through Sam’s derisive and indulgent quip, “Afri-
can Chiefs are always polygamists.... Polygamy
is for Africa what monotony is for Europe.” Sam’s
remark reflects a complacent chauvinism. Other
male figures besides the politically and morally cor-
rupt character of Sam make equally patronizing and
sexist remarks, and these are intensified by the more
vicious physical violence toward women encoun-
tered with the attempted rape of a young woman
by a police sergeant near the end of the novel and
Beatrice’s remembering that when she was growing
up, her mother was very often beaten by her father.
Even the worldly Ikem is associated with vari-
ous forms of female abuse, until he gradually gains
insight into his biased assumptions. His detached
interest in the violent beatings of a wife in a neigh-
boring flat, or his own devaluation of women as
only being useful as, in Beatrice’s words, “comfort-
ers,” mark Ikem as a product of a deeply embedded
masculinist world view. With Beatrice’s guidance,
however, he slowly comes to apprehend that women
are “the biggest single group of oppressed people in
the world... and the oldest,” who also have a poten-
tially pivotal role to play in society.
While Ikem’s girlfriend, Elewa, plays an impor-
tant role in changing his attitude toward women,
Beatrice acts as the catalyst for his dawning aware-
ness. The tenuous status of females in this society is
emphasized by one of the birth names she is given:
Nwanyibuife, or, “A female is also something.”
Despite growing up in a rigid patriarchal household
where females were considered secondary (as her
other name suggests), Beatrice manages to obtain a
university education and fairly prominent social sta-
tus with a mid-level government job, and through-
out the novel her voice insists on the recognition of
women as being equal to men.
Through Beatrice, Achebe also draws a link
between the traditional and the modern in order
to suggest that the high esteem with which some
females were held in the past has largely been for-
gotten in the present because of a male desire for
power. Beatrice is repeatedly referred to as a proph-
etess and associated with Idemili, a powerful female
goddess—if not displacing, then certainly disrupting
the primacy of the male characters.
Beatrice’s ceremonial role carries into the pres-
ent in the novel’s final chapter as she presides over
the naming of Elewa’s new baby girl. In the absence
of a male figure to conduct the ceremony, Beatrice
improvises and leads a new ritual, and the female
infant is given the name Amaechina, conventionally
a boy’s name meaning “May-the-path-never-close,”
and in direct contrast to the demeaning Nwanyibuife
(“A female is also something”). This disregard for
gender-specific names and for the customary forms
of the ritual during the novel’s closing moments
signals the possibility for a reshaping of traditional
perceptions of gender roles that have ossified and
been carried forward into the modern world.
While it might be argued that Achebe idealizes
the character of Beatrice, he does manage, nonethe-
less, to depict a female character who demands to be
heard. As a result, the novel goes further than simply
depicting gender conflict; it also attempts to offer a
tentative alternative vision of a more equal society.
Kerry VincentOppressiOn in Anthills of the Savannah
Almost midway through Anthills of the Savannah,
Ikem Osiri exclaims that his friend Beatrice has
forced him to think about “the nature of oppres-
sion—how flexible it must learn to be, how many
faces it must learn to wear if it is to succeed again
and again.” The many faces of oppression is a key
theme in Achebe’s novel, which follows the rise and
fall of a dictator in the fictional African country of
Kangan, and references to separate coups (short for
coup d’état, meaning the often violent overthrow of
a government) near the novel’s opening and conclu-
sion warn of its potential to resurface. Whereas the
first coup brings His Excellency, Sam, to power,
the second one brings about his death. In between,
Sam’s two old friends, Ikem Osiri and Christopher
Oriko, witness and become victims of Sam’s degen-
eration from a relatively well-meaning military offi-
cer to a dictator who will go to any lengths to realize
his obsession with becoming president for life.
Sam’s rebuke to Chris at the opening of the
novel—“But me no buts, Mr Oriko!”—immedi-
ately reveals much about his character. While its
unintentionally humorous clumsiness reflects some-
thing of Sam’s endearing lack of sophistication, its124 Achebe, Chinua