PROVERBS, AND NARRATIVE AGENCY: A CHILDCENTRIC READING OF THINGS FALL APART IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Abstract
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: This study examines how proverbs function as sites of making new meanings and how children exercise narrative agency in interpreting them in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, while also considering their transformation and availability to children’s use and interpretations in the digital age.
PROBLEM STATEMENT: Existing scholarship often views proverbs as fixed forms of adult-controlled wisdom, overlooking children’s interpretive agency and the influence of digital culture on proverb reinterpretation. This study therefore proposes a child centric framework that reconceptualizes proverbs as dynamic spaces where children actively reconstruct meaning within both literary and digital contexts.
METHODOLOGY: The study adopts a qualitative, descriptive-analytic approach grounded in a theoretical framework that combines child centric criticism and narratology. It employs close textual analysis of selected proverbs in the novel, alongside a comparative analysis of digital cultural practices such as memes, social media discourse, and digital storytelling.
FINDINGS: Findings reveal that although proverbs in the novel are primarily voiced by adults, their meanings are not fixed but open to reinterpretation. Children, as characters and implied readers, actively engage with and reshape these meanings to negotiate identity and authority. In digital spaces, this interpretive flexibility is amplified as youth remix and circulate proverbs, decentralizing traditional authority.
CONCLUSION: This study concludes that proverbs are dynamic, evolving forms of knowledge shaped through interaction and reinterpretation. It recommends that literary criticism and educational practices adopt child centric approaches that recognize children as active interpreters of culture.
RECOMMENDATION: The study recommends that literary scholarship and educational practice adopt child centric approaches that recognize children and youth as active interpreters of proverbial discourse, particularly in digital spaces where meanings are continually reshaped and renegotiated.
Keywords: Narrative Agency, Proverbs, Childcentric Criticism, Digital Culture, Things Fall Apart
References
Achebe, C. (1958). Things fall apart. Heinemann.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). University of Texas Press.
boyd, d. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. Yale University Press.
Couldry, N. (2012). Media, society, world: Social theory and digital media practice. Polity Press.
Finlay, L., & dela Cruz, G. P. (2023). Qualitative research methods: Collecting evidence, crafting analysis, communicating impact (2nd ed.). Wiley.
Finnegan, R. (2012). Oral literature in Africa. Open Book Publishers.
Fish, S. (1980). Is there a text in this class? The authority of interpretive communities. Harvard University Press.
Herman, D. (2013). Storytelling and the sciences of mind. MIT Press.
Irele, A. (2001). The African imagination: Literature in Africa and the Black diaspora. Oxford University Press.
Iser, W. (1978). The act of reading: A theory of aesthetic response. Johns Hopkins University Press.
James, A., & Prout, A. (1997). Constructing and reconstructing childhood (2nd ed.). Falmer Press.
Killam, G. D. (1969). The writings of Chinua Achebe. Heinemann.
McKibben, W. B., & Breheny, M. (2023). Narrative inquiry and meaning-making in qualitative research. , 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069231154210
Norrick, N. R. (1985). How proverbs mean: Semantic studies in English proverbs. Mouton.
Okpewho, I. (1992). African oral literature: Backgrounds, character, and continuity. Indiana University Press.
Olmos-Vega, F. M., Stalmeijer, R. E., Varpio, L., & Kahlke, R. (2022). A practical guide to reflexivity in qualitative research. Medical Teacher, 45(3), 241–251. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2022.2057287
Ong, W. J. (1982). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. Methuen.
Page, R. (2018). Narratives online: Shared stories in social media. Cambridge University Press.
Shifman, L. (2014). Memes in digital culture. MIT Press.
Smith, J. A., & Luke, N. (2023). Interpretative phenomenological analysis and contemporary qualitative inquiry. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 20(2), 145–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2022.2031097
Spyrou, S. (2018). Disclosing childhoods: Research and knowledge production for a critical childhood studies. Palgrave Macmillan.
Thelwall, M., & Nevill, T. (2021). Could scientists use Altmetric.com scores to predict longer term citation counts? Journal of Informetrics, 15(1), 101140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2020.101140
Watson, N. (2010). Children and young people as researchers: Participation, agency and voice. Routledge.
