Assignment: New Literature

 

Paper No. - 13

New Literature

• Name :- Dharti makwana 

• Batch :- 2019-2021

• Semester :- M.A. Sem-4

• Roll No. :- 5

• Enrollment No. :- 2069108420200024 

• Submitted  :- Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English, MKBU.

• Email :-  dharteemakwana789@gmail.com 

• Paper :- New Literature 

• Topic :- Neoliberalism in the White Tiger 

Neoliberalism in The White Tiger 

INTRODUCTION 

The White Tiger is a novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga. It was published in 2008 and won the 40th Man Booker Prize the same year. The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India's class struggle in a globalized world as told through a retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, a village boy.

“Politics in our novels therefore is, according to Stendhal’s canonical formulation, a ‘pistol shot in the middle of a concert.’” 

–Fredric Jameson, “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism”

Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger in the light of some insights about neoliberalism as discussed by Franco Berardi. In his celebrated book, The Soul at Work, Franco Berardi offers a sustained explanation of workerist Marxism as well as the nature of digital capital and its ‘appropriation’ of the human souls in the processes of production. He, however, is precise in using the term soul. Berardi asserts: The soul I intend to discuss does not have much to do with the spirit. It is rather the vital breath that converts biological matter into an animated body. I want to discuss the soul in a materialistic way. What the body can do, that is its soul, as Spinoza said. (21).

Neoliberalism is not just a set of economic policies; it is an all-encompassing ideology  that continuously reshapes both global conditions and individual configurations. It requires a  fundamental formation of individuals to perpetuate its continued success, which it has achieved  to an excessive degree. Literature is beginning to respond to these new existential conditions  with novel that trace the development of neoliberal subjects. Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) are two  contemporary novels that center on characters who come-of-age in our current context of global  capitalism.

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ASSESSMENT 

1. To Analyse the What are the impacts of neoliberalism in The white Tiger?

2. How does neoliberalism affect the dynamics of society and culture of India? 

3. Can entrepreneurs coincide with the neoliberal India? 

4. To construct the manifestations of idealized  masculinities of neoliberal India in The white Tiger?

WHAT IS NEOLIBERALISM? 

A widely quoted example of those 'usual definitions' is What is "NeoLiberalism"? by Elizabeth Martinez and Arnoldo García: 

Neo-liberalism is a set of economic policies that have become widespread during the last 25 years or so. Although the word is rarely heard in the United States, you can clearly see the effects of neoliberalism here as the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer....Around the world, neo-liberalism has been imposed by powerful financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter- American Development Bank....the capitalist crisis over the last 25 years, with its shrinking profit rates, inspired the corporate elite to revive economic liberalism. That's what makes it 'neo' or new.

This sense of the word 'neoliberalism' is widely used in Latin America. However, neoliberalism is more a phenomenon of the rich western market democracies, than of poor regions. That is why I emphasise the historical development of liberalism, in those western market democracies.

Neoliberalism is an economic philosophy that conceptually describes a move towards free markets, capitalism, and a diversion from government ownership. The typical policies associated with neoliberalism include free trade, globalization, privatization, and changes in government spending to stimulate the private sector.

ORIGINS OF NEOLIBERALISM 

The term neoliberalism was first coined in 1938 at a conference of noted economists in Paris. The group, which included Walter Lippmann, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises, defined neoliberalism as an emphasis on “the priority of the price mechanism, free enterprise, the system of competition, and a strong and impartial state.”

EFFECTS OF NEOLIBERALISM: LIGHT AND DARKNESS 

Aravind Adiga presents a compelling critique of 

postcolonial, neoliberal India that is ensnared with-in this binary abstraction of 'darkness' and 'light' in his debut novel, The White Tiger (Adiga, 2008). Adiga is engaging with multiple vectors in this text such as the politics of class and caste identity at the local level and the effects of neoliberalism at the glob-al level. Byfore grounding his protagonist, Balram’s narrative, Adiga consistently engages with the fundamental power dynamics of the murky society that he inhabits, to present a critique of neoliberal India. This is a “new India”, caught between the shiny, glit-tery, artifice of its chain supermarkets and high end malls and a dark, fecund India, infested with name-less, voiceless creatures who live and die like field rats, in a world too limited to celebrate their humanity. 

