Click HERE To Read Part 1
By Dan Amor
As
we were saying, can a sane person allow himself to be driven by some spurious
emotion to run stark-naked into a crowded market for whatever reason? The moral
implication of the story is obvious. It shows that it is the society that
creates its madmen that also treats its madmen shabbily as though they were not
human beings. If, indeed, we are at first comfortable with the way the first
madman who opens the story is ill-treated, by the time the story closes, and we
are familiar with the fate of Nwibe, we certainly can no longer be complacent
about the treatment of the madman. What is more, we are awed by the realization
that Nwibe’s troubles have only begun by the time the story ends. The alternate
implication is that Nwibe might in the end become truly mad. This situation
certainly urges us to the belief that the madman who opens the story might
have become a madman through an experience similar to that of Nwibe. This is a
devastating indictment of society.
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*Nnamdi Kanu |
This
indictment is addressed not only to the stone-aged society ridden with
superstitions and taboos such as Nwibe’s, but also the modern society because
Nwibe’s village is in the end only a microcosm of the larger human society. The
extreme vulnerability of the individual within the society is the major concern
of Achebe in this epic. Man is revealed to be ultimately alone and alienated in
society which is supposed to exist for his advantage but which ironically
seems to exist to destroy him. Despite the solicitude of relatives, the
existential tragedy of Nwibe is his loneliness in the face of a horrendous
natural calamity.
Consistent
with the system of ironies in this story, water which is a universal symbol of
life becomes the source of human tragedy. It is the local stream which invites
Nwibe to cleanse and purify himself from dirt that has also invited the madman
to quench his thirst and rejuvenate his tired body. Yet these invitations lead
inevitably to a tragic collision. Similarly ironic is the fact that the road,
which is the universal symbol of life and irrepressible human quest for
knowledge, is also that which has tragically crossed the paths of Nwibe and the
madman. The irony further extends to the name of the protagonist himself-
“Nwibe”, which translates from Igbo into “a child of the community”.
Such
a child is supposed to be loved, respected and helped along by all to achieve
his life’s goals. The opposite is ironically the case with the Nwibe of this
story. The community as demonstrated in the upper class of society- the Ozo
title holders and the medicine men- prides itself in its realism, good sense
and wisdom. However, when these claims are put to test, the society is not only
found wanting, but is discovered to be incapable of distinguishing appearance
from reality. Hence, the community rather than becoming the making, is the
ruin of this Nwibe.