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Things Fall Apart Is A Postcolonial Novel Written by Nigerian Author Chinua Achebe in 1958
Things Fall Apart Is A Postcolonial Novel Written by Nigerian Author Chinua Achebe in 1958
Md Muzaffar Aalm
EOB 556
Fall Apart is a postcolonial novel written by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe and
published in 1958.This novel widely read and studied in English speaking country around the
world .It provides deep level of culture detail it also deals with clash of cultures and violent
transitions in life and values brought about by the onset of British colonialism in Nigeria at the
end of nineteenth century. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English and one
The action of Things Fall Apart occurs in two places. Most of the action is set in Umuofia
before the arrival of white missionaries into their land. At one point, the main character
Okonkwo and his family briefly move to Mbanta, another Igbo village in the same region. The
novel is split into three parts the first two describing the Igbo people and their culture and
the third describing the British and the colonial conquer of Umofia. Most of the novel centers
around the lives of the Igbo people, and their environment. Novel depicts the life of Okonkwo a
wealthy local leader and warrior raised from nothing to a high position. Through hard work, he
has become a great man among his people. He has taken three wives and his barn is full of yams,
the staple crop. He rules his family with an iron fist. Novel shows his struggles and efforts to
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achieve his goal. Okonkwo accidentally kills Escudo’s son. For his crime, the village determines
he must spend seven years in exile to appease the gods. During his exile, white missionaries
arrive in the village. When Okonkwo finally returns, the white men have thoroughly infiltrated
his village. The missionaries arrive first, preaching a religion. They win converts, but generally
the converts are men of low rank or outcasts. However, with time, the new religion gains
momentum The church has won some converts, some of whom are fanatical and disrespectful of
clan custom. Some of the villagers, including Okonkwo, want to stage an uprising against the
village. The clan calls a meeting to decide whether they will fight or try to live peacefully with
the whites. Okonkwo wants war but They will not fight the white men off Unable to live with his
revelation, Okonkwo kills himself. This is a very important moment in the novel because,
according to Okonkwo's traditional beliefs, suicide is not allowed. Okonkwo's desperation about
his changing village is staggering if it can outweigh his strict adherence to the traditional ways.
At the end of the novel, a white commissioner, upon learning about Okonkwo's rebellion and
suicide, notes that it will make an interesting paragraph in the book he is writing about 'the
The characters in Things Fall Apart are mostly from Nigeria. These particular Nigerians
are members of the Igbo people a particular ethnic group within Nigeria. Chinua Achebe, shows
how each character lives as an Igbo in Nigeria both before and during the opening stages of
English colonization. This was when the English came to Nigeria to settle there and to take the
leadership of the land. However, these characters are not simply their culture; they also have
their own individual strengths and weaknesses that lead them to react to one another and to
In this novel historical and biographical criticism go hand in hand. Through his
novel Things Fall Apart, author presents a clan of Igbo people and their way of life during the
beginning of colonization in Africa. Most of the story took place in the fictional village of
Iguedo, which is in the Umuofia clan. Umuofia is located west of the actual city of Onitsha, on
the east bank of the Niger River Nigeria. The events of the novel unfold in the 1890s. The culture
depicted, that of the Igbo people, is similar to that of Achebe's birthplace of Ogidi, where Igbo
speaking people lived together in groups of independent villages ruled by titled elders. The
customs and cultures were described in the novel such as polytheistic religion family and
farming culture are the mirror of the actual Onitsha people because they are polytheistic with
different gods or goddesses to oversee each aspect of life. Their familial traditions father-son
inheritance traditions are the same as in Igbo society who lived near Ogidi, and with whom
Achebe was familiar. Within forty years of the arrival of the British, by the time Achebe was
born in 1930, the missionaries were well established. He lived in the British culture but he
refused to change his Igbo name Chinua to Albert. Achebe's father was among the first to be
converted in Ogidi, around the turn of the century. Achebe himself was an orphan raised by his
grandfather. His grandfather, far from opposing Achebe's conversion to Christianity, allowed
Analyzing Chinua Achebe’s novel from a gender perspective we have explored the male
characters and their dealings with women are patriarchal. We see very strict gender roles in the
Umuofian society. Women have no right to do something without men’s permission even they
cannot feed someone all these things shows gender discrimination in this novel. There are
certain tasks designated to women that men simply don't do. One of these is dinner. Women are
expected to provide dinner for their husbands and take care of children. When a man has
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multiple wives, each of them provides meal for him and for her own children. We see an
example of this with Okonkwo's youngest wife, Ojiugo. She goes to a neighbor's hut to get her
hair plaited and does not come back in time for dinner. One of the other wives has to feed
Ojiugo's children without being asked, and Okonkwo notices her absence when he waits for his
dinner and she does not show. The men also have set roles in everyday life. They are in charge of
village laws, making sure rules are followed and determining appropriate punishment. Another
thing in Igbo has the counting system of wives –first wife second-wife third-wife and so on so as
we count things they do not mentions the name of wife because of the root og gender
discrimination lay in deep socio-culture psyche of the Igbo community. Men are expected to be
protectors and providers. If there is war or conflict, they're expected to fight. They are also
