THINKING ACTIVITY
“The first novel in English which spoke from the interior of an African character, rather than portraying the African as exotic, as the white man would see him”
-Wole Soyinka on Things Fall Apart
(Source – Achebe)
'Things Fall Apart' published in 1958, is a foundational text which constituted the core around which a literary tradition could be built. Paradoxically, European explorers seemed or pretended not to know much about African customs. In the 1980s, for instance, Western history textbooks dealt little with Africa and Africans and the term Africa was hinted at in chapters covering European expansion, under titles such as “Discovery”, “Imperialism”, and “Decolonization”, presented as short and superficial summaries. (Tiemann)
Before the publication of the ‘Things Fall Apart’ the world have only seen Africa through the lens of European writers and the colonial masters. A new literary tradition emerged with the publication of ‘Things Fall Apart’ of developing new perspectives and looking into the insights of the natives and their ways of living, their tradition, their outlook towards the colonies. Hence, one can agree with what Gbaguidi believes,
“European settlers, imbued with prejudices and stereotypes, distorted the image of Africa and Africans in their writings. Those European travelers or tourists were not well informed about the realities of Africa or Africans. They used to consider Africa as the heart of darkness and Africans as children, liars, cannibals, savages, to name only a few such attributes.” (Gbaguidi)
In Heart of Darkness, Conrad portrays Africa as ‘the other world’, or as Klages has put it ‘The Orient’, the exact opposite of Europe and therefore of ‘civilization’. This blogpost is a part of the thinking activity which is assigned by our lecturer Dr Heenaba Zala to ponder upon the postviewing questions mentioned in the worksheet. (Click here to navigate to the teacher's blog titled ‘Thinking Activity on Things Fall Apart’)
1. What is the historical context of Things Fall Apart?
The novel chronicles the revolutionary changes that took place in Africa in the Igbo community. Though the plot of the novel follows the history of Africa but ‘Things Fall Apart’ is not a strictly historical novel. Historical novels, by definition, fictionalize historic events and bring them to life with invented details, characters, dialogue, etc. While Things Fall Apart does situate itself within a specific historical context (Nigeria at the moment of colonization), it does not attempt to recreate actual events or re‐characterize real historical figures.
More genuinely, the novel contains the historical theme of colonialism in Nigeria and Igbo culture following a fictional story. The plot is set in the 1890s, but was first published in 1958, 2 years before Nigeria was granted full independence from British rule. Achebe brings a postcolonial touch and a variety of perspectives of the natives- their attitudes, their tribal culture, their community rules and beliefs and Nigerian politics.
Furthermore, Achebe has significantly used Yeats’ words as the title. Yeats’ poem ‘The Second Coming’ was written at the start of the Irish War of Independence, when Ireland sought its freedom from British colonialism. In his poem, Yeats imagines the vague and doomed future and Achebe uses Yeats to signal not the end but the beginning of colonialism in Nigeria.
2. What is the significance of the title?
The title of the novel is adapted from an epigraph containing the quote from W. B. Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming”.
The roots of the title can be found in the following verse of the poem "The Second Coming"-
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”
(Yeats)
The title also informs about the foreshadowing of the arrival of the British and Okonkwo’s suicide. Hence, proving how things can fall apart when the centre cannot hold anymore. Achebe also successfully highlighted that Africa is not silent but is observant. The language is symbolic. Achebe employs ‘locusts’ as the symbol to illustrate the damage done by whites to the native crops.
“other white men were on their way. They were locusts, it (the oracle) said, and that first man was their harbinger sent to explore the terrain” (Achebe)
‘Drum’ is used to describing the beating heats of the native people of the clans, who are divided – some favours missionaries others opposes, but their hearts are continuously beating in either of the situations.
“Go-di-di-go-go-di-go. Di-go-go-di-go” the sound of drumbeats on the ekwe, or drums (Achebe)
3. Write a brief note on the concept of 'Chi' in Things Fall Apart.
‘Chi’ in the Igbo community is the personal god and they are described in the novel as ‘can be controlled by humans’. The chi is an individual’s personal god, whose merit is determined by the individual’s good fortune or lack thereof.
One’s success is a reflection of one’s chi or personal god. As explained in Things Fall Apart, “the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also.”
In other words, one has to live in accordance with one’s personal god, one’s inner being. To live in contradiction with one’s chi means to challenge one’s personal god to a quarrel. Chi among the Igbo “is often translated as god, guardian angel, personal spirit, soul, spirit-double...”
