CULTURAL CONFLICTS IN CHINUA ACHEBE’S THINGS FALL APART
Chinua
Achebe has emerged as the doyen of modern African writing in English with the
publication of his first major novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), which has
been acclaimed by the world as ‘a classic in modern African writing in
English”, is a worthy archetype of the novel which shows the tragic
consequences of Africa’s encounter with Europe.
The novel captures the spirit of the African society during the
transitional period. It delineates the encounter between the tribal i.e. Igbo
culture and the British culture necessitated by the historical force of
colonialism. The values and ideals of African culture are presented elaborately
and contrasted with the British and Christian culture. In the novel the
Carys, and Conrads of Colonial Africa are represented by the District
Commissioner whose own version of the story of imperial conquest is to be told
in a book entitled, “The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger”
(p.187) a book in which Africans are to be represented as primitive savages,
and the destruction of a sophisticated culture rendered as ‘Pacification’. Achebe subverts and dismantles the racial
codes of this paradigmatic colonial text entitled by contextualizing it in an
alternative discourse-one which seeks to restore ‘dignity and self-respect’ to
‘African People’. For Achebe’s own
version of the story – Things Fall Apart – tells of the
tragic consequences of imperialism, of the destruction of a culture which
manifested ‘great depth and value and beauty’.
The book
embraces the entirety of Achebe’s culture and is an examination of the
phenomena that have already taken place, which would mean the recreation of the
moment, the race and the milieu through the writer’s cultural and racial
memory. The book is like a fossil shell
which gives a basis for a better understanding of the book and what the writer
wants to communicate.
The spread of imperialism in Africa has created areas of political influence and
domination which naturally produced a far-reaching influence in the growth of
African Literature. English, French and other European languages became a part
of African culture and literatures of the western world provided models for the
African writers. But the native sensibility retained its identity, though layer
of foreign influences became a part of African Literature. African literature of today successfully
presents the conflicts and contradictions within the African society and also
provides a glimpse of things in future.
Colonialism meant the beginning of the process of Europeanisation. Africans confronted new values and habits
which always did not fit into their cultural background. Africans were judged on the basis of European
norms and values by the colonial powers. The African writers have drawn the
attention of the world on the predicaments faced by their people, and they have
presented the different facets of African heritage in their writings. In spite of their respect for the traditional
values, the African writers of today do not like to revive everything which is
old. The African writers have adopted an
enlightened outlook and they know what to take from the non-African cultures.
The African novel, in general is
known for its depiction of various cultural tensions and conflicts arising out
of a clash between tradition and modernity, the real and the occult and so
on. But, it is the conflict between the
individual and the society and the way in which it is resolved, that seems to
lend a typical African flavour to the African novel, thus distinguishing it
from its European counterpart. Chinua Achebe’s comments on colonial fiction and
on the role of the African writer suggest that he was himself aware when he was
writing that he was creating a new literature.
He has written the following in an article entitled “The Role of the Writer in a New
Nation”:
In
the face of colonial derogation, the prime duty of the African writer in the
first few years after independence was to restore dignity to the past, to show
that African people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans;
that their societies were not mindless, but frequently had a philosophy of
great depth and value and beauty, that they had poetry and above all, they had
dignity.2
Chinua Achebe has emerged as the
doyen of modern African writing in English with the publication of his first
major novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), which has been acclaimed by the world
as ‘a classic in modern African writing in English”, is a worthy archetype of
the novel which shows the tragic consequences of Africa’s encounter with
Europe. The novel captures the spirit of
the African society during the transitional period. It delineates the encounter
between the tribal i.e. Igbo culture and the British culture necessitated by
the historical force of colonialism. The values and ideals of African culture
are presented elaborately and contrasted with the British and Christian
culture. In the novel the Carys, and Conrads of Colonial
Africa are represented by the District Commissioner whose own version of the
story of imperial conquest is to be told in a book entitled, “The
Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger” (p.187) a book
in which Africans are to be represented as primitive savages, and the
destruction of a sophisticated culture rendered as ‘Pacification’. Achebe subverts and dismantles the racial
codes of this paradigmatic colonial text entitled by contextualizing it in an
alternative discourse-one which seeks to restore ‘dignity and self-respect’ to
‘African People’. For Achebe’s own version
of the story – Things Fall Apart – tells of the tragic consequences of
imperialism, of the destruction of a culture which manifested ‘great depth and
value and beauty’.
