Beware Soul Brother

“Beware Soul Brother” is vague in its identification of the audience and the threat the audience must be aware of, but the language and the culture the poem speaks to is specific to the Igbo people. Because of this, the poem works well as a celebration of culture and as an advocation to hold on to tradition.

The poem opens with the metaphor of the dance, which Achebe uses to describe life. This metaphor is important for the Igbo people as traditional dances and music hold great importance in Igbo culture. As Achebe discusses in Things Fall Apart, dances and music are associated with religious festivals and events, giving these arts a spiritual quality. By immediately identifying his people as “men of soul” (Line 1), Achebe is attributing a sense of spiritual mysticism to his culture, giving it a weight of significance. This also sets up the struggle of his people in familiar Western religious terms, as these “men of soul” suffer in the face of oppression, just as early Christians suffered in Rome. Achebe clearly makes this connection later in this section when he says the suffering his people have known would make “the Cross” (Line 7) bearable. Achebe acknowledges that meeting death might seem like nothing to fret over, so long as they meet it “striding / the dirge of the soulful abia drums” (Lines 9-10). The drums signify his people’s traditional culture, and the merging of Christian and Igbo imagery here shows how Achebe both holds on to his own culture while also appropriating colonial culture to his own identity. These lines also acknowledge that it might seem worth dying if his people hold true to their identities, essentially meaning it might be better to die and not give in instead of making concessions and living. The rest of the poem will seek to undermine this mindset by arguing that life is more beneficial than dying.

Achebe then warns his soul brothers, saying that on the day of death, there will be people waiting for them to die. Achebe argues that death would be acceptance of what these people wish. Here, Achebe is not only talking about physical death but also the death of culture and the death of a cause. To give in and forget where his people came from would be to sacrifice and surrender everything they have to those “leaden-footed, tone-deaf” (Line 16) people who wait and are “passionate only for the deep entrails / of our soil” (Lines 17-18). He says these people have a “long ravenous tooth / and talon of their hunger” (Lines 20-21), portraying them as animals who wait to pounce on a wounded and dying prey. However, Achebe does not indicate who these people are. Because of this ambiguity, it is possible he is referring to the colonizers who seek to exploit Africa for natural resources, but it is also possible he is referring to the end of the Nigerian Civil War and those in Nigeria who would exploit the Igbo people and the land of Biafra. Most likely, though, the poem is referring to all people who would seek to exploit Achebe’s people, Africans and Westerners alike.

The next part of the poem serves as an affirmation of Igbo culture. Achebe reminds his audience that there is wisdom in their traditions, and he references the goddess Ala. He says the tradition of Ala speaks to an understanding of one’s connection to the earth, for all men and all the creations of men must one day return to the earth “for safety / and renewal of strength” (Lines 31-32). This signifies a solidarity between people and the land they come from, but it also advocates for a traditional view that counters the materialism that marked colonialism. Materialism and capitalism place value on material products, but Achebe believes in a reincarnation philosophy that places value on nature, history, and connection over materialism. As Achebe advocated for socialism during his life, this rejection of materialism fits and aligns with his advocacy for traditional customs and sovereignty.

The end of the poem is a final reminder and warning to his people. He uses a pastoral simile to describe what it is like to lose one’s inheritance: He compares the dance of life to a hen testing out the ground of an “unfamiliar” (Line 36) place. He warns his people not to lose their inheritance, or their land and customs, by “hanging a lame foot in the air” (Line 35). This is a call to action. Achebe is telling his people to fight for what is theirs and not to succumb to the sweet release of death that he described in the first section. He believes that his people must protect their land because when their dance is done, a new dance begins: the dance of their children. The children will want a place to dance and a future to look forward to, so it is dependent upon the current generation to fight for those things.

Again, Achebe does not say whether he is referring to the Nigerian Civil War or to the postcolonial world in general. Regardless, the poem works for both of these things. It is unapologetically Igbo, but it is also written in English and uses Christian images of the Cross and martyrdom. In this way, Achebe appropriates the weapons of the colonizers to fight for the colonized, and he creates a culture and ideology of his own, proclaiming his autonomy as an independent and free human. This sheds the labels of colonized, African, and, as the colonial oppressors labeled him, brute and savage. The approach gives this poem significant weight and power as an advocate for freedom, cultural independence, and the importance of acknowledging the past and the future together.