Genre | General Vision and Viewpoint | Cultural Context | Plot Summary | Themes and Issues

Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart was published in 1958. Its fundamental theme, in Achebe's words, is "that African people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans." It is a celebration of the depth, value, and beauty of tribal society. Also of the "dignity that African people all but lost during the colonial period. This novel has been translated into over forty languages and has sold well over three million copies.

The title of this novel is taken from a W.B. Yeats poem, 'The Second Coming':

Things Fall Apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

It is, then, a novel about the destruction of one age and the beginning of another. "The centre cannot hold;" - in other words, the balance which holds all the varied elements of a world in equilibrium is lost, and everything becomes unravelled.

Achebe sees the colonisation experience of Nigeria in tragic terms. Umofian society, representative of pre-colonial Nigeria, is a vibrant, sophisticated, complex structure, with a high level of democracy - witness the endless discussions and debates among the people with respect to the rules of religion and politics; also the fact that titles are given on merit and can be taken away if there is cause, such that no-one can ever hide behind inherited privileges. But all this is undone by the arrival of the colonisers with their own, very distinct sense of social administration and their absolute disregard for tribal society.

What gives balance and stability to Umofian society, (until that is, "Things Fall Apart") is the tension between individuality and communal concerns. The individual fights for his own (and it usually is 'his' own, not 'her' own) honour and success, and this enterprise is rewarded; but if his actions are excessive, or if they might inflict damage on the greater community, they are checked by law and by religious principles.

It is perhaps a flaw in Okonkwo that his desire for personal eminence and prosperity is paramount; and in the end, for him, just as for Umuofia itself, "the centre cannot hold'', and "Things Fall Apart."

Achebe himself has indicated that Okonkwo's central flaw is his inability to achieve a balance. "Okonkwo's whole life," he has said, "is an attempt to make up for what his father didn't achieve. This is a great mistake...". There are people who reflect the other half of human reality, the music side, the story side, as opposed to the war side (and Achebe includes both Okonkwo's father and his son, Nwoye, here), and one is as valid as the other. The flaw of Okonkwo - not only of Okonkwo but to some extent of Ezeulu - is that he would not give way ultimately."

With Things Fall Apart, Achebe openly wished to counter the influence of European novels about Africa; and as a private purpose he meant the novel to be "an act of atonement with my past, the ritual return and homage of a prodigal son." This does not mean that he idealises Ibo society. He is a witness to the truth, and so, as he has said, "I bend over backwards to paint in all the unsavoury, all the unfavourable aspects of that culture."

Genre

Things Fall Apart is a tragic narrative. Fables and story telling form the kernel of the narrative approach because the traditional style of the African continent is used.

General Vision or Viewpoint

The general vision from this novel is how the cohesiveness and unity of African clans and tribes are made to ‘fall apart’ with the coming of Colonialism. The actual division of the novel corresponds to the changes within this society both before and after the coming of Colonialism. The first part of the text depicts pre-colonial Umofia and Okonkwo’s rise from poverty to wealth. Then the novel traces Okonkwo’s life in exile to his mother clan Mbanta. It is during his exile that colonialism is introduced into Ibo society. The final part of the novel deals with Okonkwo’s return to Umofia, which is followed by his death shortly after this. Colonialism is not seen to be a totally negative concept in the novel. Certain aspects such as Christianity, the establishment of political units, and the use of the English language are seen as positive elements. Christianity though initially seen with suspicion was welcomed because it conveyed a sense of benevolence and love and the idea of God as father

Cultural Context

The novel is set in West Africa at the beginning of colonialism. The British did not make great inroads into Nigerian society. The customs and traditions of the people were too strong.

But Achebe shows the gradual disintegration and falling apart of his clan's way of life. First came the missionaries. Even if one considers the missionaries had no intention of being harbingers of the colonialists, in effect they were an opening to the West.

This novel is not set in a tribal setting but in a clan. The clan was of the same ethnic group. The book is set in a village of one of nine Ibo villages each formed by one of the nine sons of the leader of the clan. Other tribes are mentioned only in passing, in a war situation. In this cultural setting religion and ruling of the Egwugwu holds the clans together.

