Reading Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart from the Postcolonial

Perspective:

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.