their landscape, it is not easy for
Achebe, who has chosen to adopt this language, to argue for it in
strictly neutral terms. In addition, if the colonized subject was either
distorted or dismissed from early English representations, it is not a
simple task for a writer emerging from this void to claim his due
through the very same medium.
Simon Gikandi regards Achebe as the first writer to bring up the
linguistic and historical problems that the colonial situation has created
specifically for the African writer who has adopted English. Achebe's
works act as a direct and conscious challenge to the colonial language

by exposing its previous agenda to reproduce the colonial ideology;

they are a new oppositional discourse that counters what Edward Said
has termed the "permanence of vision" (Gikandi 1991: 4). Achebe's
use of narrative to counter the fixed colonial vision allows him to

reread the world - to look at every thing twice - and articulate a new

space for the African writer. Yet how does Achebe propose to evade
cultural impediments such as the picturesque rhetoric that comes with
using the English language?
The picturesque evaluation system may provide a clue to Achebe's
method. Basically this system stands on the categories of variety, contrast,
and unity. All three measurements are taken from a vantage point, or
a commanding center, from which a central theme can be located (see

Nevius9,13).3 An artist of the picturesque, whether drawing a landscape

or describing a group of people, has to be able to dissect the scene,
pit its elements against each other, and relate the general effects to a
tradition or taste. In turn, the ability to make associations, to relate the
general effect of the picture to a genre or a tradition, will determine
whether the viewer is a man of taste. The process of commanding a

scene from a vantage point and conferring on it a high aesthetic status

through associations was meant to elevate the status of the perceiver.
Hence, for many, the postcolonial contest became a fight for the bird's
eye perch rather than the overthrowing of such an imperialist gaze.
3 The picturesque has always been likened to a predatory stance, a strategic viewing
and framing of landscapes, with only the viewer being unviewable (Mitchell 16). In
Elleke Boehmer's terms, this commanding perspective also amounts to the "colonial
gaze," the "bird's eye" view, and the "voyeur" position (67).

Language and Landscape 167

Achebe states that the Ibo language and traditions translate into
English writing by imagery and metaphors (see Searle 1997: 15564).4 Hence the title, Anthills of the Savannah, alludes to the novel's
rendering of an African reality in the English language. The imagery
is at once African and brown, as Achebe explains:
Generally the grasslands tend to be burnt down during the dry
season, before the next rains. Everything is burnt down and the

only things that cannot be burnt are these structures of earth

made by termites. ... So the people say these are the remnants,
these are the survivors. When the rains come, the new grasses
will grow - there's no problem there - but will they have a
memory? There's no way they can know about the fire of last
year because they were not there and they're likely to think that
the world began with them, that the world is always green. So
they need these experienced structures of indestructible earth
that are standing in their midst and are very soon to be dwarfed,
in fact, by the grass, which soon grows taller than they, but
which are there as a memory: they know, they remember, and
they will be there again when there is another fire and all the
present grass is burnt. (Wilkinson 141-54, 148)
Achebe uses anthills as a metaphor for human society, but the savannah
indicates that this is a society located in Africa. The title also introduces
the themes of endurance and regeneration. While the brown anthills
are permanent structures in the African landscape, capable of surviving
fire to live and tell their tale, the green grass is short-lived and memoryless: it appears with the rain, and at one point grows taller than the
brown anthills, but is fated to die when there is a fire.

It is thus clear from the very beginning that Achebe views green
and brown landscapes as representing two different cultural forces.
This is evident when he deliberately places verdant landscapes next
to the more traditional brown ones. The resulting conflict of landscapes
signifies the difficulties of merging the concepts of one (the English
language) with the reality of the other (African landscape). Although
4 "There is a way in which the vigour of one language, its imagery and metaphors,
can be transferred across. And there is a certain irreducibility in human language anyway,

which is what makes translation possible, even though we are not always satisfied with
the result and we keep striving" (Searle 163).

