Achebe's Audience

In class we discussed Achebe’s intended audience considering that his novel is written in English. I would argue that his intended purpose in English writing is because a treatise on the evils of colonialism versus the relative evils of Igbo culture would most likely be aimed at English speakers. Snehal mentioned in class that Achebe was trying to prove that English colonialism, and by extension all colonialism in Africa, is wrong despite all the shortfalls of Igbo society personified by Okonkwo. If this novel was written in Igbo, or in some other African language, then the message of these evils would have only reached an indigenous population that had firsthand experience with the atrocities brought by European expansionists, and a complete understanding of its own cultural norms. On the other hand, the English-speaking audience can be expected, like most of us were, to be ignorant of both the social problems of African culture as well as the problems associated colonialism.