Achebe in his text describes chi as one’s “other identity in spiritland—[one’s] spirit being complementing [one’s] terrestrial human being.”
“A man could not rise beyond the destiny of his chi. The saying of the elders was not true-that if a man said yea his chi also affirmed.”
(Achebe)
Along the lines of this interpretation, one can explain Okonkwo’s tragic fate as the result of a problematic chi—a thought that occurs to Okonkwo at several points in the novel.
4. What do you think about the incident of Ikemefuna? How does it help to understand the Igbo culture in more specific ways?
Ikemefuna came to Umuofia at the end of the carefree season between harvest and planting. For three years Ikemefuna lived in Okonkwo's household and the elders of Umuofia seemed to have forgotten about him. He grew rapidly like a yam tendril in the rainy season and was full of the sap of life. He had become wholly absorbed into his new family. He was like an elder brother to Nwoye, and from the very first seemed to have kindled a new fire in the younger boy. He made him feel grown-up, and they no longer spent the evenings in mother's hut while she cooked, but now sat with Okonkwo in his obi, or watched him as he tapped his palm tree for the evening wine.
The men of Umuofia, including Okonkwo, take Ikemefuna into the forest to kill him, and Okonkwo ignores Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s warning and kills Ikemefuna when he runs toward him for protection. This is also a turning point in the novel. Okonkwo is unable to eat for two days. He is sick—he shivers, and he is preoccupied with thoughts of Ikemefuna. his killing of Ikemefuna. Although he believes that the Oracle has declared that the boy be killed, he did not have to carry out the will of the Oracle, as Obierika reminds him. He did not have to accompany the group on the journey to kill Ikemefuna. But, Okonkwo’s fear of being seen as unmanly propels him to undertake a journey that has tragic consequences for him and permanently destroys his relationship with his own son Nwoye. Ikemefuna has been offered to a god as a sacrifice in atonement for an offence.
5. Write a brief note on Igbo people's belief in the world of spirits.
Traditional Igbo religion includes belief in a creator god (Chukwu or Chineke), an earth goddess (Ala), and numerous other deities and spirits as well as a belief in ancestors who protect their living descendants. The revelation of the will of the deities is sought by divination and oracles. Many Igbo are now Christians, some practising a syncretic version of Christianity intermingled with indigenous beliefs.
6. How is the difference between the fatherland and the motherland is described in Things Fall Apart?
Achebe's text 'Things Fall Apart' throws light on fatherland(ism) and motherland(ism). Some cultures still have this tradition. In the chapter 14 of the text 'Things Fall Apart' there is a different perspective of male and female roles as Okonkwo's uncle, Uchendu, mentions the difference between “fatherland” and “motherland.”
Children generally belong to their father, representing a patriarchal society, and go to their father when good things happen (Achebe)
7. Write a brief note on the concept of Nativism and Native identity in Things Fall Apart.
The nativeness in 'Things Fall Apart' is the Igbo identity or Igbo religion- culture. The notions of the Igbo identity results from the ways in which narrative form reflects and refracts the influences from the embedding contexts. Achebe’s primary purpose in writing the novel is because he wants to educate his readers about the value of his culture as an African. Things Fall Apart provides readers with an insight into Igbo society right before the white missionaries’ invasion of their land. The invasion of the colonising force threatens to change almost every aspect of Igbo society; from religion, traditional gender roles and relations, family structure to trade. Achebe writes Things Fall Apart to encourage his fellow countrymen to take advantage of the educational system that the missionaries introduced to them so as to better their lives. He is determined to take the modern African Literature genre to greater heights as well as to prove to the Europeans the value of the African culture.
8. Point out the important points of Things Fall Apart which can be compared with Kanthapura by Raja Rao.
Click here for the answer.
Works Cited-
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. London: Penguin Books, 2001. Book.
Gbaguidi, Célestin. "The Representation of the African Woman in Male-Dominated Society: A Study of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon." AFRREV IJAH: An International Journal of Arts and Humanities 7.2 (2018): 40-48.
Sharma, Govind Narain. “The Christian dynamic in the fictional world of Chinua Achebe.” A Review of International English Literature 24/2 (1993):85.
Tiemann, Dieter. "Afrika im Geschichtsunterricht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland." Afrika im Geschichtsunterricht europäischer Länder. Von der Kolonialgeschichte zur Geschichte der Dritten Welt, Munich (1982): 135-151.
Yeats, William Butler, and Francisco Javier Torres Ribelles. "The second coming." Revista alicantina de estudios ingleses, No. 07 (Nov. 1994); pp. 252-253 (1994).
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