LANGUAGE AS A THEME IN

‘THINGS FALL APART’

Kavisha Alagiya
Batch – MA 2019 – 2021
Paper 14 – The African Literature
Roll No.- 10
Enrolment No. – 2069108420200001
Email – [email protected]
Submitted to – Smt. S B Gardi Department of English, M K Bhavnagar University
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ABSTRACT
“You taught me language, and my profit on't. Is I know how to curse.”
(Shakespeare)
Language is never ahistorical or apolitical, but it carries an especial
charge in post-colonial contexts. (Jilani)
English Access to
Privilege

African Intellectual
punishment

Achebe’s foundational text ‘Things Fall Apart’ resonates all the African
voices. This presentation attempts to highlight the language employed
in the text ‘Things Fall Apart’ as a powerful critique with the help of
proverbial expressions.

Keywords- Language, proverbial expressions, Things Fall Apart

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INTRODUCTION
• Achebe’s text emerges as a critique of Western discourse on
Africa. ‘Things Fall Apart’ emend the portrait of Africa that was
painted by so many writers of the colonial period.
• This can best be possible by the use of the language of colonial
writers.
• Through his inclusion of proverbs, folktales, and songs
translated from the Igbo language, Achebe managed to capture
and convey the rhythms, structures, cadences, and beauty of the
Igbo language. (Sarkar)

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 OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this presentation are-

• To analyze, understand and appreciate the literary merits of

African Literature particularly ‘Things Fall Apart’.

• To highlight the oral cultural tradition and the use of Igbo words
that brings to light the prominence of African indigenous legacy.

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QUESTIONS
• How specific aspects of technique are
employed by Achebe to make his novel
aesthetically more interesting to read and
research?
• How the language is organized in ‘Things
Fall Apart’ as the heart of its organizing
design?

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CHINUA ACHEBE
Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) is an African writer, and more
specifically, is a Nigerian writer.
“A writer who has no illusions but is not disillusioned, loves
the people without necessity for self hatred and is gloriously
gifted with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent.”
(Gordimer)

The novels of Chinua Achebe illustrate the statement that:

‘life is chaotic, but art is orderly’
(Obiechina)

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 THINGS FALL
APART
• ‘Things Fall Apart’ published in 1958, is a foundational text which
constituted the core around which a literary tradition could be built.
• The novel chronicles the revolutionary changes that took place in
Africa in Igbo community.
• As a community, Igbo also represented Achebe’s language and
dialect.
“The first novel in English which spoke from the interior of an African
character, rather than portraying the African as exotic, as the white
man would see him”
-Wole Soyinka on Things Fall Apart
(Source – Achebe)

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 LANGUAGE AS A THEME
• According to David Lodge (quoted in Roger Fowler’s Languages of Literature), the novelist’s medium is
language. Whatever one does as a novelist is done in and through language. A novelist employs
language to create a literary world, project characters and situations, give credibility to the narrative
and sustain the attention and readership of the audience. (Adewole)
• Achebe educates readers extensively about Igbo society’s myths and proverbs through English
Language as a response or Postcolonial critique.
• When beginning Chinua Achebe’s novel ‘Things Fall Apart’, readers are often struct by the simple mode
of narration and equally simple prose style, which critics have seen as Achebe’s desire to achieve
“English…colored to reflect the African verbal style (with) stresses and emphases that would be
eccentric and unexpected in British or American Speech”. (McCarthy)

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 NARRATOR

Sympathetic It provides the Ironical towards Provides the

towards the clan insights of each the colonizers, motives of
people and every the British various
characters Missionaries individuals.

Anonymous Narrator Third Person Omniscient Figure Fablelike Perspective

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 PROVERBIAL EXPRESSIONS
• The Igbo culture is a very oral language.

“Having spoken plainly so far, Okoye said the next half a dozen sentences with proverbs. Among the Ibo
the art of conversation is regarded very highly and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten”
(Achebe)
• This quote shows how important proverbs are in everyday life as they are referred to as `palm oil' which
is a very important part of the tribe's life.
• “Everybody laughed heartily except Okonkwo, who laughed uneasily because, as the saying goes, an old
woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.” (Achebe)
• “Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wing break.” (Achebe)

• “As the elders said, if one finger brought oil it soiled the others.” (Achebe)

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 CONCLUSION
• Achebe successfully highlighted that Africa is not silent but is observant.
• The language is symbolic and employs ‘locusts’ as the symbol illustrate the damage
done by whites to the native crops.
“other white men were on their way. They were locusts, it (the oracle) said, and that
first man was their harbinger sent to explore the terrain” (Achebe)
• ‘Drum’ is used to describe the beating heats of the native people of the clans, who
are divided – some favors missionaries others opposes, but their hearts are
continuously beating in either of the situation.
“Go-di-di-go-go-di-go. Di-go-go-di-go”
the sound of drumbeats on the ekwe, or drums (Achebe)
• In Things Fall Apart, the very act of narration is often a celebration of the power of
the Igbo voice. (Gikandi)
• It can be said that Achebe had wrote the novel in English as a response to the West
narrative to be read by the colonizers.

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 WORKS CITED
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. London: Penguin Books, 2001. Book. 26 April 2021.

Adewole, Gerald. "Proverbs In Achebe’S Things Fall Apart". The Republic, 2020, https://republic.com.ng/december-19-january-20/proverbs-things-fall-apart/. Accessed 26
Apr 2021.

Gikandi, Simon. Reading Chinua Achebe: Language and Ideology in Fiction, London, 1991. Article. 26 April 2021.

Gordimer, Nadine. "A Tyranny of Clowns." The New York Times 21 February 1988. Webpage. 26 April 2021. <https://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/21/books/a-tyranny-of-
clowns.html?smid=url-share>.

Jilani, Sarah . Things Fall Apart: Chinua Achebe and the languages of African literature. 29 November 2018. University of Cambridge. Blog. 26 April 2021.
https://theconversation.com/things-fall-apart-chinua-achebe-and-the-languages-of-african-literature-106006 .

McCarthy, B. Eugene. “Rhythm and Narrative Method in Achebe's ‘Things Fall Apart.’” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 18, no. 3, 1985, pp. 243–256. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/1345790. Accessed 26 Apr. 2021.

Obiechina, Emmanuel. “Structure and Significance in Achebe's Things Fall Apart.” English in Africa, vol. 2, no. 2, 1975, pp. 38–44. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40238338.
Accessed 26 Apr. 2021.

Sankar, G. "Title of the Book - Things Fall Apart." International Journal of English Literature and Culture 3 (9) (2015): 243-247. Web document. 26 April 2021.
<https://www.academicresearchjournals.org/IJELC/PDF/2015/September/Sankar%20Book%20Review.pdf>.

Shakespeare, William. The tempest. Yale University Press, 2008. Web document. 26 April 2021.

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THANK YOU

Questions…!

Kavisha Alagiya
[email protected]

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