Balram’s story is however presented in a complex man-ner. According to Shetty et al, it is not necessarily a revolt of the oppressed based on consciousness of class antag-onism but rather one which uses it for the sake of in-dividual profit. Balram is the “white tiger” , the careful interlocutor who brings the worlds of ‘darkness’ and ‘light’ in conversation with each other. He believes in social mobility and actively resists the identity that he is born with. However, his social mobility comes at the cost of him turning increasingly corrupt in a world, where it is impossible to retain his sense of ethical morality. There is no scope for absolute heroism in this world. At best, he can inhabit a liminal space with his con-flicted morality, in the form of an apparent celebration of the coming together of the periphery with the centres. Balram constructs an independent identity for himself, which is aligned with his movement from ‘the dark-ness’ to ‘the light’. 

This self-fashioning however comes at a heavy price where he must compromise on some of the core values and ideals that define him. Balram sees identity as fluid and malleable, which is stressed by the frequent name changes that he goes through. Ironically, the fact that he does not have any institutional presence arguably places him in a position to take on different public identities that have more leverage in this kind of society.

INDIAN ENTREPRENEUR AND NEOLIBERAL INDIA 

In the book, Balram says, “My coun-try is the kind where it pays to play it both ways: the Indian entrepreneur has to be straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere at the same time"(Adiga, 6). Balram is laying the grounds for his self-fashioning as a ‘successful entrepreneur’ at the very beginning, inviting his readers to critique the new, ‘shining’ neoliberal India. By doing so, he com-plicates the Times of India advertisement where one India is ‘poised’ to fly while the other India is look-ing down from the edge of the precipice. He positions himself as someone who straddles both these worlds, which are not in dialectical opposition to one another but rather exist as an extension of one another. His consistent emphasis on the fact that entrepreneurs are formed from ‘half-baked clay’ further elucidates this point. He is a half-life caught between both these worlds, not fully belonging to either. He embodies a specific form of entrepreneurial masculineb subjectivity that is produced within this neoliberal discourse.

MASCULINITIES IN NEOLIBERAL INDIA

In this assignment foregrounds a close textual reading of Balram and Ashok in the novel. I intend to explore the construction of new masculine subjectivities that are produced within a neoliberal framework. The inherent master-servant relationship between Ashok and Balram places them in homosocial spaces where we see manifestations of different forms of toxic masculine subjectivities. The reader is quick to interpret this space as essentially coded within a stratified class structure, where servants like Balram are relegated to the inferior position of washing the master’s feet. A passage in the novel reads, “I had to heat water on the stove, carry it into the court-yard, and then lift the old man’s (Stork) feet up one after the other and immerse them in the hot water and then massage them both gently…”(Adiga, 60)

In the village of Laxmangarh, the ultimate power resides with the politicians, the ones who mobilize public opinion by promising certain freedoms and opportunities that are never implemented after the elections. If someone like the upper class, higher caste Stork does not submit to his power the politician has the power to destabilize his entire empire and livelihood. where Balram is shown washing the feet of the Stork, Ashok protests against the treatment meted out to him by his father, when the Stork hits Balram after the water had gone cold:

“Do you have to hit the servants, Father?”

“This is not America, son. Don’t ask questions like that.”

“Why can’t I ask questions?”

“They expect it from us, Ashok. Remember that they respect us for it.””- comes the warning admonition from his father. (Adiga, 43)

This is a very telling scene, where we see Ashok embodying a subjectivity that is relationally positioned in opposition to that of the one embodied by his father. He is shown to be more outwardly progressive about his beliefs than his father, who clearly performs the traditional role of toxic masculinity, which is aimed more at producing fear than commanding respect.

