4: Things Fall Apart

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."

Chinua Achebe's novel is a social comment on the threat that European imperialist tendencies posed to the African tribal system and African culture around the turn of the nineteenth century. The story is set in southern Nigeria in a villiage named Umuofia, where the protagonist Okonkwo has risen to a high status in his clan.

Achebe himself lived in Nigeria as a child of a Protestant missionary. He was educated in the European tradition, but later realized the hypocrisy of imperialism. He decided to become a writer so that he could inform the world that African people did have a culture and an identity long before white men arrived. Achebe rejected his Christian name Albert and adopted his indigenous one, Chinua. His masterpiece Things Fall Apart is a response to the point of view established in books such as Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which showcased Africa as a primal and culture-less area of the world that needed the help of European colonizers.

The story is set in the 1890s and focuses on the clash between Nigeria's white colonizers and the traditional culture of the native Igbo people. In the first half of the story, Achebe does an excellent job of showing the reader many of the complex social customs of the tribal African peoples. Its a story about being caught between resisting and embracing change.

Okonkwo, the main character, is unwilling to change. From the start, Okonkwo's greatest flaw is that he is afraid of appearing weak and unaccomplished as he perceived his father to be. Thus, Okonkwo acts rashly and often without thinking referring action to reason. For him, manliness is key and it is associated with aggression. He is unwilling to show any emotion and is stoic to a fault. This equation of manliness with rashness, anger, and violence eventually brings about his own destruction, and his method out of this world is far from manly. Both the white colonizers and Okonkwo are unwilling to compromise, and in the end there is only room for one of them.

Achebe showcases the European white man's complete lack of respect for native customs or culture. Europeans thought they had the right to impose their belief system and religion on an unsuspecting peoples. The racist perspective is shown through Reverend James Brown who has no respect for the native culture and through the District Commissioner who wants to write a book entitled The Pacification of the Primitive Tribe of the Lower Niger. Okonkwo's whole story (which encompasses this novel) would make a good paragraph according to the Commissioner. However, Achebe also shows that white man is not completely ruthless with the character of Mr. Brown. He was the missionary who strove to compromise with the natives instead of resorting to violence. He won over converts because he is willing to listen and understand indigenous customs.

Yet the portrayal of imperialists is mainly accurate in that they were willing to undermine a people just to earn profit and pride. Early in the novel, the arrival of white men is foreshadowed by the arrival of locusts. "At last the locusts did descend. They settled on every tree and on every blade of grass... Mighty tree branches broke way under them, and the whole country became the brown-earth color of the vast, hungry swarm." Just as the locusts broke trees and transformed the country, so did the missionaries and imperialists change the nature of the African tribes.

Achebe's writing style is excellent. The original text is in English, but he incorporates the words and traditions of the Nigerian tribal peoples so neatly that the reader feels immersed in the African culture. I think I shall make a point of it to read No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God, which are the accompanying books in the African trilogy. With this book and my recent visit to the theater to see Disney's The Lion King, I have just been surrounded by African culture and realizing that it is far more interesting than I ever gave it credit. I am intrigued to learn more.

Achebe's goal was to critique the portrait of Africa that was painted by the European writers of the colonial period. He greatly succeeded. He also had the advantage of looking back at the events as history and making comments on it when public opinion did oppose the actions of imperialists. He shows us the past to remind us that imposing influence on others threatens to extinguish tradition and a rich, vibrant culture.

"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."