Topic: Critical Analysis of "Things fall Apart’’!
Paper No: 14
Roll No: 13
Semester: 4
Submitted to: S.B.Gardi,
Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.
Introduction
Before Things Fall Apart was published, most novels about
Africa had been written by Europeans, and they largely portrayed Africans as
savages who needed to be enlightened by Europeans.
For example,
Joseph Conrad’s classic tale Heart of Darkness (1899),
one of the most celebrated novels of the early twentieth century, presents
Africa as a wild, “dark,” and uncivilized continent.
.
Chinua Achebe broke apart this dominant model with Things
Fall Apart, a novel that portrays Igbo society with specificity and sympathy
and examines the effects of European colonialism from an African perspective.
No one could have predicted that this novel, written by an
unknown Nigerian, would one day sell nearly 11 million copies.
Today Things Fall Apart is one of the most widely read books
in Africa; it is typically assigned in schools and universities, and most
critics consider it to be black Africa’s most important novel to date. Further,
the novel has on syllabi for literature, world history, and African studies
courses across the globe. The first African novel to receive such powerful
international critical acclaim, Things Fall Apart is considered by many to be
the archetypal modern African novel.
To understand the impact that Things Fall Apart had on both
the African and international literary worlds, it is useful to briefly examine
the novel’s historical context.
England took control of Nigeria in the late nineteenth
century and imposed upon the country a British-run government and educational
system. Achebe, born in 1930 in the village of Ogidi in Eastern Nigeria,
grew up under colonial rule. He lived in a Christian household, though his
grandparents still followed traditional tribal ways, a tension that, as he once
remarked in an interview with Conjunctions, “created sparks in my
imagination”. He attended the prestigious University College, Ibadan, on
scholarship, first as a medical student then as a literature major, during a
time in which more and more Africans were questioning colonial rule and the European
justification of it as a way to bring enlightenment to the “Dark Continent”.
The first reviews for Things Fall Apart appeared in
Britain, then the United States. Though a few of these early Western
reviewers took a condescending or Eurocentric tone, for the most part they were
positive and emphasized the novel’s significance as an African’s insight into
the lives of Africans at the time of colonization.
Three days after the novel’s publication, a Times Literary
Supplement review praised own people. Positive reviews also appeared in The
Observer and The Listener. The UK-based journal African Affairs attested: “This
powerful first novel breaks new ground in Nigerian fiction”.
In the United States, The New York Times called
Achebe a “Good Writer,” and claimed, “His real achievement is his
ability to see the strengths and weaknesses of his characters with a true
novelist’s compassion”.
Many of these early reviews emphasized Achebe’s Nigerian
roots, and, while they often praised the subject matter and his description of
the African society, they tended to pay less attention to the novel’s literary.
Reviewers dwelled on Achebe’s vivid portrayal of the Igbo village and
the “Insider” quality of the work. The New York Times called it
one of the “sensitive books that describe primitive society from the
inside”, and the Times Literary Supplement claimed that “the great interest
of this novel is that it genuinely succeeds in presenting tribal life from the
inside”. African Affairs chimed in: “In powerfully realistic prose the writer
sets out to write a fictional but almost documentary account of the day to day
happenings in a small Nigerian village without evasion, sophistry or apology”
During the same period that Things Fall Apart was published,
African literary criticism was developing, and, though it was not until the
1960s that African critics wrote extensively about the novel, a few African
scholars commented on it within a year of its publication.
Nigerian Ben Obumselu, one of the founders of African
literary criticism, was one of the book’s first African reviewers. His review,
which appeared in the journal Ibadan in 1959, provided a more nuanced reading
than many of the early British reviews; while overall it is positive, Obumselu
also pointed out what he considered to be problematic Obumselu was prescient in
two ways: he was one of the first critics to focus on the novel’s language and
one of the first to raise the question of whether Achebe’s novel imitates or
subverts European models. Both concerns would become major points of debate for
latter critics. Obumselu was also one of the first critics to analyze the novel
from an African perspective.
