The conflict of the West and the centre in Chukwemeka Ike's The Bottled Leopard

Abstract

Western Christian concepts tend to deny or feign ignorance about the existence of a genuine and enduring indigenous African tradition. However, their views contradict the reality, for a rich and sustaining local African cultural ethos exists for all who care, to see and experience. Contemporary African writers have consistently voiced this theme in their works. In The Bottled Leopard, Chukwuemeka Ike uses two children and two backgrounds to juxtapose two varying cultures. Ike explores the conflict, which results from the inability of the West to understand and come to terms with indigenous African culture. The writer therefore casts the Western tradition as condescending, enveloping and unaccommodating towards local African practices. African tradition is however shown to be an enduring and sustaining remedy for African problems. In the novel, even Christianity, with its cardinal document – The Holy Bible, is used to anchor some local practices, which seem strange to the West. The author's vital message in the story appears to be a suggestion or a plea for greater openness on the part of the foreign or Western culture to embrace other cultural expressions in order to foster a blend or hybrid of African and Western phenomena for the well-being of members of the two orientations.

Lwati: A Journal of Contemporary Research Vol. 1 2004: 14-19