168 Paoi Hwang

the picturesque is revealed as an everyday phenomenon for some of

the characters who aspire to the western lifestyle, the green landscape
that they seek to create contrasts dramatically with the more traditional
African villages and their traditional ways of life. Greenery and water,
denoting modernization, development, and higher standards of living,
are seen to displace the dusty brown savannah and redefine it as backwater.
Ironically, whilst the people of Abazn are suffering from severe drought,
the presidential palace flaunts an artificial lake that could have supplied
numberless districts with water. This taunting difference is meant to
accentuate the growing dependence on water. Hence one of the more
perceptive characters, Ikem Osodi, whose role as editor of the National
Gazette mirrors Achebe's own experience as an editor, questions whether
the water shortage was due to disturbed climatic factors, or whether
the people had forgotten how to adapt and grown dependent on a
plentiful supply. Ikem argues that men used to know ways of getting
by during droughts: "good land was more plentiful than good water,
I and people were able to relieve] their burning thirst with the juices
of banana stems in the worst years of dry weather" (Achebe 1988:
103). But, now the drought seems so severe that, unless something is
done, death is sure to ensue.

In the arid climate of Nigeria, the maintenance of large areas of

year-round greenery would mean an enormous consumption of water
that would undoubtedly affect supplies throughout the country. However,
the landscape that is associated with the elite is always green:
The low hibiscus hedge outside the window and its many brilliant
red bells stood still and unruffled. Beyond the hedge the courtyard
with its concrete slabs and neatly manicured bahama grass. . . .
Beyond the courtyard another stretch of the green and red hedge
stood guard against the one-story east wing of the Presidential
Palace. Over and beyond the roof the tops of palm-trees at the
waterfront swayed with the same lazy ease they displayed to
gentle ocean winds. (9)
The hibiscus is not a plant commonly found in dry climates, nor
is the bahama grass. Each is there to produce a picturesque quality.
The green colors, the waterfront, and the ocean breeze also promote
the picturesque effect. Clearly, the Presidential Palace is enjoying
something that is alien to the land because it has to be enclosed by
hedges that stand guard - against what? The above description also

Language and Landscape 169

follows a traditional picturesque stratification. It consists of a hibiscus

hedge in the foreground, with the palace as a main subject in the
middle, and finally the waterfront with the swaying trees fading into
the background. In this picture-perfect imitation of a presumably English
scene, the cultured atmosphere displaces the native heat and presents
the chanting village people as the alien elements in the landscape. Not
only do the picturesque qualities alienate the African characteristics,
but the very framework in which it is placed further suggests that this
is not an African gaze.
It is significant that this picturesque view is only enjoyed by the
elite of Kangan. The president, Sam, and Beatrice, the protagonist and
the only narrator to survive at the end of the novel, are not only often
associated with green but also frequently appear in scenes that are
stratified according to picturesque principles. The house that Sam lives
in is typically picturesque:
The great shimmering expanse of the artificial lake waters stretching
eastwards into the advancing darkness on your left and the brightly
lit avenue taking you slowly skywards in gigantic circles round
and up the hill on the top of which the Presidential Retreat perches
like a lighthouse, was a movingly beautiful experience. (73)
Similarly, Beatrice is often depicted standing on the balcony "among
her potted plants," taking in "deep lungfuls of luxuriously cool, fresh
morning air" and watching "the streaks of light brightening slowly the
eastern sky" (108). The two passages have a number of structural
features in common. The presidential retreat "perches" on top of a hill,
"like a lighthouse" or a focal point, commanding a view of the lake
that suggestively recedes into the horizon. Beatrice's balcony also
affords an elevated view of, for instance, the two pine trees "standing
guard in the driveway" as the light brightens in the east. Each of the

characters is guarded by symbols of the picturesque, i.e. birds and

hedges: each is an alien in the African landscape and thus requires
protection from imminent intruders. Both passages deal with locations
that have been chosen for their heightened picturesque visibility.
Although Sam and Beatrice share the same interest in the picturesque,
their relationship with it is very different. Beatrice's association with
the picturesque is presented as more acceptable: she is excused as
having been brought up "in a world apart"; however it is also due to
her awareness of this difference that she is conscious of her preferences.