In their review, the majority of Western critics had tended
to celebrate the novel’s “otherness.” For instance, the early British and U.S.
reviews tended to take anthropological or sociological viewpoints when
discussing Achebe’s descriptions of African culture and the Igbo village.
As more scholars took interest in the novel, criticism grew
deeper and more nuanced.
For example, David Carroll’s Chinua Achebe, a significant addition to Achebe studies, provides a detailed introduction to European colonialism, Igbo history, and Igbo culture and dedicates a chapter to a close analysis of Things Fall Apart. Carroll, using both anthropological and literary approaches, examines Achebe’s writing in relation to Nigeria’s history of colonialism, independence, and political conflict and argues that Achebe resists European exoticism and stereotypes to raise questions about African identity and representation.
For example, David Carroll’s Chinua Achebe, a significant addition to Achebe studies, provides a detailed introduction to European colonialism, Igbo history, and Igbo culture and dedicates a chapter to a close analysis of Things Fall Apart. Carroll, using both anthropological and literary approaches, examines Achebe’s writing in relation to Nigeria’s history of colonialism, independence, and political conflict and argues that Achebe resists European exoticism and stereotypes to raise questions about African identity and representation.
Emmanuel Obiechina,
too, largely takes an anthropological approach to the novel, though from an
African perspective, in Culture, Tradition, and Society in the West African
Novel. Examining the traditional beliefs and practices represented in Things
Fall Apart and other West African novels, he seeks to show how African society
and culture “gave rise to the novel there, and in far-reaching and crucial
ways conditioned the West African novel’s content, themes, and texture”.
Another important work from this period is Robert M.
Wren’s Achebe’s World, a valuable guide to Igbo history, politics, religion,
and society
The best of the anthropological articles give a strong
portrait of Igbo culture in relation to the novel and examine the
historical context of the writing; however, a drawback to anthropological
readings is their neglect of the literary qualities of the novel. Although a
few critical works of the 1960s and 1970s examined the structural and narrative
aspects of Things Falls Apart such as Eldred D. Jones’s “Language and
Theme in Things Fall Apart”.
A ground breaking work for its time that focuses on craft
while also examining how African writers represented their world in literature
- formalist New approaches, which focused on the literary qualities of the
work, were much more popular in the 1980s. Such approaches analyze the formal
qualities of a text - such as narrative, characterization, and structure -
while bracketing off any historical, biographical, or sociological factors that
may have influenced it.
As this critical focus became more popular throughout the
1980s and 1990s, it undoubtedly brought more attention to Achebe’s literary
achievement in Things Fall Apart. Among the many standout pieces of formalist
criticism are B. Eugene McCarthy’s - “Rhythm and Narrative Method in
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart”.
As more and more critics began analyzing the text itself, a
strain of criticism developed around the relations between Things Fall Apart
and Aristotelian or Greek tragedy. While investigating the novel’s structure,
plot, and characters, critics began debating whether Okonkwo can be called a
classical tragic hero?.
In Greek tragedy,
the tragic hero is a noble character who tries to achieve some much
desired goal but encounters difficulty. He often possesses some kind of tragic
flaw, and his downfall is usually brought about through some combination of
hubris, fate, and the will of the gods.
One of the earliest articles on this theme is Abiola Irele’s - “The Tragic Conflict in the Novels of Chinua Achebe”, in which Irele asserts, “Things Fall Apart turns out to present the whole tragic drama of a society vividly and concretely enacted in the tragic destiny of a representative individual”. This idea grew popular during the 1970s and 1980s and has endured as a typical way of defining Okonkwo’s character even the back cover of the 1994 Anchor edition of the novel claims that it “is often compared to the great Greek tragedies.” G. D. Killam also wrote about the tragic elements of the novel, asserting that Okonkwo’s story “is presented in terms which resemble those of Aristotelian tragedy” and that Okonkwo’s death is the result of “an insistent fatality . . . which transcends his ability to fully understand or resist a fore-ordained sequence of events”.
