Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Achebe, Chinua (Vol. 26) - G. D. Killam

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page
4. Tweet This

G. D. KILLAM

[Achebe's short stories in Girls At War] reveal the same interests as the longer fiction….

[The stories] fall into two classes: those which show an aspect of the conflict between traditional and modern values—for example, 'The Sacrificial Egg', 'Dead Man's Path', and 'Marriage is a Private Affair' (originally called 'The Beginning of the End')—and those which display the nature of custom or religious belief without attempting to probe or explain their meanings. In fact such a separation is arbitrary; in the best stories the conflict between the traditional and the modern has its base in the general beliefs which underlie the former.

To these may be added a third classification—stories which deal with aspects of the Nigeria-Biafra war, one of which stories gives the volume its title, Girls At War. (p. 99)

['The Madman'] is about village life, presumably modern village life. But that is no matter. It is a village...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. The Times Literary Supplement
3. Phoebe-Lou Adams
4. John Coleman
5. Robert C. Healey
6. Time
7. Phoebe-Lou Adams
8. Ronald Christ
9. Charles Miller
10. ROBERT McDOWELL
11. Kate Turkington
12. Adrian A. Roscoe
13. Bruce King
14. John Povey
15. The New Yorker
16. Ifeanyi A. Menkiti
17. The New York Times Book Review
18. Joseph Bruchac
19. Francis M. Sibley
20. G. D. Killam
21. Jonathan Peters
22. Bruce King
23. Copyright

1. Chinua Achebe