There is also the suggestion that naturalized power dynamics within the society need to be sustained, for its smooth functioning. People like Ashok who dare to reason are presented as an anomaly here, at the risk of being feminised/being considered weak, which is traditionally considered to be the worst af- front to one’s masculinity in a heteronormative setting. A little later in the novel Balram writes, "I realized that this tall, broad-shouldered, handsome, foreignbeducated man, who would be my only master in a few minutes, when the long whistle blew and this train headed off toward Dhanbad, was weak, helpless, absent-minded, and completely unprotected by the usual instincts that run in the blood of a Landlord. If you were back in Lax- mangarh, we would have called you the lamb.” (Adiga, 120)

CONCLUSION 

In short, One of the only survivors of his extended family after the reprisals unleashed by his own act at wrestling his own agency and starting his own “free” enterprise in the neoliberal capital. Thus, besides many things, the novel clearly teaches us that not many workers have the option of striking on their own in the current regime of capital and that those who do break the bondage are as rare as White Tigers! Entrepreneurial masculinity, as embodied by Balram, in a neoliberal framework is primarily undergirded by his natural instinct to survive and succeed. His masculine subjectivity is almost radically rooted in the present: in tandem with his zeal to survive in his im-mediate circumstance. Balram’s uncertainty regarding his future existence and the precarity of his circum-stances are encapsulated in the neoliberal moment. As part of this complex constellation of different kinds of masculine subjectivities, we see a rewriting of tradi-tional ideas of hegemonic masculinities in an India that is ‘poised to fly’. There are moments when you see Balram, looking down from the ‘edge of a precipice’, or ‘the black fort’ in his case and at other times, he is preparing himself for flight. Balram’s story can be read as both the promise and plague of neoliberalism. 

REFERENCES 

Alonso-Breto, Isabel. (2015). Water, White Tigers and Corrupt Neoliberalism: Controversial Entrepreneurs in Recent Fiction from the Subcontinent. Indialogs. 2, 5, 2015.

De, Amrita. Of neoliberalism and its masculine interlocutors: The case of Balram Halwai in Aravind Adiga's, The White Tiger. Postcolonial Interventions: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Postcolonial Studies (ISSN 2455 6564), Vol. III, Issue 1, 2018, pp. 70–97.

Kilian Joseph. The Neoliberal Bildungsroman: Individual and National  “Development” in Peter Mountford’s A Young Man’s Guide to Late  Capitalism and Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger. The University of North Carolina  at Asheville’s NC DOCKS Institutional Repository, 2AD.

Liani Lochner (2014) The Politics of Precarity: Contesting Neoliberalism's Subjects in Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, English Academy Review, 31:2, 2014, pp. 35-48.

Nandi, Swaralipi. "Narrative Ambiguity and the Neoliberal Bildungsroman in Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger." Journal of Narrative Theory, vol. 47 no. 2, 2017, p. 276-301. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/jnt.2017.0011.

Assignment: African Literature

 

Paper No. - 14

African Literature

• Name :- Dharti makwana 

• Batch :- 2019-2021

• Semester :- M.A. Sem-4

• Roll No. :- 5

• Enrollment No. :- 2069108420200024 

• Submitted  :- Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English, MKBU.

• Email :-  dharteemakwana789@gmail.com 

• Paper :- African Literature 

• Topic :- Decolonization in the grain of wheat 

Decolonization in the Grain of wheat 

INTRODUCTION 

Most of the African elites believe that Western Colonization was built on the assumptions of the West that it represents the core center of progress especially in Africa. Colonizers saw the colonized as mere “binary opposites” as referred to by Franz Fanon. The colonists, who were perceived to be white, beautiful, educated, civilized Christians, were opposed to the native colonized labeled as black, ugly, uneducated, savages and pagans. For those colonizers, the only way of progress was European civilization and Christian religion, the notions which the colonized considered otherwise especially in the wake of liberation and decolonization movements which were led by the native elites during the 60s and the 70s. In the case of Kenya, Poppy Cullen (2017, p. 5) claims that: “Kenya, particularly because of Mau Mau, has featured prominently as ‘one of the classic cases’ in histories of British   decolonization”. 

