Culture and time: ecocultural perspectives in Achebe’s <i>Arrow of God</i>

The African construction of time is enshrined in the discourse of signifier and signified. This means that time as a concept in the African milieu is founded on phenomenological interpretation; even chronological time derives its relevance in phenomenological discernment. Mbiti postulates that time in Africa is connected to the beliefs, attitudes, practices, and culture of the people. Achebe extends this objectification of time in his presentation of nature/ecosystem in his novels as constructs and reflections of the Nigerian people’s culture. In Arrow of God, the ecosystem, structured within time, is epitomized as a product/object of the cultural system; the presence of ecological time is enshrined or given meaning through cultural and religious inferences. The natural circle of the ecosystem is reflected as a signifier or symbol in the people’s cultural view. This study adopts an ecocultural reading of Arrow of God to interpret the interrelationship between a cultural group and the environment, and how the subjugation of the ecosystem to a phenomenological pictogram leads to the death and birth of a culture.