Harold Bloom
does not consider the novel a traditional Greek tragedy, but he does
compare Okonkwo to Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, concluding in his introduction to
his Modern Critical Interpretations volume on Things Fall Apart, “If Coriolanus
is a tragedy, and then so is Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo, like the Roman hero,
is essentially a solitary, and at heart a perpetual child. His tragedy stands
apart from the condition of his people, even though it is generated by their
pragmatic refusal of heroic death
The language of the novel has not only intrigued critics but
has also been a major factor in the emergence of the modern African novel. That
Achebe wrote in English, portrayed Igbo life from the point of view of an
African man, and used the language of his people in the text were innovations
that greatly influenced the African writers who published soon after Achebe.
Novelists such as Flora Nwapa, John Munonye, and Nkem Nwankwo, who broke
into print in the late 1960s, all looked to Achebe as a guide, and even some
more established or older Nigerian novelists were influenced by Achebe’s use of
the Igbo language. For example.
Onuora Nzekwu,
whose first novel was written in a stiff, formal English, wrote his third novel
in an African vernacular style. Today Achebe’s fiction and criticism continue
to inspire and influence African writers. African authors born in the late
1950s and in the 1960s and 1970s including Helon Habila, Tsitsi Dangarembga,
and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie have been particularly inspired or influenced
by Achebe. Adichie, for instance, the author of the popular and critically
acclaimed books Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, commented in a 2005
interview, “Chinua Achebe 46 Critical Insights will always be important to me
because his work influenced not so much my style as my writing philosophy:
reading him emboldened me, gave me permission to write about the things I knew
well”. Over the years, Things Fall Apart has been examined by a wide variety of
critical schools.
Although certain types of criticism have dominated
discussions of the novel during different periods, they have also been
interlaced with studies from a variety of other critical perspectives such as Marxist,
reader-response, psychoanalytic, historical, feminist, and cultural-studies
approaches. Still, throughout the 1990s the dominant trend was post
colonialism, which at times also draws on Marxist and poststructuralist
theories. Post colonialist criticism focuses its critiques on the literature of
countries that were once colonies of other countries.
It arose during the 1980s, as many African countries were in
political and economic crisis and theorists reexamined ideas about progress and
development. As Simon Gikandi explains, “Instead of seeing
colonialism as the imposition of cultural practices by the colonizer over the
colonized, postcolonial theorists argued that the colonized had themselves been
active agents in the making and remaking of the idea of culture itself”.
In Post-colonial Literatures in English: History, Language,
Theory, Dennis Walder defines postcolonial literary criticism: “On the
one hand, it carries with it the intention to promote, even celebrate the ‘new
literatures’ which have emerged over this century from the former colonial
territories; and on the other, it asserts the need to analyze and resist
continuing colonial attitudes”. He explains that Things Fall Apart is a postcolonial
text, as it rejects the assumption that the colonized can only be the
subjects of someone else’s story; it seeks to “by telling the story of the
colonized . . . retrieve their history. And more than that: by retrieving their
history to regain an identity”. In Reading Chinua Achebe, Gikandi argues that,
although Things Fall Apart cannot be regarded as representative of a “real Igbo
culture,” it is an example of strategic resistance, as Achebe writes back or
takes back his story and culture from colonial representations.
Feminist criticism of Things Fall Apart did not begin
appearing until the 1990s, but, when it arrived, it made a strong impact and
opened the novel up to new interpretations. One of the more groundbreaking
arguments is that of Canadian feminist critic Florence Stratton, who argues in
Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender (1994) that Achebe
gives men cultural roles that were actually occupied by women in traditional
Igbo culture. Biodun Jeyifo’s “Okonkwo and His Mother” is an analysis of the
gender politics of Things Fall Apart, and Rhonda Cobham, in “Problems of Gender
and History in the Teaching of Things Fall Apart” (1990), argues that Things
Fall Apart reinforces dominant male Christian views of traditional Igbo
society.
