= ,)~:~ OK:KeDCBA All ZYXWVUT African [ournal of Neto Writing I Number 57 = 63 Struggle and Strategies of Containment in Chinua Achebe's A Man of the People A.N. Akwanya ORCID: 0000-0002-5331-6899 University of Nigeria, Nsukka Abstract Chinua Achebe's A Man of the People introduces Chief M.A. Nanga in the opening paragraph as the Man of the People; and this had tobe made clear from the outset; otherwise the story that Odili the narrator was going to tell would 'make no sense'. So there is a double focus on the man and on the story. This introduction seems toprepare the reader for a story presenting an action of a public nature. The story that dominates this narrative is accordingly of a public nature. But it also contains the story of a personal antagonism whereby Odili becomes drawn into the public actions of the man and is therefore able to give this account from the inside, as it were. The story of the public action is in its turn contained in another larger story, with mythical associations. The personal conflict, as a consequence, is more than merely an incident. Its meaning is partly captured in the public story, which is in turn partially captured in the mythic pattern. This paper exploresthis endless pattern of deferring of meaning. Introduction Chinua Achebe's A Man of the People has all the features of a well- made story, and unfolds with the sense of 'an act of memory' going over events and actions that 'already occurred in some determinate chronological sequence' (Barbara Smith 108),together with 'their spatial location, and their relations with the actors who cause or undergo them' (Mieke Bal qtd. in Jonathan Culler 191). Thecharacter remembering is also an actor who maintains a sense ofa faithful report by narrating only scenes where he is a personal witness and presenting the rest he has not personally witnessed in thescene of the dialogue where he himself receives the report. For