THINGS FALL APART: ACHEBE’S MAGNUM OPUS

The book, Things Fall Apart, announced and perpetuates Chinua Achebe as one of the foremost authentic voices in modern literary enterprise. Published in 1958, the book is a milestone in African literature and has achieved the status of the archetypal modern African novel in English. Of all of Achebe’s works,

Things Fall Apart is the one read most often and has generated the most critical response, examination and literary criticism. 

Considered Achebe’s magnum opus, it has sold more than eight million copies worldwide. The Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. The novel has been translated into more than 50 languages, and is often used in literature, world history and African studies courses across the world.

 Set in Pre-colonial Nigeria, Things Fall Apart highlights the clash between colonialism and traditional culture. The protagonist, Okonkwo, is strong, hardworking and strives to show no weakness. He is wealthy, courageous and powerful among the people of his village. He is a leader of his village, Umuofia, and he has accomplished a position in his society for which he has striven all his life.

However, his life is dominated by fear of failure and of weakness-the fear that he will resemble his father, Unoka. Ironically, in all his efforts not to end up like his father, he commits suicide, becoming in his culture, an abomination to the Earth and rebuked by the tribe as his father was (Unoka died from swelling and was likewise considered an abomination). Okonkwo’s suicide represents not only his culture’s rejection of him, but also his rejection of the changes in his people’s culture, as he realises that the Igbo society that he so valued, has been forever altered by the Christian missionaries.

Most of the story takes place in the village of Umuofia, located west of Onitsha in today’s Anambra State. The events of the novel unfold in the 1890s. 

Achebe writes his novels in English because written Standard Igbo was created by combining various dialects, creating a stilted written form. In a 1994 interview with The Paris Review, Achebe said, “the novel form seems to go with the English language. There is a problem with the Igbo language.

It suffers from a very serious inheritance, which it received at the beginning of this century from the Anglican mission. They sent out a missionary by the name of Dennis. Archdeacon Dennis. He was a scholar. He had this notion that the Igbo language-which had very many different dialects-should somehow manufacture a uniform dialect that would be used in writing to avoid all these different dialects. Because the missionaries were powerful, what they wanted to do they did. This became the law. But the standard version cannot sing. There’s nothing you can do with it to make it sing. It’s heavy. It’s wooden. It doesn’t go anywhere.” 

Achebe’s choice to write in English has caused controversy. While both African and non-African critics agree that Achebe modelled Things Fall Apart on classic European literature, they disagree about whether his novel upholds a Western model, or, in fact, subverts or confronts it. Achebe has continued to defend his decision: “English is something you spend your lifetime acquiring, so it would be foolish not to use it. Also, in the logic of colonisation and decolonisation it is actually a very powerful weapon in the fight to regain what was yours. English was the language of colonisation itself. It is not simply something you use because you have it anyway.” 

Achebe is noted for his inclusion of and weaving in of proverbs from Igbo oral culture into his writing. Achebe in Things Fall Apart explicitly referenced this influence: “Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.”

The man Achebe is considered as the essential novelist on African identity, nationalism, and decolonisation. His main focus has been cultural ambiguity and contestation. Reviewers have praised Achebe’s neutral narration and have described Things Fall Apart as a realistic novel.

Much of the critical discussion about Things Fall Apart concentrates on the socio-political aspects of the novel, including the friction between the members of Igbo society as confront the intrusive and overpowering presence of Western government and beliefs Achebe’s writing about African society, in telling from an African point of view the story of the colonisation of the Igbo, tends to extinguish the misconception that African culture had been savage and primitive. In Things Fall Apart, western culture is portrayed as being “arrogant and ethnocentric,” insisting that the African culture needed a leader.

As it had no kings or chiefs, Umofian culture was vulnerable to invasion by western civilisation. It is felt that the repression of the Igbo language at the end of the novel contributes greatly to the destruction of the culture. Although Achebe favours the African culture of the pre-western society, the author attributes its destruction to the “weaknesses within the native structure.” Achebe portrays the culture as having a religion, a government, a system of money, and an artistic tradition, as well as a judicial system.

The achievement of Things Fall Apart set the foreground for numerous African novelists. Because of Things Fall Apart, novelists after Achebe have been able to find an eloquent and effective mode for the expression of the particular social, historical, and cultural situation of modern Africa. Before Things Fall Apart was published, Europeans had written most novels about Africa, and they largely portrayed Africans as savages who needed to be enlightened by Europeans. It is held that the book is Achebe’s response to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a novel that portrays Africans as savages.

Achebe broke apart this view by portraying Igbo society in a sympathetic light, which allows the reader to examine the effects of European colonialism from a different perspective. He commented, “The popularity of Things Fall Apart in my own society can be explained simply… this was the first time we were seeing ourselves, as autonomous individuals, rather than half-people, or as Conrad would say, ‘rudimentary souls’.” 

The language of the novel has not only intrigued critics but has also been a major factor in the emergence of the modern African novel. Because Achebe wrote in English, portrayed Igbo life from the point of view of an African man, and used the language of his people, he was able to greatly influence African novelists, who viewed him as a mentor. 

In 1987, the book was made into a very successful mini series directed by David Orere and broadcast on the Nigeria Television Authority. It starred movie veterans like Pete Edochie, Nkem Owo and the late Sam Loco.

By BRUCE MALOGO