Over the extent of his long and productive career, Achebe
helped create what is now known as the modern African novel and contributed to
the development of African literary criticism. His influence on other African
writers cannot be stressed enough. In addition to providing African writers
with a new model, Achebe also helped promote African literature. In 1962 Achebe
became the first series editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series, which
has been one of the most important publishing venues for African literature.
According to Achebe, the series’ launch “was like the umpires” signals
for which African writers had been waiting on the starting line.
Just as Things Fall Apart made a large impact on Africans,
it has also proven to be popular among international audiences. It is one of
those rare novels that can be read and reread from many different perspectives
and continues to generate many diverse interpretations. It continues to endure
as an international classic.
The events of Things Fall Apart take place
in the late 1800s and early 1900s, just before and during the early days of the
British Empire's expansion in Nigeria. The novel depicts details about life in
an African culture much different from Western culture. In this chapter, Achebe
reveals the following aspects of Igbo culture:
Okonkwo:
The beginning describes Okonkwo's principal accomplishments that establish his important position in Igbo society. These details alone provide insight into Okonkwo's character and motivation. Driving himself toward tribal success and recognition, he is trying to bury the unending shame that he feels regarding the faults and failures of his late father, Unoka. Essentially, Okonkwo exhibits qualities of manhood in Igbo society.
Familiar with Western literature and its
traditional forms, Achebe structures Things Fall Apart in the tradition
of a Greek tragedy, with the story centered on Okonkwo, the tragic hero.
Aristotle defined the tragic hero as a character who is superior and
noble, one who demonstrates great courage and perseverance but is undone
because of a tragic personal flaw in his character.
Achebe sets up Okonkwo as a man much respected
for his considerable achievements and noble virtues — key qualities of a tragic
hero. Okonkwo's tragic flaw is his obsession with manliness; His fear of
looking weak like his father drives him to commit irrational acts of violence
that undermine his nobleness. In the chapters ahead, the reader should note the
qualities and actions that begin to reveal the tragic flaw in Okonkwo's
otherwise admirable actions, words, ideas, and relationships with others. At
the Achebe foreshadows the presence of Ikemefuna in Okonkwo's household and
also the teenage boy's ultimate fate by referring to him as a
"doomed" and "ill fated lad."
One of the most significant social markers of
Igbo society is introduced in this chapter — its unique system of honorific
titles. Throughout the book, titles are reference points by which members of
Igbo society frequently compare themselves with one another (especially
Okonkwo). These titles are not conferred by higher authorities, but they are
acquired by the individual who can afford to pay for them. As a man accumulates
wealth, he may gain additional recognition and prestige by "taking a
title." He may also purchase titles for male members of his family (this
aspect is revealed later). In the process of taking a title, the man pays
significant initiation fees to the men who already hold the title.
A Umuofian man can take as many as four
titles, each apparently more expensive than its predecessor. A man with sufficient
money to pay the fee begins with the first level — the most common title — but
many men cannot go beyond the first title. Each title taken may be shown by
physical signs, such as an anklet or marks on the feet or face, so others can
determine who qualifies for certain titles.
The initiation fees are so large that some
writers have referred to the system as a means for "redistributing
wealth." Some Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest observe
their own version of redistributing wealth through a potlatch ceremony at
which the guests receive gifts from the person gaining the honor as a show of
wealth for others to exceed.
The reader begins to see beliefs and practices
of the Igbo tradition that are particularly significant in the story — for
example, the wide division between masculine and feminine actions and
responsibilities. Respect and success are based on only manly activities and
accomplishments; Taking care of children and hens, on the other hand, are
womanly activities.