170 Paoi Hwang

When she is described in picturesque settings, or even when she is

seen making salads and sherry trifles, there is an awkward air around
her as if something did not belong (115). Hence Ikem and Beatrice's
boyfriend Chris both notice the market woman or village priestess in
her, and at one point she herself agrees to "a vague sense ... of being
two different people" (105). From the very beginning Beatrice questions
her Anglicization, and this is what finally leads her to embrace people
like the illiterate Elewa and her servant Agatha. Beatrice's English
education and English ways actually serve to remind her of who she
is, and at the end of the novel she makes a visible effort to reclaim the

African part of herself. By contrast, Sam loses touch with his African
culture, and his indulgence in the western lifestyle leads to his tragic
death and the suffering of his people. Throughout the novel, Sam tries
to occupy an elevated position and wants nothing to do with the village
people of Abazn. He surrounds himself with artificial lakes and imported
plants but does not realize that this is a perpetration of the colonial
legacy that is detrimental to both his image and his well-being.
When Ikem is executed under Sam's orders, Chris tries to escape
the same fate by escaping to the country. It is Ikem's belief in the
African ways that leads to his premature death, since it directly contradicts
Sam's more westernized ideals. As Chris travels towards salvation (he

likens his journey to a pilgrimage), he recalls how Ikem loved the

savannah and its brown landscapes. He notes in painterly terms how
the "thickly-laid" green forests of the South yielded grudgingly to
open parklands of "thin black paint applied with niggardly strokes of
[a] brush" (205). And, on one occasion, he even goes so far as to
suggest that the green landscape is absurd: "this wide expanse of grasscovered landscape with its plains and valleys and hills dotted around
with small picture-book trees of every imaginable tree-shape and every
shade of green . . . was taking on the colors and contours of a picnic"
(206). The landscape at this point of his journey contains many picturesque
qualities, and having this type of scenery interrupt our protagonist's
ride to freedom into the brown land of his ancestors is rather disorientating.
On the one hand, if Chris pictures his escape/pilgrimage as a picnic,
his death in the middle of nowhere is intended to be absurd, and his

traveling companion's hearing his dying words as "the last grin" is

cryptically apt. But, on the other hand, if Chris' last utterance is meant
to echo Kurtz's "The horror!" in Heart of Darkness (Conrad 1963:
71 ), then we may infer that, like Kurtz, he has truly begun to understand

Language and Landscape 171

the devastation wrought by colonialism on leaving the alienating forests.

He realizes only too late that the differences between the South and
the North constitute the story of two countries. It is significant that,
shortly before his death, he remembers that it was the British who had
marked the provincial boundaries of Nigeria, dividing the land by
stressing its discrepancies in order to facilitate their rule. The choice
of Bassa as a capital city was also made by the British; that it was
situated in a less arid area served to demarcate the western/modern

lifestyle from that lived by the traditional African people.

Beatrice interprets Chris' dying remark as "the last green" - an
unfinished sentence referring to the "green bottles" in the nursery
rhyme sung by children learning to count ("One green bottle hanging
on the wall. /And if one green bottle should accidentally fall / There'll
be no green bottles hanging on the wall"). However, it is not clear
whether he was pointing to the inevitable tragedy of green bottles
falling off the wall or hinting at government as child's play. Nor is it
certain whether the bottles are "green" for the rhyme or for any other
reason. While Chris regarded himself, Ikem, and Sam as the hypogram,
he also believed that they were the tripod supporting the Nigerian
government. Beatrice explains that:
Chris was only just beginning to understand the lesson of that

bitter joke. The bottles are up there on the wall hanging by a

hair's breadth, yet looking down so pompously on the world.
Chris was sending us a message to beware. This world belongs
to the people of the world not to any little caucus, no matter how
talented. (232)

She indicates that Chris had wanted to tell his people that they can,
will, and should rule themselves. Any ruler, especially if he is pompous,
will only rule precariously. The inevitable fall of the "green bottles"
serves as a warning for those who have never tried to get in touch with

the common people, but instead have looked down pompously upon
them. That Beatrice interprets "the last green" as Chris's epiphany of
tyrannical rule is correct, but the utterance also works as an announcement

that it is the last time that the color green will be allowed to reign over
the African landscape.
The picturesque is by no means the only deterrent that Achebe

faces in his use of English, but it is one of the most important and
insidiously influential aspects of the cultural heritage behind the language.