It is believed that the power of literature to liberate minds, and to break the shackles of others’ preconceptions, has driven the rise of Africans telling their own stories and representing their own  “Self”. Ngugi wa Thiong’o in his Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature has openly stressed the urgency of liberating and decolonizing African cultures and  languages. Talking about Africa, he is conscious of “the great struggle between the two mutually  opposed forces in Africa today: an imperialist tradition on one hand and a resistance tradition on the other”.

WHAT IS DECOLONIZATION? 

The word “decolonisation” was first coined by the German economist Moritz Julius Bonn in the 1930s to describe former colonies that achieved self-governance. “DECOLONIZATION” is a technical and rather undramatic term  for one of the most dramatic processes in modern history: the disappearance of empire as a political form, and the end  of racial hierarchy as a widely accepted political ideology and  structuring principle of world order. One can pin down this  historical process by using a dual definition that, instead of  keeping the process chronologically vague, anchors it unequivocally in the history of the twentieth century. Accordingly,  decolonization is

• the simultaneous dissolution of several intercontinental  empires and the creation of nation-states throughout the global  South within a short time span of roughly three postwar de- cades (1945–75), linked with 

• the historically unique and, in all likelihood, irreversible delegitimization of any kind of political rule that is experienced as a relationship of subjugation to a power elite considered by a broad majority of the population as alien occupant.

Decolonization designates a specific world-historical moment, yet it also stands for a many-faceted process that played out in each region and country shaking off colonial rule. This includes dismantling the hidden aspects of those institutional and cultural forces that had maintained the colonialist power and that remain even after political independence is achieved. Initially, in many places in the colonized world, the process of resistance was conducted in terms or institutions appropriated from the colonizing culture itself.

DECOLONIZATION IN THE GRAIN OF WHEAT 

Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s novel A Grain of Wheat, published in 1967, exposes the ways in which British institutions and practices continue to plague post-colonial Kenya. This novel addresses the condition of post-colonial Kenya as native Kenyans struggle to form a new national identity and government. This novel exposes the corruption of the Christian Church and the cultural imperialism perpetuated by missionaries as they impose European practices and abolish Kenyan cultural values. Ngugi’s work reflects the influence of Marxist thought and the impact of writers such as Frantz Fanon whose neo-colonialist theory explains many of the phenomena present in post-colonial Kenya. In particular, Fanon notes that post-colonial nations retain the institutions of the former colonizing nation and therefore are still subject to colonial structures even after gaining independence. 

The result is that classism endures and the separation between the bourgeoisie and the lower classes continues. While Ngugi presents a critique of Christianity in this text, he does so through the character of Kihika, a man who kills missionaries he considers oppressors yet who considers himself to be a Christian. Kihika uses biblical stories and rhetoric to encourage people to rebel and resist imperialism. In this way, Ngugi explores the use of Christian rhetoric and principles by missionaries to further cultural imperialism and the co-opting of that same rhetoric by Mau Mau rebels to motivate resistance to British colonial power. In light of Fanon’s observations about enduring colonial institutions, one could interpret the Christian religion as a remnant of British colonial power which continues to control and oppress the Kenyan people after decolonization. However, by emphasizing Kihika’s religious background and use of scripture to justify the Mau Mau rebellion, Ngugi maintains a distinction between colonial, capitalistic Christianity and Kihika’s communal, compassionate Christianity.