In Okonkwo's determination to be a perfect
example of manhood, he begins to reveal the consequences of his fear of
weakness — his tragic flaw. Okonkwo hates not only idleness but also
gentleness; he demands that his family works as long as he does (without
regarding their lesser physical stamina), and he nags and beats his oldest son,
Nwoye. Achebe continues weaving traditional elements of Igbo society into
Chapter 2. The marketplace gathering illustrates the Igbo society's reverence
for what is "manly" — for example, the male villagers' loyalty to
each other when they refer to the woman murdered by another village as "a
daughter of Umuofia."
This scene also illustrates the ceremonial
nature of town meetings, as the Speaker shouts the customary greeting to the
crowd while turning in four different directions. In addition, the reader
learns that Umuofian religious traditions include the worship of wooden objects
representing not only one's personal god but also the ancestral spirits to whom
one prays and makes sacrifices.
To secure his manliness, Okonkwo believes that
he should beat members of his family (Nwoye, Ikemefuna, Ojiugo, and his wives)
and that he should ridicule men who remind him of his father — even for slight
annoyances. Although he may inwardly experience emotions of affection and
regret, he cannot show these emotions to others, so he isolates himself through
extreme actions.
Examples of traditional wisdom are used when
talking about
Okonkwo:
"Those whose palm kernels
Were cracked for them by a benevolent
Spirit should not forget to be
humble."
|
This proverb means that a man whose success is
a result of luck must not forget that he has faults. Okonkwo, however, had
"cracked them himself," because he overcame poverty not through luck,
but through hard work and determination.
"When a man says yes, his chi says yes also."
This Igbo proverb implies that a man's actions
affect his destiny as determined by his chi. Okonkwo's chi is considered
"good," but he "[says] yes very strongly, so his chi
[agrees]." In other words, Okonkwo's actions to overcome adversity seem
justified, but because he is guided by his chi, his denial of kindness,
gentleness, and affection for less successful men will prove self destructive.
(The chi itself is somewhat ambiguous.
Okonkwo does not even enjoy the leisurely
ceremonial feast as others do. His impatience with the festivities is so great
that he erupts. He falsely accuses one of his wives, beats her, and then makes
an apparent attempt to shoot her. Further evidence of his violent nature is
revealed when he moves his feet in response to the drums of the wrestling dance
and trembles "with the desire to conquer and subdue . . . like the desire
for a woman." Okonkwo's need to express anger through violence is clearly
a fatal flaw in his character. His stubborn and often irrational behavior is
beginning to set him apart from the rest of the village.
In contrast, Okonkwo exhibits feelings of love
and affection — his first encounter with Ekwefi and his fondness for Ezinma,
his daughter. However, Okonkwo considers such emotions signs of weakness that
betray his anilines, so he hides his feelings and acts harshly to conceal them.
The amount of detail included about the Feast
of the New Yam, just before the annual harvest, underscores how closely the
life of the community relates to the production of its food. The description of
household preparations for the festival reveals two significant issues about
Igbo culture: The roles of women and daughters to keep the household running
smoothly and to prepare for special occasions even though they can hold
positions of leadership in the village.
The insignificant impact a wife beating and a
near shooting have on family life, as if violence is an acceptable part of day
to day life in the household.
For the first time in the story, Achebe
mentions guns. Because of an outgrowth of Igbo trade with the rest of the
world, Western technology actually arrived in the village before the Westerners
did. Umuofia was not a completely isolated community. With the killing of
Ikemefuna, Achebe creates a devastating scene that evokes compassion for the
young man and foreshadows the fall of Okonkwo, again in the tradition of the
tragic hero. Along the way, the author sets up several scenes that juxtapose
with the death scene: The opening scene of the chapter shows the increasing
affection and admiration Okonkwo feels for Ikemefuna, as well as for Nwoye.
On the journey with Ikemefuna and the other
men of Umuofia, they hear the "peaceful dance from a distant clan."