172 Paoi Hwang

For that matter, it has always played a significant part in colonial

narratives, not because it suited the conditions, but because it was an

English tradition. Anthills of the Savannah is a novel that sets out to

challenge this aspect of the English discourse. It suggests that English
cultural traditions are just as important for our understanding of the
English language as are the efforts to adjust the language to a new
culture for a new purpose. Elewa's uncle embodies this idea in that he
represents the common people and the African heritage that is accepted
and embraced at the end of the novel. He is proud that he has never
entered a white man's house, yet when he visits his niece in one, he
also says that he hopes it will not be his last. This is not to imply that
he enjoys being in a white man's house, but rather that the people who
live in such houses should not reject his kind. This example can be
expanded to mean that the African landscape is sometimes green, but
it is richer because it also turns brown with the seasons. Greenery and
clues to water are not just hidden or buried underneath a brown geological
surface: greenery is temporary and water is not always present to
sustain one way of life. Like in any other place on earth, the seasons
change, the landscapes change, and the African people have always
been sufficiently adaptable to make the best of what is theirs - that is
until the belief that green is better was introduced. Consequently, in
an effort to acquire the constant green outlook that did not come naturally
to Africa, those who could afford it squandered what resources there
v/ere and made life unbearable for the rest of the people. We are the
ones who impose a meaning on the land and use the language that we
choose to describe it, and subsequently we are faced with cultural
conflicts over whose interpretation is the more appropriate or suitable.
Anthills of the Savannah encourages a wider acceptance of difference
and change. The fact that there are different narrators or "witnesses"
suggests that things are to be viewed from different angles, with multiple
perspectives: "It is the same story, the story of Africa in the modern
world and our problem with Europe. . . . Africa is the masquerade and
you don't stand in one place to see it, you move around the arena and
take different perspectives" (Searle 156).
The genuine African landscape can, in fact, be coherently articulated
in English. In a rare example of an "un-westernized" description of
the African landscape given by the village elder of Abazn, we can see
that English translates exceptionally well: "Long before sunrise in the
planting or harvesting season, at that time when sleep binds us with

Language and Landscape 173

a sweetness more than honey itself, the bush-fowl will suddenly startle
the farmer with her scream: o-o-i! o-o-i! o-o-i! in the stillness and

chill of the grassland" (123). The African landscape is not just about
light or colors, it is about sound and sensations as well. To convey the
richness of such a setting involves a careful choosing of words and a
conscious departure from the specifically British imagery and metaphor.
Under such circumstances, the language becomes useful for conveying
the true imagery of African landscapes and, conversely, the imagery
itself rejuvenates the language by opening it to the possibility of new
expressions. In Achebe's view, Africa's oral tradition may offer alternative
aesthetic experiences for the making of a "new" English. It may contain
new methods of perception and presentation that can act as replacements
for the western picturesque. It might also mean the removal of certain
aesthetic associations behind the picturesque, which seem to be a major

cause of alienation for non-native English speakers.5 Or, instead of

associations, on which the picturesque heavily relies and which calls
for a particular cultural background, comparisons can be used to recruit
new elements for consideration. These two dimensions of language
can be used to differentiate between a writer who takes the role of a

possessor seeking to inscribe the land or a translator merely describing

the land. Achebe uses landscapes as a medium to expose and counteract
the picturesque in English, because it is through landscapes that interaction
between colonial and native eyes is veiled or revealed. Ultimately the
image of anthills in the savannah stands as the reconciliation of Achebe's
characters to their lost African heritage, because, despite the constant
reference to green landscapes, a brown one lingers on.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. 1975. Morning Yet on Creation Day. London:

Heinemann.

-----. 1988. Anthills of the Savannah. London: Penguin.

5 In Hopes and Impediments Chinua Achebe writes about an African boy who used
"winter" instead of the word "harmattan" because he was afraid of being called a bushman.
He believes that it is part of his business as writer "to teach that boy there is nothing
disgraceful about the African weather, that the palm tree is a fit subject for poetry"
(1990: 44). Clearly, the psychological associations of a word not only prove that purist
English seeks to possess but also that it seeks to eradicate what it cannot possess.

174 Paoi Hwang

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