Ecofeminist Awareness and Its Relevance to Sustainable Development: A Study of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

Gender imbalance and environment degradation are two major global concerns today which together form a huge barrier to the sustainability of the Earth's environment. This paper originates from the contemplation if literature could help raising or enhancing consciousness to prevent those social and artificial ills spread over the world more or less. It studies the synergy between women and ecology found in the prominent cultural postcolonialist Chinua Achebe's history re-writing novel, Things Fall Apart (1958). It is a widely studied novel focusing mainly on the process and consequence of British colonialism in Nigeria; however, it is indispensable to examine whether its focus on ethnic women and their relation with surrounding ecospheres could provide some in-depth insight into the above mentioned hindrances to sustainable world. Henceforth, the primary objective of this study is to explore how the indigenous beliefs, value system and practices of the Igbo community incorporates ecofeminist awareness, capable of providing some prominent gateways to sustainable development of Nigeria in particular and the world as a whole. The study is entirely qualitative and it employs textual analysis methods to closely examine the narrative and the contexts, i.e., historical, political, and socio-cultural, it is set in. Ecofeminism necessarily provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for the study. However, certain ecowomanist concepts, with particular reference to Alice Walker, are also drawn.