In Chapter 2, the author comments that the
fate of Ikemefuna is a "sad story" that is "still told in
Umuofia unto this day." This observation suggests that the
decision to kill Ikemefuna was not a customary one. Before dying, Ikemefuna
thinks of Okonkwo as his "real father" and of what he wants to tell
his mother, especially about Okonkwo. These elements combined suggest that the
murder of Ikemefuna is senseless, even if the killing is in accordance with the
Oracle and village decisions.
The murder scene is a turning point in the
novel. Okonkwo participates in the ceremony for sacrificing the boy after being
strongly discouraged, and he delivers the death blow because he is "afraid
of being thought weak." At a deep, emotional level, Okonkwo kills a boy
who "could hardly imagine that Okonkwo was not his real father" —
someone whom Okonkwo truly loves as a son. Okonkwo has not only outwardly
disregarded his people and their traditions, but he has also disregarded his
inner feelings of love and protectiveness. This deep abyss between Okonkwo's
divided self’s accounts for the beginning of his decline.
For the first time in the novel, Okonkwo's
son, Nwoye, emerges as a major character who, in contrast to his father,
questions the longstanding customs of the clan. Achebe begins to show the boy's
conflicting emotions; he is torn between being a fiercely masculine and
physically strong person to please his father and allowing himself to cherish
values and feelings that Okonkwo considers feminine and weak.
In the scenes, the reader can begin to see
Okonkwo's growing separation from his family members as well as from his from
peers in the village. Okonkwo asks Nwoye to sit with him in his hut, seeking
affirmation that he has done nothing wrong by killing Ikemefuna. But his son
pulls away from him.
Even Okonkwo's friend, Obierika, disapproves
of his role in the killing of Ikemefuna. Obierika is presented as a moderate,
balanced man and thus serves as a contrast to Okonkwo. Obierika periodically
questions tribal law and believes that some changes can improve their society.
Okonkwo tends to cling to tradition regardless of the cost, as the killing of
Ikemefuna illustrates. Essentially, Obierika is a man of thought and
questioning, while Okonkwo is a man of action without questioning.
Okonkwo's final days in Mbanta are
characterized by his usual striving to impress, never doing anything by halves.
He expresses his thanks to his motherland's relatives with an extravagant
celebration. Okonkwo's rigid, impulsive behavior hasn't changed during his
seven years in Mbanta, and he is eager to return to Umuofia to make up for lost
time. He reveres Umuofia because of its strong and masculine community, unlike
Mbanta, which he labels a womanly clan.
In light of his near obsession with status and
titles, Okonkwo must find it particularly hard to understand how some of the
leaders of the community can give up their titles when they became Christians.
Throughout the book Achebe gives his
characters names with hidden meanings; for example, Okonkwo's name implies male
pride and stubbornness. When Achebe adds British characters, he gives two of
them common and unremarkable British names, Brown and Smith. His third British
character, the District Commissioner, is known only by his title. The choice of
names and lack thereof, is in itself a commentary by Achebe on the incoming
faceless strangers.
After Okonkwo is freed from prison, he
remembers better times, when Umuofia was more warriors like and fierce -
"when men were men." As in his younger days, he is eager to prepare
for war (not unlike Enoch the convert in the preceding chapter). He is worried
that the peacemakers among them may have a voice, but he assures himself that
he will continue the resistance, even if he has to do it alone. He will be
manly in his actions even to the end.
Conclusion:-
When Okonkwo kills the court messenger, his
fellow clansmen almost back away from him in fear; in fact, his violent action
is questioned. When he realizes that no one supports him, Okonkwo finally knows
that he can't save his village and its traditions no matter how fiercely he
tries. His beloved and honored Umuofia is on the verge of surrender, and
Okonkwo himself feels utterly defeated. Everything has fallen apart for him.
His action in the final chapter will not be a surprise.
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