There is a strong sense of future, of the need for sons to further the good of the clan. The clan needed to be populated. This is one of the reasons for the fact that society is polygamous. The wives and children provided labour and thus wealth. The novel is a good example of African socialism.

It is the clan, which is important, and not the individual. So the clan suffered for one man's guilt. No personal aggrandisement is permitted to individuals. There is an underlying suggestion that the author regrets this. So we realise that Unoka in a different society could have been a happy and creative musician and Nwoye would have preferred the creative stories of his mother to the stories of war told him by his father.

It is very important to understand that the ancestors were an integral part of the cultural set up. There was the living dead, that is those who had recently died and were still in the minds of the clan and the long dead who were no longer remembered. As the people had no explanation for sudden deaths or various forms of illness the ancestors were used as an explanation. So the ancestors caused epilepsy, viruses that caused swelling of the body, deafness, dumbness, etc.

Plot Summary

Things Fall Apart chronicles the life of Okonkwo, a senior member of the Ibo village of Umuofia in eastern Nigeria. Okonkwo has made it his life's purpose to avoid all the errors of his father, a kindly but utterly unsuccessful man who has never gained honours or otherwise risen in the village hierarchy.

What Okonkwo most despises are weakness and poverty. He is far from being a bad man, but his character is deeply flawed. He is practically obsessed with being held in high regard by the villagers; he is domineering in his relationships with his wives and children; and, on account of his fixed ideas and intransigence, he lacks the imagination to deal appropriately with new situations as they arise.

One harrowing episode in the novel illustrates perfectly the damage that Okonkwo's terror of weakness can cause. A young boy, Ikemefuna, is sent to Umuofia from a neighbouring village as compensation for the wrongful death of a Umofian girl.

While the elders decide what shall become of Ikemefuna, he is lodged with Okonkwo's family. In time, Okonkwo becomes very fond of him, even preferring him to his own son. Eventually, though, the elders decide that Ikemefuna should be put to death. At the moment of execution, Okonkwo, broken-hearted as he is at losing his adoptive son, delivers the fatal blow himself, out of fear that otherwise the villagers will think he is soft.

There are other trials after that which test Okonkwo's character, including his temporary expulsion from the village for a grievous mistake. But the real test comes with the arrival of Christian missionaries and the establishment of colonial rule.

Okonkwo proves a die-hard defender of village ways, but he and the other men of the village are unable to protect their people from the wiles of the District Commissioner. Frustrated and furious, Okonkwo kills the Commissioner's messenger, but his action does not meet with the approval of the other villagers.

He cannot bear this humiliation, so he hangs himself. And so the novel finishes with the awful irony of Okonkwo, intensely concerned throughout with maintaining a fine reputation, dying a shameful death, one that is regarded by the Ibo people as "an offence against the earth."

Themes and Issues

Colonialism
In this novel Achebe shows us how rich and varied pre-colonial African culture was. Achebe illustrates his anti colonial stance through the figure of his central character Okwnkowo.

In the first part of the novel Okonkwo represents both the values that held the society together and those that the people of Umuofia were proud of: manliness, courage, hard work, titles, barns full of yams, many women, etc. When colonialism comes, Okonkwo leads the others in resisting it.

He becomes the leader of his people's resistance to colonialism. His death therefore is a symbol of the destruction of the old order and the beginning of colonialism.

The central theme which runs through the text is that the cohesiveness and unity of the Ibo clan of Umuofia and the other eight villages of the clan are all made to fall apart by the coming of Colonialism. Okwnkowo sees this falling apart as a personal affront. In reality, he only understands violence.

His nature is not able to respond to love or respect. In effect, at the conclusion of the novel had he not killed the DC's messenger maybe the nine clans would have gone to war?

Religion
It was a sense of religion, which kept this society together. Man depended very much on the good or ill will of the gods and on his ancestors. They believed in one supreme god, Chukwu, who had to be obeyed unquestioningly. The personal god or chi was considered to be of extreme importance. These people lived in constant fear of the unknown. Physical power is the only value in this society.