Things Fall Apart is a text by Chinua Achebe that adopts its title from a poem by W.B Yeats, “The Second Coming”. This poem speaks of a looming doom just as Achebe’s text resolves on the cliff of portending communal disaster.
The text can be referred to as a reaction provoked by the entrenched racism and ideological motivation that shaped the conception of novels like Joseph’s Conrad’s, Heart of Darkness and Joyce Cary’s, Mr Johnson.
Colonial bodies had tried with much effort to infuse into Africans that they had a past marked by a lack of intellectual authority to achieve a sustainable culture. The need to inculcate a lack of history and culture was motivated by the necessity of psychological subjugation to aid the smooth venture of colonialism.
To prove that a people had a culture is to ascertain their capacity of economic and political autonomy. A pre-existing culture recollected, ignited a voice to vindicate liberty. This text was a deathblow struck to the narrative of cultural absence.
Achebe, like other writers of those years, wrote in response to denigrating mythologies and representations of Africans by nineteenth and twentieth-century British and European writers such as Joyce Cary, James Conrad, Jules Verne, and Pierre Loti, to show, as Achebe put it, that the African past was not one long night of savagery before the coming of Europe.
This text articulated a new vision of the African world and gave expression to an African experience that resonates with Africans. It presented an image of a coherent social structure forming the institutional fabric of a universe of meanings and values.
The complexities expressed in the workings of an autonomous African society challenged the simplified representation offered by the West, where Africa was mainly used as a prop. In Achebe’s society, the passing of life and seasonal rites are attuned to natural rhythm of its living environment, from the week of peace, to the week of planting to the new yam festival and the after-harvest rest as institutionalized by rainy/dry season or the cold harmattan.
This text is much acclaimed by scholars. It has been described by Appiah as “the archetypal modern African novel in English” (1992, ix). It stays true to the consensual paradigm of defining modern African literature. More than its thematics and functionality, borrowing largely from oral tradition for expressive endeavor labels it “African”.
It is widely agreed that beyond its function in the African tradition, orality also serves as a paradigm for the written literature in the European languages, a literature whose distinctive mark is the striving to attain the condition of oral expression even within the boundaries established by Western literary conventions.
Achebe accorded this text with certain attributes that met with the prescription of orality, the distinction of experience and would reverberate with its African audience throughout its existence. These attributes are evident in the rhythmic speech pattern that guided conversations in the text, the proverbs and riddles, fables and myths, rituals and beliefs, dance and chants.
The quality of the manner of Achebe’s presentation is the hallmark of Things Fall Apart. In this text, cultural reference governs both the fictional universe and the expressive means by which the human experience framed within this universe is conveyed. In reference to the culture of the Igbo people, the fictional universe in this text is characterized by,
a) Deep reverence for religion and the oracle. The people in this society lived in constant worship and obedience of instruction. The divination and instructions of the Oracle is strictly adhered to.
…”and in all fairness to Umuofia it should be recorded that it never went to war unless its case was clear and just and was accepted as such by its Oracle… There were indeed occasions when the Oracle had forbidden Umuofia to wage war. If the clan had disobeyed the Oracle they would surely have been beaten…”(pp. 11-12).
b) A standardized method of entertainment. Apart from storytelling, they were other forms of entertainment in this society, the wrestling contest was described as an activity that drew a frenzy crowd and caused heightened entertainment.
“…five matches ended in this way. But the really exciting moments were when a man was thrown. The huge voice of the crowd then rose to the sky and in every direction. It was even heard in the surrounding villages” (p. 45).
c) A passage of rite. Marital and burial rites of the Igbo people were exposed in this text. The marriage rites involved communication and bargains between the families involved. In Umuofia, Akueke and Ibe were used to expose specific marital rites. In Mbanta, Amikwu was used to expose the rites (p. 120).
