Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
PhD Candidate in English Language and Literature, Department of English Language, Literature, and Linguistics, Faculty of Language and Literature, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Kurdistan, Iran
2
Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature, Department of English Language, Literature, and Linguistics, Faculty of Language and Literature, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran
10.22091/slic.2025.14405.1015
Abstract
Abstract
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart has long been examined as a counter-narrative to colonial discourse, yet the intricate mechanisms through which colonial power reconfigures subjectivity remain unexplored. This study investigates the archaeology and genealogy of colonized subjectivities in Achebe’s novel through Michel Foucault’s theoretical framework, focusing on the interplay of discourse, panopticism, and heterotopia. The research addresses a significant gap in postcolonial literary studies: while previous scholarship has emphasized cultural loss and resistance, few studies have systematically traced the formation of colonized subjectivities as an archeological-genealogical process shaped by discursive, spatial, and institutional transformations. The study applies Foucault’s concepts to key narrative moments, including the construction of the church in the Evil Forest, the functioning of colonial courts and prisons, and the psychological trajectories of characters such as Nwoye and Okonkwo. Findings reveal that colonial power operates not merely through coercion but through subtle mechanisms of surveillance, moral discipline, and spatial reordering, producing subjects who internalize the gaze and moral codes of the colonizer. Moreover, Achebe’s narrative performs a counter-genealogy by reclaiming indigenous epistemologies and resisting totalizing colonial narratives. The study demonstrates that Things Fall Apart is both a literary excavation of historical power relations and a theoretical meditation on the processes by which colonized identities are constructed, contested, and potentially resisted. This research contributes to postcolonial theory and Foucauldian literary analysis by articulating the complex ways discourse, space, and power intersect to shape subjectivity in colonial contexts.
Keywords: Colonial Discourse; Panopticism; Heterotopia; Genealogical Subjectivity; Achebe, Things Fall Apart.
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