Chinua
Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, a
seminal work of Post Colonial studies, has acquired the status of a classic. Among
the various factors which lead to its publication, the most noteworthy was Joseph
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness that sparked Achebe’s indignation at mis-representations
of Africans in fiction. Things Fall Apart was written, says Achebe, “to reassert African identity and as part
of the growth of Nigerian nationalism”.
In
a way Things Fall Apart is a counter discourse against Joseph Conrad’s Heart
of Darkness. Achebe espoused the idea that Conrad drew the humiliating
images of the Africans as “some other beings”. Edward Said in his
groundbreaking Orientalism (1978) argues that “The [fabricated] Orient was a European invention, and had been since
antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes,
remarkable experiences”
For
imperialists like Conrad, this vast African continent was the haunt of savages;
a country riddled with superstitions and fanaticism, destined for contempt--
indeed a country of cannibals.
Achebe shatters the notion so popular among the Europeans that imperialists
actually civilized Africa. Achebe emphatically declares:
“African peoples did not hear of
culture for the first time from Europeans; … their societies were not mindless
but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and value and beauty… they had
poetry and, above all, they had dignity.”
This conviction pervades all of his works and
they purely reflect African dignity and value. Thus Achebe is, no doubt, an
authentic writer whose writings reflect richly his own contextual realities.
It
is now popular to argue that the post-colonial literatures are primarily
concerned with writing back to the center, by active engagement “in a
process of questioning and travestying” colonial stereotypes. This novel
illustrates the “cultural traditions” of the indigenous Igbo. It
demonstrates cultural, psychological and political impacts of colonialism
on the Igbo. And for making these two points of demonstration successful,
Achebe resorts to the English language as the medium of expression.
In
Things Fall Apart Achebe attempts to assert his own historical
narratives by adhering to the oral tradition. Achebe admits that Things Fall
Apart “was an act of atonement with my past, a ritual return and homage of a
prodigal son”
Achebe
presents to us an all-encompassing and meticulous depiction of the pre-colonial
Igbo society in Things Fall Apart. Achebe unearths the glorious past of
Nigeria through the authentic picturing of the pre- colonial Igbo culture in Things
Fall Apart. He champions the fact that “there
was nothing to be ashamed of” in the pre-colonial past of the Igbo.
Achebe
has recovered the perspective, which is exclusively a native perspective. The
characters reflect on their own socio- cultural values that are crumbled down
after the arrival of the Europeans in Igbo-land. They put forward their
resourceful values that consist of both accuracy and flaws, before the readers
who judge how cruelly that values have been crushed by colonialism.
Things
Fall Apart “recreates
an oral culture and a consciousness imbued with an agrarian way of life”.
To define itself post-colonial writing seizes the language of the center, the
colonizer west. In the course of writing counter-narrative to Euro-centric
misrepresentation of Africa, he successfully harnesses the colonizer’s language
to make it ‘bear the burden’ of his native experience.
Achebe
wants to achieve cultural revitalization through English. He is capable of
capturing the rhythm of the Igbo language. Achebe uses Igbo proverbs, folktales
and vocabulary in the novel. Igbo proverbs are entirely native in character and
use and they contain native wisdom and philosophy. Folktales are important parts
of the Nigerian oral tradition which is deeply rooted in the daily lives of the
Igbo. And then, Achebe uses many Igbo words in the novel to support his message
to be conveyed.
Achebe
is entirely successful in presenting the picture of the pre-colonial Igbo society
in a transparent and direct way. It helps him be authentic and unprejudiced in
doing so. Lastly, the novel immensely shows the key issue in a post-colonial
text, i.e., the impacts of colonialism,
European
colonialism totally destroyed the culture and traditions of the Igbo People.
Before the coming of colonialism, African societies were culturally diverse.
Colonialism trampled the diversity under feet. In Things Fall Apart we
see that before the advent of the colonial power the people of Umuofia lived in
communal agreement in an organic society of economic, cultural, political,
familial and religious stability. But colonial rule turns the social stability
into instability and disintegration. The title of the novel itself signifies
this claim- things are no longer in order; colonialism has made them
disordered.
Colonialism
makes the Igbo ‘drained of’ their ‘essence’. Okonkwo symbolizes the essence of
Umuofia; the suicide of Okonkwo, which is also a colonial effect, signifies the
suicide of Umuofia’s essence. Colonialism makes ‘extraordinary possibilities’
of the indigenous people ‘wiped out’. Okonkwo symbolizes that ‘mighty voices’
which is ‘stilled forever’ by the colonial power.
The
colonial masters bring with them different ideologies and philosophies about
human relations such as individualism and Marxism. In the African philosophy of
relationship a person is fundamentally defined as ‘being-with’ or ‘belonging
to’. But Western philosophy puts emphasis on the condition of a human person as
‘a being for itself’. The colonial ideology of individualism has caused shattering
impacts on the communal Igbo and on their mutual relationship.
To
conclude, Achebe’s novel shatters the stereotypical European portraits about
the native Africans. By unfolding the devastating effects of colonialism on the
life of the Igbo people in Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe has successfully
made a comprehensible demarcation between the pre-colonial and the colonial
Igbo-land. By setting these two periods opposite to each other Achebe
demonstrates the value and authenticity of the Igbo traditions in a more
unambiguous manner. His strategy of differentiation between the pre-colonial
and the colonial well suits his purpose of writing back by rewriting the
history of the lost traditions and culture of the Igbo.