Summary Postcolonial novel notes ( Things Fall Apart by chinua Achebe)
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3101
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UNIVERSITY OF KALYANI
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1. What did Chinua Achebe’s writing concern about in Things Fall Apart?
2. Do the Plot and structure analysis in the novel Things Fall Apart by
Achebe?
Chinua Achebe, in full Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, (born November 16,
1930, Ogidi, Nigeria—died March 21, 2013, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.),
Nigerian novelist acclaimed for his unsentimental depictions of the social and
psychological disorientation accompanying the imposition of Western customs
and values upon traditional African society. His particular concern was with
emergent Africa at its moments of crisis; his novels range in subject matter from
the first contact of an African village with the white man to the educated
African’s attempt to create a firm moral order out of the changing values in a
large city. In 2007 he won the Man Booker International Prize.
Achebe grew up in the Igbo (Ibo) town of Ogidi, Nigeria. After studying
English and literature at University College (now the University of Ibadan),
Achebe taught for a short time before joining the staff of the Nigerian
Broadcasting Corporation in Lagos, where he served as director of external
broadcasting in 1961–66. In 1967 he cofounded a publishing company at Enugu
with the poet Christopher Okigbo, who died shortly thereafter in the Nigerian
civil war for Biafran independence, which Achebe openly supported. In 1969
Achebe toured the United States with fellow writers Gabriel Okara and Cyprian
Ekwensi, lecturing at universities. Upon his return to Nigeria he was appointed
research fellow at the University of Nigeria and became professor of English, a
position he held from 1976 until 1981 (professor emeritus from 1985). He was
director (from 1970) of two Nigerian publishers, Heinemann Educational Books
Ltd. and Nwankwo-Ifejika Ltd. After an automobile accident in Nigeria in 1990
that left him partially paralyzed, he moved to the United States, where he taught
at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. In 2009 Achebe left Bard
to join the faculty of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Things Fall Apart (1958), Achebe’s first novel, concerns traditional Igbo life at
the time of the advent of missionaries and colonial government in his homeland.
His principal character cannot accept the new order, even though the old has
already collapsed. In the sequel No Longer at Ease (1960) he portrayed a newly
appointed civil servant, recently returned from university study in England, who
, is unable to sustain the moral values he believes to be correct in the face of the
obligations and temptations of his new position.
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) is perhaps the best-known African novel of
the 20th century. Its main character is Okonkwo, whose tragic and fatal flaw,
his overweening ambition, wounds him. His frenzied desire to be anything but
what his father was causes him to develop a warped view of his society, so that
in the end that view becomes (thanks to seven humiliating years in exile) reality
to him. When he returns, he cannot accept seeing his people in the throes of
adapting to the intruding whites, and things fall apart for him: it is not the
society he envisioned, and he takes his life. Things Fall Apart is a precolonial
novel that ends with the coming of colonialism, which triggers Okonkwo’s
demise. Okonkwo is in any case doomed because of his skewed vision.
The narrative structure of Things Fall Apart follows a cyclical pattern that
chronicles Okonkwo’s youth in Umuofia, his seven-year exile in Mbanta, and
his eventual return home. Each of the novel’s three parts covers one of these
periods of Okonkwo’s life. The novel’s three parts also map onto a gendered
narrative structure that follows Okonkwo from fatherland to motherland back to
fatherland. This gendered narrative structure functions in counterpoint with
Okonkwo’s ongoing obsession with his own masculinity. Despite every attempt
to gain status and become an exemplar of traditional Igbo masculinity,
Okonkwo suffers from a feeling of relentless emasculation. Okonkwo’s struggle
to achieve recognition repeatedly draws him into conflict with his community,
eventually leading both to his own downfall and to that of Umuofia and the nine
villages.
Part One of Things Fall Apart emphasizes Okonkwo’s coming-of-age and his
attempts to distance himself from the disreputable legacy of his father, Unoka.
Okonkwo’s tireless efforts and singular drive, along with his local fame as a
wrestling champion, go a long way in securing him a place among the titled
men of Umuofia. Yet Okonkwo’s zeal frequently leads him astray, as when he
executes Ikemefuna, the young boy who became his surrogate son after being
surrendered to Umuofia by another village to settle a violent dispute. When the
clan elders decide it is time for Ikemefuna’s execution, an elder named Ogbuefi
Ezeudu warns Okonkwo that he should “not bear a hand in [Ikemefuna’s]
death.” Despite this warning, a moment of panic ultimately drives Okonkwo to
bring his machete down on his surrogate son: “He was afraid of being weak.”
At other points in Part One, Okonkwo shows himself quick to anger with his
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