The worst and inglorious aspect of this was that these very leaders spread false stories about the Mau Mau and slighted their valorous part in the struggle. Ngugi’s quarrel is not only with the British writers and historians but also with those Kenyans who, because of their ‘mental colonization precipitated by both colonial and neocolonial education’ (Mazrui and Mphande 165), wrote highly unreliable accounts of the Mau Mau and their contribution. So the novel looks at the struggle for independence with peasants as active participants, along with the Mau Mau, who were from among their ranks. One has also to bear in mind that for Ngugi the true process of history  at that time was not merely to fight the colonial masters but also to set into motion the processes of decolonisation, which was much more than wrestling political control, and which the so-called leaders had neglected.

In the march of events in the village, Ngugi portrays a set of individuals who represent different ideas and dispositions to clarify how their participation in the anti-colonial struggle acquires a meaningful purpose, but some, like Mugo, provide an insight through their own contrasting positions If the Mau Mau exemplify Ngugi’s confirmed belief in what Fanon calls ‘absolute violence’ as the one and only method for getting liberation, then it also follows that colonial subjects should be willing to cast themselves into a new mould in order to be the torch bearers of the process of decolonisation, which Fanon calls ‘replacing of a certain “species” of men by another “species” of men’ (27). 

Elaborating on this, Fanon states that ‘it influences individuals and modifies them fundamentally. It transforms spectators crushed with their inessentiality into privileged actors, with the grandiose glare of history’s floodlights upon them’ (28). In fact, this is the only way in which they are transformed from ‘things’ into men and women. The  overall frame of the novel testifies that Ngugi sees the struggle for liberation  in the wider context of people’s struggle to become worthy of being called a  liberated people.

In A Grain of Wheat, Ngugi interacts with Fanon’s theory about the struggles of  decolonization, including the educated elite’s mimicry of the former colonial power and the continued oppression of the lower classes in an independent nation. Ngugi exposes the condition of the peasant who experiences oppression at the hands of Christian Church and missionary endeavors as well as at the hand of the newly elected government officials. Through the contrast between various characters, Ngugi addresses the issues of collaboration and the allure of colonial power. Amidst this criticism of Christianity and colonialism, Ngugi offers hope for redemption through the figure of Kihika who separates Christian principles from their incongruous connection to colonialism. Kihika’s synthesis of Christian teaching with traditional customs and his support for the existence of communal land allows him to navigate the boundaries between these two worldviews and support the fight against colonial Britain. 

While Kihika’s work is short-lived and he dies a martyr before the success of independence his legacy lives on and endures. Unlike Fanon, who fully rejects the cultural practices imposed by colonial governments, Ngugi recognizes the value of Christian teaching and uses Kihika to represent the appropriate role of Christianity as an agent of social justice and resistance in oppressive systems.

CONCLUSION 

An African decolonization was accompanied by unreasonable euphoria and idealistic triumphalism, since people, then, were aspirant for a rapid improvement in their life.The unfolding of events had, nonetheless, contradicted the hopes of the people. The African rulers who were installed in power at the departure of colonial ruler not only perpetuated people suffering under colonization, but also aggravated it. Africanwriters, who though shared the happiness of the people, had their misgivings on the future of the local rule. One of such writers was the Kenyan ,Ngugi wa Thiong'o Whose novel A Grain of Wheat testifies to such prescience. Though celebratory mood, the novel contains enough details that would undermine that avowed celebration. Concentrating on this novel the present paper aspires to zoom in the author's apprehensions about the prospective economic and social change at the very Day of Independence.

The multiplied hatred towards the whites was mainly because they considered the blacks as sub-humans or animals, always behaving wildly and never succumbing to the whites’ civilized dictums.Moreover, they also had the realization that whites’ usurpation of their material resources is wholly unjustified. In fact Ngugi believed that if colonialism involves colonizing the mind, then resistance to it requires decolonization of the mind, and therefore, in this process of decolonization the iconoclastic images of the whites were to be removed, broken and made to crumble down from the minds of the colonized. Thus, he like Achebe endeavors to establish the identity of the colonized and label the whites with all the stereotypes that they would profusely use for the natives.