Things Fall Apart was written and
published in the years immediately preceding Nigerian independence in 1960, a
transitional period when political power was being transferred from the
colonial masters to Nigerian male elite.
Things Fall Apart legitimizes this process whereby women were
excluded from post-colonial politics and public affairs through its
representation of Pre-colonial Ibo society as governed entirely by men. In Hassoldt Davis’s review of Achebe’s first
novel, Things Fall Apart, he states, “No European ethnologist could so intimately present this medley of
mores of the Ibo tribe, so detail the intricate formalities of life in the
clan”.3 Milton S. Byam wrote of Things Fall Apart,“This is a tale grounded in folklore rather
than a novel…”4. Donald
Herdeck averted, “Things Fall Apart has become the most famous novel written in
English by an African” 5.
In the novel Things Fall Apart,
Achebe portrays a stunning moment in African history-the imposition of colonial
rule –with sympathy and dignity, focusing and the complexity and integrity of
pre-colonial Igbo life, and the turmoil resulting from British rule. A ’Classic’
in every sense of the word, it has become the single best known African novel
around the globe, translated into at least 45 different languages. The novel, Things
Fall Apart is a faithful record of his transitional but turbulent
period of African history vis-à-vis Nigeria Nigeria
Although Things Fall Apart may
appear to be exclusively concerned with the imposition of colonial rule and the
traumatic encounter between African and Europe ,
it is also a work that seeks to address the crisis of culture generated by the
collapse of colonial rule. Indeed, Achebe has constantly argued that the theme
of colonial domination in Africa –its rise and influence –was made imperative
in his works by his concern that the culture of colonialism had had such a
strong hold on African peoples, especially on a psychological level, that its
consequences could continue to haunt African society long after European
colonizers had left the continent. Things
Fall Apart is Achebe’s attempt to depict and re-create the culture of
pre-colonial Africa , a culture of great
philosophical “depth”, “value”, “beauty” and “dignity” of its own. He has achieved this not by writing of
African cultural traditions in a self-conscious, sociologist’s manner, but by
creatively evoking each of the different rituals and ceremonies of the Ibo
community in their most essential form.
In part I of Things Fall Apart, for example, seven chapters, one after the
other focus on the various festivals and ceremonies observed by the Umuofia
tribe about whom the story is. There is
the Feast of the Yams that the families of Okonkwo and other villagemen
participate, in to celebrate the occasion of harvest. Again the wrestling match is held between the
young village boys, one of whom is Maduka, the son of Obierika, an important
character in the book. The Ibo
Engagement and the Wedding ceremonies are presented in the engagement and
wedding ceremonies of Obierika’s daughter.
The Ibo Funeral ceremony is captured through the ceremonies conducted at
the death of Ezeudu, the oldest inhabitant of Umuofia. Similarly, the Ibo way of settling disputes
is depicted in the setting of the marital dispute between Odukwe and his
wife. Thus, as the general is depicted
through the particular, the cultural history of a particular community in a
particular point of time and space comes alive with vividness and
verisimilitude. Connecting the different
episodes and descriptions of rituals in the book is the underlying story of
Okonkwo, a brave and outstanding warrior of Umuofia, who aspired to become one
of the lords of the clan but failed because a major transformation took place
in the tribe’s way of life and value system as a result of the colonization of Africa . The
portrayal of communal activity, popular superstitions and beliefs, the communal
response to the events of grief and joy is necessary in the book, not merely
for its assertion of national dignity, but also because the story of Okonkwo’s
life has meaning only in relation to the community of which he was a
member. The life of the Umuofia community
is not idealized or romanticized. For,
while it is certainly shown to be an important, “advanced” (culturally
advanced, that is) society with its fairly complex and developed sense of
social hierarchy, functions, rites, rituals, duties, sense of justice, peace
and discipline, it is also depicted as a society whose injunctions border on
the inhuman and harsh, sometimes making it difficult for the meek or the
unfortunate to accept them intrinsically.
