Symbolic Violence In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) And Mouloud Mammeri’s La Colline Oubliée (1952)

Résumé: This research paper is a comparative study of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Mouloud Mammeri’s La Colline Oubliée (1952). To carry out this study, we have relied on Pierre Bourdieu’s Symbolic Violence. This theory has helped us to explain the ‘soft’ manner of domination between two social groups as the case of colonial implicit policies in colonization. Symbolic Violence has also explained the arbitrary power between individuals of the same social group such as Masculine Domination. Our focus is on the affinities in the two novels .This dissertation is divided into four major sections: An Introduction, a section of Methods and Materials, and another for Results, Discussion, and a Conclusion. After a thorough analysis of the two works, we have come some conclusions: the first conclusion is that, in their works, both Achebe and Mammeri have depicted, the Symbolic Violence of the dominant colonist. They have both revealed some cultural and political policies imposed on the indigenous people. The second conclusion is that the traditional social norms of the two societies (Umuofia and Tasga) have reflected clearly the Masculine domination. The last conclusion reached in this study is that Achebe and Mammeri have embraced the postcolonial position of fighting Symbolic Violence and have engaged themselves in supporting their nations’ dignity and freedom.

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