Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

[IceM]

Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart, often seen as a response to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, tells the story of Okonkwo, a prominent member of his village who is banished for committing violence during a time of ceremonial peace. As he serves an exile imposed on him for this crime, the reader is immersed in the native customs of the surrounding villages. Through imagery and folk tales, Achebe presents a beautiful, lively vision of African culture that he feels is undermined by Conrad.

However, this pristine culture comes under attack. As the novel progresses, European missionaries gradually work their way into the surroundings villages, some peacefully, others violently; an entire village is slaughtered by the Europeans after the indigenous Africans attacked their emmissaries. The adjustment in Okonkwo's village is more relaxed, however. The last segments of the novel (perhaps anywhere from the last 80 to 100 pages) address how the natives co-exist with the Europeans, sometimes experiencing times of peace, other times experiencing open conflict. The natives tear down the Catholic church and struggle to maintain their traditions while being presented with this foreign "God."

Achebe's novel serves to portray the Africans as cultural and intellectual equivalents to the Europeans. In a separate essay, Achebe argues that Europeans have used Africa as a land of baseness, mystery and primitivism to combat European insecurities. This novel serves to counteract that generalization. This beautiful exaltation of one's own culture presents not only a view of Africa in stark contrast to that of literature at the time, it speaks to the need for one to defend one's own culture from foreign threats.

[hellsapoppin]

When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "let us close our eyes and pray." When we opened them, we had the Bible, and they had the land.

—Desmond Tutu

[billl]

It is worth noting that Achebe's story most certainly has gray areas for us to examine. The protagonist, Okonkwo, is a strong and great man--who is cowed into killing an innocent child that he has been raising almost as a son. Also, as mentioned, Okonkwo (and, thus, his family) is punished by his community for an accidental killing at a ritual ceremony. Onkwonko's people, we learn, are superstitious in regards to twins (among many other things), and abandon all infant twins in the forest to die after they are born.

For some in the community, the Church seems to be a big improvement in their lives, and while it is obviously an intrusion that leads to the loss of something that Achebe does indeed champion and portray as proud and beautiful, the resistance to the Church eventually becomes quite ugly. Of course, it is a sort of trap that might generally come along with well-meaning and/or "well-meaning" missionaries (the story gives us examples of both types, perhaps), and those who are converted to or sympathetic to the Church naturally don't seem at all to be the heroes--it's a mixed-bag, and it can be complicated to decide the ultimate reasons for these decisions and their moral value.

Of course, in the story, it indeed seems tragic that the Church, and then the government seize control and influence over these people. But, for me, this was a story that had something messy to say about the cultural clash and the injustice of the imperialism that conquered Okonkwo's people. Significantly, there was, Achebe tells us, injustice before.

I generally agree with the opinions expressed above in the OP, but I just want to add that this book is in no way a simple, straight-forward, and politically-correct celebration of a traditional African culture that has been lost. I strongly recommend this book, as well.

[OrphanPip]

Achebe does give us a nod towards the darker side of Igbo culture, and let's remember that this is Igbo culture and but a small part of contemporary Nigerian culture.

Okonkwo in many ways is an incomplete character, he doesn't understand his culture nearly as well as he thinks he does. At the same time, paradoxically, Achebe seems to set him up as a symbol of cultural resistance to the incoming Europeans. Like Bill mentioned, Ikemefuna's death is meant to be taken as a negative aspect of Igbo culture, but we're also supposed to notice that Ikemefuna is a more complete representative of what Igbo culture could be than Okonkwo is. Ikemefuna cherishes the "woman's stories" just as much as the things of men, and he has a compassion and appreciation of art that is also severely lacking from Okonkwo. Then we have people like Obeireka and Nwoye who also recognize the flaws in Igbo culture.

Achebe acknowledges that there were flaws with the society, but he also makes sure to point out that his culture had the seeds of change, like Nwoye, already within it.

And let's not forget that Achebe gives a subtle nudge towards the story of Isaac and Abraham when Nwoye adopts the name of Isaac after conversion. We're meant to say, oh ya that's right we have a story about a father sacrificing a son in our culture as well.

Then the title of course, an allusion to Yeats poem and theory of cyclical history and the end of Christian culture. Attacking the role religion played in colonialism is a major part of the novel, and undermining the notion that religion brought a superior morality that was unknown to the locals.

Also, just as a correction to the OP, the churches in the novel are Anglican.

[Wilde woman]

This is one of the few African novels that I've read, but it's quality stuff. For me, one of the major draws was the novel's tragic element. As you read about Okonkwo's story, it really feels like the exposition of a Classical tragedy.

[hellsapoppin]

''Ikemefuna's death''

Parallels the death of Jesus in the New Testament whose death displeases his god but ultimately leads to the redemption of the people. Ikemefuna's death displease Ani, the great earth goddess who is protectress of the community. But it leads to some people's conversion and ultimate ''salvation'' according to the teachings of Christian missionaries.