REFERENCES 

Dhar, Tej N., Ngugi’s retrospective gaze: The shape of history in" A grain of wheat", Kunapipi, 29(1), 2007.

Gikandi, Simon. "Representing Decolonization: A Grain of Wheat." Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. 98-127. Print. Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature.

Ismail, Khaleel & Mahfouz, Yasir.  A Tussle for Decolonization of the Mind: Representation of the Whiteman in “A Grain of Wheat”. Journal of Education and Culture Studies. 2, 2018, pp. 105-116.

Miller, Rebecca, "Capitalistic Christians and Educated Elites: Fanonian Theory and Neo-Colonialism in Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s A Grain

of Wheat" (2014).

Rajbhandari, Kritish. “Beyond the Ethics of Nationalism and Betrayal: Silence, Secrecy, and the Subaltern in Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 50, no. 2, 2019, pp. 158–176. 

English Language Teaching - 2

            Paper No. - 16

English Language Teaching -2

• Name :- Dharti makwana 

• Batch :- 2019-2021

• Semester :- M.A. Sem-4

• Roll No. :- 5

• Enrollment No. :- 2069108420200024 

• Submitted  :- Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English, MKBU.

• Email :-  dharteemakwana789@gmail.com 

• Paper :- English Language teaching -2

• Topic :- Digital Portfolio

Dharti's Digital Portfolio 

Click on the below given image to reach my Portfolio 👇

We know all students have individual strengths and weaknesses but in a system often driven by pre-set curriculum and assessments, it can be difficult to cater to each student and celebrate their uniqueness. For students, digital portfolios foster independence while fueling reflection, creativity, and authentic lifelong learning. The showcase portfolio is often used to share a student’s best achievements or evidence of learning. Students are generally given the choice to decide what is published.

An ePortfolio can be used to capture each student in a way that some students may have difficulties showing their true strengths in traditional assessments but may be marvelous at expressing themselves through video, music, art, spoken word, design, coding, or creative writing mediums that are easy to embed into a digital portfolio. You might also find that some students who are more reluctant to speak up in a busy classroom really find their voice and shine in a digital space.

Digital portfolios help to shape students’ digital footprints. Students who use a digital portfolio may be at an advantage as they embark on life outside of school or university. Maintaining a polished record of their work can help students accomplish a variety of goals as they near the completion of their studies such as scholarships, internships, or even jobs.

In short, I would like to say that an ePortfolio can put options and opportunities into the hands of each student. As the sentence asserted Will Richardson..

“How can you make sure that every student who walks on graduation day is WELL GOOGLED by his or her full name?”

- Will Richardson 

Thank you……😊

Fatherland and Motherland: Things Fall Apart

 

How is the difference between the father land and the mother land described in Things Fall Apart?

Why is it that one of the commonest names we give our children is Nneka, or “Mother is Supreme?” We all know that a man is the head of the family and his wives do his bidding. A child belongs to its father and his family and not to its mother and her family. A man belongs to his fatherland and not to his motherland. And yet we say Nneka—‘Mother is Supreme.’ Why is that?” Because Okonkwo had received nothing from his father,

As mentioned in the novel 

"Then listen to me,” he said and cleared his throat. “It’s true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme. Is it right that you, Okonkwo, should bring to your mother a heavy face and refuse to be comforted? Be careful or you may displease the dead. Your duty is to comfort your wives and children and take them back to your fatherland after seven years. But if you allow sorrow to weigh you down and kill you, they will all die in exile.” He paused for a long while. ‘These are now your kinsmen.” He waved at his sons and daughters."

Igbo: The World of Spirits

 

 Write a brief note on Ibo people's belief in the world of spirits.