Twins, for example, were considered to be a violation against nature and
therefore if born to someone, had to be left to die or to be eaten up by birds,
animals, in Evil Forest
As the story unfolds, one realizes
that Okonkwo is guilty a little too often of violating the tribal code. For, he appears to have completely
misunderstood the tribal ideal of equilibrium between strength and
gentleness. In Okonkwo, the pursuit of
the ideal of strength is so imbalanced, that it prompts him to be merciless
both towards himself and towards others.
He cannot eat for two days after killing Ikemefuna, yet (despite
Ezeudu’s warning) he participates in the boy’s killing (p.51) because he feels
that not to do so would amount to “weakness”.
His life is one long anxiety to achieve social honour through valour and
courageous deeds. Twenty years ago he had won the wrestling match from the
hitherto invincible champion, Amalinze the Cat; he had also led Umuofia in two
wars. The tribe believed that one would
do well if one’s yams were cracked by one’s ancestors, but everybody knew that
Okonkwo’s yams had been cracked by himself.
He had achieved social status through hard work and discipline alone. This had made him proud and intolerant
sometimes of those who were weak and unsuccessful. On one occasion, he even insults a member of
the clan for his poverty and the elders rebuke him and warn him against pride
(p.24). Again, when during the week of Peace, for a very small cause,
he is enraged with his wife and he thrashes her, he is punished by the village
elders for disturbing the community’s peace.
He is, one realizes, always being corrected by the village elders for
his excesses. This highlights the main
“flaw” in his nature and contributes to the human portrayal of Okonkwo’s
character. Okonkwo, too, always accepts the community’s sentence on his
misdeeds. That a great man like him is
not spared by the law of the clan speaks for the highly developed concept of
justice among the tribes, the tribes that were later to be labelled as
“uncivilized” and “barbarous” by the white man.
In spite of his failings, Okonkwo is
the hero of the novel. He is the man who
achieves a certain status in society by dint of sheer effort. The Ibo society which “respected age but (it)
revered achievement”, reveres Okonkwo who had truly risen to his present status
from the position of a very poor young man left in heavy debt by his
father. He is an example to the clan of
what men may achieve if they tried. Okonkwo is a very brave and disciplined
member of the clan and if he makes mistakes he also gracefully submits to
communal justice as is the custom of the land.
He is a great man because all his life he had consciously worked towards
the perfection of his character to achieve the ideals of the Ibo
community. His choice of death by
suicide (a socially degrading mode of death) symbolizes his despair and his
unwillingness to live on in a once-great community now become “soft like a
woman” (emasculated) by the colonizer’s religion and way of life which has
altered the traditional ideals and values, and by the new (capitalist) economic
system of the British that has brought prosperity to the former barter society.
The novel also tries to explore the
reasons for the collapse of the strong tribal way of life. For one thing, as Toynbee has pointed out in
his book, A study of History, “cultures
once born, do not continue to evolve automatically but have to be rejuvenated
periodically”6. This regeneration occurs through an interaction
or encounter with another culture.
Should the challenge provided by the alien culture be met with adequate
response, then a “genesis” of the challenged culture world results. However, should the challenge from the new
culture prove too strong for the old culture, then the latter may succumb to
the new culture. In such a case “though
individual members (rise) to the occasion, the society as a whole (can) not
resist the tide and its identity (is) submerged in an alien culture and an
alien religion.” We can see how this
comes to pass in the society of Things Fall Apart. In one scene towards the end of the novel,
Obierika and Okonkwo are discussing how the white man has successfully brought
about the downfall of the tribal civilization:
…The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his
religion. We were amused at his
foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now
he has won our brothers and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us
together and we have fallen apart (p.160).
Matters were not
so simple however. The old way of life
had grown decadent and required to be updated.
Thus the tribe had failed to comprehend.