expected to provide for their families In Umuofian society, it is sons who inherit from their
fathers and help them in their work. Daughters cannot inherit and typically don't help their
fathers the way a son would. Here again, we see gender roles creating tension in Things Fall
Apart. Okonkwo's daughter Ezinma is his favorite child. She knows him best and they get along
better than any of the other children After analyzing the topic in depth, we came to the
conclusion that the Ibo society is commonplace for the subjugation of women, women that are
caught in a mind warp that convinces them of their lower position in society blaming it on the
In this novel psychoanalytic theory partly consists of Freudian theories relating to mind,
our instincts and sexuality and is based on the premises that human behavior is driven by
unconscious process. People always have some problems in life. Their problems can be caused
by their own or people around them. It becomes interesting when the problem happens inside our
mind, which can be in the form of anxiety fear .Okonkwo is the main character in this novel. He
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has many problems and conflicts that are caused by the circumstances around him. He has his
own conflict inside his mind and also conflicts with the environment around him caused by the
negative image of his father. Okonkwo’s life is complicated since he suffers from the fear of his
father’s image in society and culture changing that makes his family and tradition fall apart. It
leads him to unconsciously apply several defense mechanisms action to relieve his self from his
anxieties. Fear and anxiety deep in unconscious mind, irrational impulses synonymous,
between father and son are different psychoanalytical terms associated to Okonkwo but
most fitting is story of fear. In the novel protagonist relationship to his mother plays a
significant role in explaining the tense with his father and own sons. This shows Oedipus
complex which is used in the theory of psychoanalytic to describe feeling of desire for his or her
opposite sex and jealousy and anger towards his or her same sex. The fear that is injected in
him in childhood, use all his adult age for escaping of fear but at the end commits
suicide out of fear. We find in okonkwo id superego when stretched himself and scratched
his thigh where a mosquito had bitten him as he slept. The murder of Ikemefuna caused
great anxiety in him. It is a painful anguish where Ego’s inability to control the in futile
demands of unconscious mind. He can neither eat nor sleep where he resembles Macbeth who
economically disturbed for two whole days. In planning murder Ego is not working rather
ID and Superego of irrational impulses synonymous that caught great warrior. Mosquito bite
shows that great warrior‘s superego is working as it awaken him from sleep so he is
between conscious and coconscious mind. It also depicts ideas and morals of Igbo Society
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Things Fall Apart the following myth would be discussed critically, the mosquito myth,
locust myth, the Osu myth and the myth of the earth and sky. The mosquito myth is discussed as
thus: Mosquitoes had ask Ear to marry him Whereupon Ear fell in the floor laughing The Osu
myth has an age long place among the Igbos and Osu is a person dedicated to a god. The person
naturally becomes a taboo forever and his children after him. The Osus are also revealed in
Things Fall Apart as one of the early converts that came to the church (1966:296) said that their
origin may be unknown but they are regarded as one of the historical tradition of the Igbos in
Nigeria. They lived in the forest in Things Fall Apart and these forests are sacred and often
dedicated to the gods. Forests to them are not a place of death but that which preserves and
nurtures them to fulfill the purpose why they exist. Osu stands for that is united with the forest.
The Osu ended up among the 1st that benefited from western education .The rustic environment
can therefore be said to be a place that nurtures for eventual educational achievement.
The use of universal archetypes in Achebe’s writing can be clearly seen through an
examination of multiple characters in the text. These characters contain common ideals and
characteristics with characters dating back to Greek-roman literature; ideals and characteristics
that later would develop into the modern archetype explained by Carl Jung. Jung’s archetype
system is at its core the idea of the collective unconscious .Okonkwo, the main character of the
possessions and well-regarded in his community. However, his fatal flaw is revealed, in “the
thought of his father’s weakness and failure troubled him. These thoughts of failure and
weakness force him to overcompensate through becoming extremely successful and never being
able to show weakness. Okonkwo begins to fill the mold of the tragic hero at this point, in that he
is overcome with his sense of negativity surrounding his so he dispels this idea by becoming an
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extremely successful and showing no weakness. The character Obierika in Things Fall Apart is
another example of the relationship that the story has, both to western readers and to ancient
literature, due to universal archetypal patterns in the text. Obierika’s role in the novel is not a
large one; however, he plays an important role as a symbol for the archetype of the sage.
Obierika is described partially in contrast to Okonkwo, being a man of wise decisions, deep
There are many universal symbols in the novel such fire ”yam the main
character, Okonkwo, is often described in terms of fire and flames - his nickname is even
'Roaring Flame' - so, to him, fire symbolizes potential, masculinity, and life. Yams are symbols
of masculinity, wealth, and strength in this novel. Yams are like sweet potatoes, and, in
Okonkwo's world, they're an important crop grown exclusively by men. The more yams a man
has, the wealthier and more respected he is. In short, a man's worth is judged by the worth of his
yams. You might guess, ash is seen as impotent, cold, and lifeless. Okonkwo links ash to
emasculation. Not only does Okonkwo compare his own son, Nwoye, to ash, but the court
messengers are also a comment about the color of their shorts but also about their masculinity.
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