The Igbo people have a religious conception of the universe. They see their world as made up to two planes: the physical and the spiritual. Igbo worldview, however, abhors the tendency to a digital categorization of things. In this way, the understanding among the Igbo is that spiritual beings and cosmic forces are highly intermingled. The activities of spiritual beings and forces often directly impinge on the affairs of humans in the human world. The diagrammatic representation of Igbo Cosmology shown in Figure 1 adapted from Animalu (1990) would explain the Igbo outlook in a more detailed form.

In Igbo religious worldview, the human world is three dimensional – the sky; the earth, intricately woven with water; and the spirit/ancestral world. Each of the three dimensions operates as a viable reality or a place of habitation; with all three interconnected or contiguous and continuous in a non-hierarchical manner. This means that in such a worldview, although the Supreme Being is believed to live in the sky and major divinities such as Lightning, Thunder, Sun, and Moon are near Him, there is nothing to suggest that the ancestors who live in the ancestral world are inferior (Kalu and Kalu 1993). 

There is the sky above, Igwe, then, the earth, Ala, and finally, we have the under-world, Ime-Ala. Each of these layers is thought to be densely inhabited”. Perceiving the world in this way, Igbo cosmology understands the sky as the Supreme Being‟s (Chukwu‟s) palace. He is believed to dwell there with a host of powerful divinities and primordial beings like Anyanwu(the Sun god), Amadioha (the god of thunder), Igwe, (the sky god). In the same way, some local major divinities are equally believed to live in the sky as well. The earth-surface is seen as the abode of human beings, the earth Nwoye 307deity, minor divinities and personified nature forces. Finally ancestral spirits, myriads of disembodied spirits and other personified forces. One important characteristic of this spatial ordering of reality in Igbo worldview is the due recognition extended to the exalted position and power of the preternatural order and supersensible beings over humans and the material order. Yet, humans and their world are located at the center of the traditional Igbo cosmic structure. This is because human life, for the Igbo, although received from God, is the greatest good to be fostered. In this way, Igbo traditional world-view is seen as heavily anthropocentric. In it, the activities of the various categories of spirits as well as the happenings in the other realms of the universe are seen as meaningful insofar as they relate to human life and the general welfare of humans in the environment. Furthermore, in Igbo worldview, the human world is perceived as a mirror of the spirit world. In this way, the 

traditional Igbo cosmology inspires and sustains a religion that is this-worldly affirming (Nwoye, 2005). Seen in this way, and knowing that human life and the general welfare of the human world are the central focus of attention, the primary thrust of most religious activities among the Igbo, is geared towards the enhancement of human life and the promotion of human being‟s total well being. Thus influenced by such anthropocentric cosmology, slaves used to be buried alive with their masters so as to continue serving them in the spirit world. In such a cosmology the human world itself is seen as an alive or dynamic universe that humans share with a host of malevolent human spirits (such as witches and sorcerers); guardian spirits of various professions such as hunting, fishing, farming, and so on; animal spirits; evil spirits; and the Earth Goddess (Achebe, 1975; Ejizu, 1987; Kalu, 1992). In this perspective, a filial relationship is believed to exist between the Earth Goddess and the water spirits, called Mami Water. Such Igbo worldview further reflects the fact that Igbo deities are arranged spatially in four levels as follows:

(i) Sky – male

(ii) Earth – female

(iii) Water – female

(iv) Ancestral – male

The structure shows that in Igbo religious worldview, male deities predominate in the first and fourth levels while female deities dominate in the second and third levels as seen earlier. The deities in the sky, such as lightning, thunder, and sun, who live near the Supreme Being, are males while the earth and water under the purview of the Earth Goddess and Queen of the Coast are females. In addition, female ancestral rituals exist, but most rituals are male, as if the females lose their identity at death.In Igbo worldview, human existence is perceived as precarious in the effort to tap the resources of good spirits to ward off the machinations of evil spirits. In this way, the socio-political and economic aspects of life of 

the Igbo are predominated by a highly spiritualized and religious world. In it, relations to kin, neighbours, and spirits are seen as at once a source of security and often that of affliction and distress.