African Storytellers, By Chinua Achebe s Things Fall...

African storytellers utilize a variety of techniques as a way to convey a message to the intended audience. Illustrating the specific gender roles dictated by African society while explaining why they must be broken is a technique used to validate the importance of women in society. While most African societies are male led or dominated, storytellers craft social commentary to establish the relevance of feminine influence on the success of these societies. Both Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart and Sembene Ousmane in God’s Bits of Wood employ the technique of exploring the defined gender roles while pushing their limits to achieve success as a society. While Achebe focuses on a male character, Okonkwo, and Ousmane focuses of a group of female characters, both storytellers are using the technique to reveal the same message; the importance of femininity in African society. The technique employed by both storyteller’s is essentially the same, despite the fact that it is being applied to characters of opposite genders. The storyteller examines the gender roles set forth by African societies while making arguments for why these roles must be challenged. In the case of examining a male character in Things Fall Apart, Achebe portrays what occurs if these gender roles are kept as society dictates. In contrast, in God’s Bits of Wood, Ousmane depicts a potential outcome if women challenge their gender roles. While these situations are very different, both storytellers reveal