Identity crisis in Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God

Identity is a characteristic which specially explain about self consciousness, group, community, and country. In this research identity is comprehended as a construction which is built over the cultural symbol and traditional custom. The object of this research is Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God. The problem that is analyzed in this research concerning identity crisis of Nigeran people in dealing with British colonialism based on the theory of post-colonialism. This research provides the theoretical review. In dealing with the problem in this research, the book of Bill Aschroft; Post colonial Studies Reader is taken as the main reference. In dealing with identity, one of post-colonial work characteristics is the big attention toward place and transmigration, two terms in which the identity crisis happens. The crisis more be caused by the restriction in developing and return the effective identification between self and place. In analyzing the subject of the materials, this research uses structural analysis method. It is a method which focused on the work's structure to be comprehended by concerning its interrelated constructing elements of meaning without involving historical background, author, and the reader. Meanwhile the data of this research is the text and narrations which are identified as the representation of cultural identity including two elements; physical and non-physical elements; the identity formation based on cultural aspects; the identity crisis and its factors. As the result, British colonialism has a big implication toward Nigerian traditional culture practices. The Nigerian views that culture is an ideology and a construction of life in miniature. Nigerian culture itself involves several aspects such as: custom, faith, moral, social, and language. The five aspects become a media of self identification of the Nigerian people to their cultural identity. As the Nigerian cultural identity aspects, the changes in the traditional customs drive the identity into crisis. The crisis itself is caused by the two factors: Internal factor including tribal conflict and economy decline; External factor, the British intervention which control the Nigerian society for further. In turn, British colonialism remain the crisis in many cultural aspects which are represented by Ezeulu is corresponded to non-physical identity crisis, Mr. Goodcountry is a portrait of crisis in faith, John Nwodika and his son present the crisis in language, James Ikedi represent moral crisis, and Unachukwu explained that crisis also occurs in their social life. As a conclusion, the Nigerian identity culturally involves many aspects both physical and non-physical. The crisis in identity may be caused by internal and external factor and the crisis is analyzed based on the post colonial theory.