When a man dies, drums are beaten to tell the village about the death. This is different for Ogbuefi Ndulue, because his wife death happened immediately after his and she had to be buried before him (p. 62)
d) A judiciary system guided by the undisputed wisdom of the ancestral spirits. Nine egwugwu representing different villages of the clan assembled and passed judgements on the cases that were brought to them (pp. 80-82).
e) Spiritual underpinning to seeming natural phenomenon. A man’s life is as a result of the will of his chi. Unfortunate or fortune events are not merely circumstantial but a result of the chi. Ezinma being born as a sickly child would be left to the jurisdiction of health in most western societies, but it was different in Umuofia.
…Everybody knew she was an ogbanje. These sudden bouts of sickness and health were typical of her kind…(p. 72)
Expressive means governed by cultural reference speaks to the orality of the text. Proverbs, songs, metaphors and fables are all part of the oral tradition. The use of proverbs in fostering communication is evident in this text. Achebe tell us in Things Fall Apart that, “amongst the ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly and proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten (p.6). Examples of proverbs in this texts includes but does not limit to,
a) Our elders say that the sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.
b) looking at a king’s mouth, one would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast.
c) an old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.
d) a child’s fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot gam which its mother puts into its palm.
e) as our people say, when mother cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth (p. 64)
f) as a man danced, so the drums were beaten for him (p. 167).
Songs, chants and instruments are used in various passages to infuse an oral texture to the text. Nwoye sang to reassure himself on his way to his death (p. 54). The wrestling match that takes place on the second day of the new yam festival was ended with a song, “…they sang his praise and the young women clapped their hands: who will wrestle for our village?…” (p. 46).
The thematics of this text are also reflected in the short folktales told as fables. Colonial encounter and the violence surrounding this encounter is one of the thematic explored. When Obierika told recounted the tragedy of colonial presence in Abame and the implication of it, Uchendu told a tale about kite, duckling and chick (p. 127).
The divergent birds coming in contact unpleasantly in this tale summarized the meeting of different race during colonial expenditure.
In this text, the relationship between the individual and the society is also interrogated. The priestesss said to Okonkwo…”The evil you have done can ruin the whole clan. The earth goddess who you have insulted may refuse to give us her increase and we shall all perish”…(pg. 28).
A man does not live in isolation, neither does his action stay within the boundaries of his doorstep. This way of living expressed the communality that existed prior to the division set in by the Europeans. The book 1 of things fall apart documented how individuals can flourish in their interaction with the society.
The folk tale of the tortoise and the flock of birds going for a feast told by Ekwefi reiterates this motif (pp. 87-90). In this communal living, actions had consequences as dictated by their culture. They were rules ensuring the incessant harmony of this communal society.
When Okonkwo committed a female offense he was exiled for 7 years, when the people of Mbaino killed a daughter of Umuofia, they had to give human compensation of a young man and a virgin. The society is self sufficient as exposed by the seasons of plentiful experienced in Umuofia. “…no matter how heavily the family are or how many friends and relations they invited from neighbouring villages, there was was always a huge quantity of food left over at the end of the day…”(pp. 33-34)
Achebe does not just describe a society ignorant of introspection and perfect in its existence. “Umuofia was represented as a locus of reflective civility”. Concepts and value systems of the tribe are constantly debated and reexamined. An example from the texts is the passage that narrated Okonkwo’s exile,
…Obierika was a man who thought about things. When the will of the goddess had been done, he sat down in his obi and mourned his friend’s calamity. Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offence he had committed inadvertently? (p. 113).
Different critics have examined this work to determine its defining quality of distinction. The distinction of Things Fall Apart can be examined in the disconnection and a strive to reconnect by the author as evident in both narrative style and content.
The novel’s content has a functional relation with its narrative code. He examined that in the text, “Umuofia is simultaneously “they” and “us” and this subtle combination of detachment and participation helps Achebe manipulate P.O.V.
This narrative style reveals the complexity of “twoness” just as the unfolding of the latter part of the text expresses. Despite divergent destination of different criticism, it is generally agreed that Things Fall Apart is the quintessential African text.