Consequently, when threatened by the new ways of the colonizer, the
tribe had succumbed to the threat and challenge posed by the white man. The position of the colonizer in Africa was further strengthened by a powerful white
government in the background, a government that punished the natives severely
for any offensives-even just ones-levelled against the white man. This display of ruthless, colonial power is
best exemplified in the episode involving the District Commissioner and the six
clan leaders from Umuofia (pp.174-177) which is a warning both to the clan
leaders and to the tribe of the wide powers of the district Commissioner and
the futility of attempting a fresh assault on the white man’s superiority. Besides, the advantages of a capitalist
economy and the agencies of social welfare such as hospitals and schools, make
the people unwilling to go to war against the people who have brought these
much needed benefits to them for the first time. Thus, the tribals’ warrior
spirit had been successfully tamed, enslaved “colonized” by the white man. It is this realization that dawn on Okonkwo when
he finds the people unresponsive to his lone cry of war against the
colonizer. Instead, the large crowd
stands aside to let just four messengers, coming from the commissioner with an
order to halt the meeting immediately, pass.
In this act of spiritless submission to the new power, Okonkwo sees the
death of the tribe. He, the epitome of
the tribal notions of self-respect and dignity, is unable to accept the
humiliating transformation in the tribeman’s psyche and decides to put an end
to his life, a life that had been consciously spent in the quest and defence of
the tribes’ cherished ideals. All this
Achebe has conveyed in Things Fall Apart with sensitivity,
realism and economy of language.
Things Fall Apart is, thus the story
of okonkwo’s resistance to the colonial power of the British. The British
government in Africa may break him, but can
never bend him. Thus he becomes a spokesman of his cultural values and becomes
a martyr. Much of the tribal ethos has been evoked through the use of Ibo
proverbs occurring both in the narrative and in the dialogue of the
characters. Achebe has delineated the
colonial conflict between the two cultures very convincingly and beautifully
from an insider’s perspective through the employment of African brand of English,
which is impregnated with African idioms, proverbs and cultural semiotics
thereby giving a poetic dimension to the prose narrative. The proverbs “A toad does not run in the daytime for
nothing” (p.19) and “Whenever you see
a toad jumping in broad day light, then know that something is after its life”
(P.182) basically express one and the same idea, that whenever there is
something unusual in the movement or decision of people, then it is enough to
suggest that there is some obvious reason.
The proverb “ whenever you see a
toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life”
refers to the fall of the traditional culture of Umuofia in face of the advent
of the white man’s religion and cruel laws.
The absorption of the Ibo idiom into English makes it possible for
Achebe to effectively convey as distinct an experience as the African in a
language that is of the British originally.
The ending of Things
Fall Apart also illustrates the dichotomy of interpretations which
cultural backgrounds impose upon a reader.
Most western readers of Achebe’s novel seem to interpret the story of
Okonkwo’s fall as tragic, if not close to pure tragedy in classical terms. Achebe’s own feelings about Okonkwo and the
conclusion to the novel, however, would tend to indicate a rather different
interpretation. The most obvious clue is
Achebe’s title, Things Fall Apart, taken from William Butler Yeats’s poem, “The
Second Coming”. Although Yeats’s
title may be applied ironically to Achebe’s story, the indications are that
Achebe views the new dispensation as something inevitable, perhaps even
desirable. His criticism is clearly of
the old way of life which is unsatisfactory now that the west has arrived.
1. Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, (Delhi: Arnold Heinemann, distributed through
Allied Publishers Private Limited, 1975).
2. Chinua Achebe, “The Role of the
Writer in a New Nation”, Nigeria Magazine,
No.81 (June 1964), p.160.
3. Hassolt Davis, “Jungle Strongman”, Saturday Review, XXXXII (January 31, 1959),
p.18.
4. Milton S. Byam, Library Journal, LXXXIV (March 15, 1959), p.860.
5. Donald Herdeck, African
Authors, Cambridge ; Cambridge University
6. Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Abridged and revised edition. (London: OUP in
association with Thomas and Hudson, 1972), p.83.
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