Things Fall

Apart
Chinua Achebe
Unit I. Writing at the
Margins
• Ashcroft, Griffiths, Tiffin’s ‘Introduction’ to The
Empire Writes Back [New Zealand]
• Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s ‘Goodbye Africa’ [Kenya]
• Dambudzo Marechera ‘Black Skin What Mask’
[Zimbabwe]
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘The Thing Around
Your Neck’ [Nigeria]
• Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart [Nigeria]
Unit I. Writing at the
Margins
• Overview of contemporary African writers
through multiple short stories and a novel.
• Discussion of Black identity as a colonial and
postcolonial construct.
• Assessing the texts beyond postcolonial issues.
Texts written by these authors are not exclusively
directed towards the West.
Igbo Culture
• Igbo culture refers to traditions, customs and
practices of the Igbo people of south-eastern
Nigeria.
• Making up 18% of its population, Igbo is
nowadays a predominantly Christian culture
in Nigeria.
• Traditionally, Igbo were subsistence farmers
of yam, taro and cassava.
Igbo Culture
• Christian European missionaries found
Igboland to be fertile ground for proselytizing.
• Unlike British monarchy, the Igbo settled
decisions through long debates among
members of the community.
• The Igbo have claimed independence of the
east as the Republic of Biafra, causing internal
conflict with the federal government of Nigeria.
Chinua Achebe
• Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) was a Nigerian poet,
novelist and critic.
• He is regarded as one of the pivotal figures of African
literature.
• Along with Things Fall Apart, No Longer At Ease
(1960) and Arrow of God (1964) complete the ’African
Trilogy’ and are one of the most celebrated and studied
novels in African literature.
Chinua Achebe
• Born in Ogidi, colonial Nigeria, he was
influenced by both Igbo traditional culture
and postcolonial Christianity.
• He excelled in his studies and was fiercely
critical of the representation of Africa in
Western literature.
• He galvanized the careers of Ngügi
Wa’Thing’o and Flora Nwapa.
Things Fall Apart
Things Fall Apart
• Things Fall Apart is the first of Achebe’s critically
acclaimed African Trilogy.
• It is a classic narrative about Africa’s encounter
with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on
the continent.
• The novel focuses on the experiences of Okonkwo, a
wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the
late 1800s.
Things Fall Apart
• Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. That this simple truth is glossed over in criticisms of his work is
due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go
completely unremarked […] The real question is the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age-
long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world. And the question is whether a novel which
celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race, can be called a great work
of art. My answer is: No, it cannot. (Achebe, “An Image of Africa”)
• Prior to the publication of Things Fall Apart, there were no African novels offering an alternative imaginary to
those produced by Western authors. Postcolonial literature aims to assert differences from the imperial centre.
Do you think the novel succeeds in this goal? Can you think of any specific strategies by which it achieves this
purpose?
Things Fall Apart: Africa
and the Novel
• Things Fall Apart outlines an effort to create an
imaginary of Africa by a Nigerian author through
literary appropriations.
• Achebe appropriates the conventions of the novel, a
European art form, and turns them into African
literature.
• Achebe wrote the novel to reassert African identity as
part of the development of Nigerian national identity.
Things Fall Apart: Africa
and the Novel
• European novels and novellas, like Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness, had created an imaginary of Africa as
primitive, culturally static and uncivilized.
• Achebe uses the novel to represent Igbo culture as
complex, dynamic and divided. Similarly, Okonkwo is
a complex and internally divided by fears and desires.
• He writes the novel in the 1950s, during Nigerian
independence, dealing mostly with pre-colonial Igbo
culture (Part One and Part Two) and, marginally, with
colonization.
Things Fall Apart: Africa
and the Novel
• He writes about Igbo culture through the eyes of one
of its members: Okonkwo – a powerful warrior who
is part of the community.
• Achebe appropriates the novel to grant Igbo culture
its pre-colonial identity without reference to British
colonization.
• Okonkwo is someone who both embodies and
transgresses Igbo traditions in Umuofia. He
embodies its internal conflicts and tensions.
Things Fall Apart

• Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal
achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat.
Amalinze was the great wrestler who for seven years was unbeaten, from Umuofia to Mbaino. He was called
the Cat because his back would never touch the earth. It was this man that Okonkwo threw in a fight which the
old men agreed was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven
days and seven nights. (3)
• Achebe manages to recreate the richness and complexity of Umuofia through an appropriation and subversion
of English language. Think about the familiar and unfamiliar aspects you found in the novel. Was the world
depicted by Achebe absolutely unfamiliar to you? What aspects of the novel did you find familiar and
unfamiliar?
Things Fall Apart:
Community
• The novel dispels the European imaginary of
unfathomable mystery and primeval darkness
surrounding Africa. In some regards, Igbo culture is
more democratic than British monarchy.
• Okonkwo’s trajectory as a character is tied to that of
the community of Umuofia and its cultural values.
• Okonkwo embodies the figure of a strong warrior and
self-made man respected by Igbo culture: he
outwrestled a man named the cat, gained wealth,
married three wives, fathered ten children.
Things Fall Apart:
Community
• Masculinity is central: ‘Okonkwo was ruled by one
passion – to hate everything his father Unoka had loved.
One of those things was gentleness and another was
idleness’ (13).
• He is haunted by the figure of his father who was
perceived by the community as an efulefu, that is, a
worthless man.
• Ashamed of his father, Okonkwo is driven to become a
successful man in the eyes of the community, that is, the
opposite of his father: fierce, masculine, powerful,
respected.
Things Fall Apart:
Community
• His successes and failures are, in this sense, driven by his
desire to be respected by the community.
• The way Okonkwo perceives his son Nwoye is determined by
these cultural expectations about being a respected man in
the community.
• Feminine Values are Rejected: ‘That was the kind of story
that Nwoye loved. But he now knew that they were for
foolish women and children, and he knew that his father
wanted him to be a man.’ (54)
Things Fall Apart

• One of the men behind him cleared his throat. Ikemefuna looked back, and the man growled at him
to go on and not stand looking back. The way he said it sent cold fear down Ikemefuna’s back. His
hands trembled vaguely on the black pot he carried. Why had Okonkwo withdrawn to the rear?
Ikemefuna felt his legs melting under him. And he was afraid to look back. As the man who had
cleared his throat drew up and raised his machete, Okonkwo looked away. He heard the blow. The
pot fell and broke in the sand. He heard Ikemefuna cry, “My father, they have killed me!” as he ran
towards him. Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of
being thought weak. (60-61)
• In spite of being advised not to attend the ceremony, Okonkwo transgresses this order by killing
Ikemefuna himself. To what extent do you think his behaviour is a product of the community or,
rather, his personal grievances?
Things Fall Apart:
Transgression
• It is asserted throughout the novel that Okonkwo is
driven by a fear of weakness. He personally kills
Ikemefuna - his foster son – because of this.
• While this fear is driven by his father’s weakness and
poor reputation in Umuofia, this desire to be
respected leads him to transgress its cultural values.
• Classical case of Hubris. He is repeatedly punished in
the novel by other members of the community. E.g.:
Beating his wife and killing a woman.
Things Fall Apart:
Transgression
• It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and
capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of
the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. (13)
• His fear of weakness is stronger than his fear of spirits,
god or divine punishment. This is one of the reasons why
this mundane fear, haunted by his father, is transgressive.
• Okonkwo’s hypermasculinity is linked to his rejection of
anything feminine. E.g.: ‘But it was as silly as all
women’s stories’ (75).
Things Fall Apart:
Transgression
• Like Oedipus Rex, the world of the novel is one in which
mistakes are punished. Okonkwo’s hubris overrides
cultural values and practices in the community.
• He ferociously beats his wife Ojiuga during the sacred
Week of Peace. His brutality is tied to his rejection of
anything that he deems gentle or womanly.
• While he repents for his sin, his brutal behaviour,
particularly against women, is maintained throughout the
novel, leading him to be exiled by his own community.
Things Fall Apart

• “When did you become a shivering old woman,” Okonkwo asked himself,
“you, who are known in all the nine villages for your valor in war? How
can a man who has killed five in battle fall to pieces because he has added
a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.”
(65)
• Consider the conflicts depicted in Part One of Things Fall Apart, and
Okonkwo’s view on masculinity and femininity. Is the novel being critical
of his behaviour or accounting for it as a part of his culture?