Chinua Achebe, one of the most popular
contemporary writers from Africa, describes the Nigerian culture in the
beginning and effects of the European colonization upon it in the later part of
his novel Things fall apart.
This novel can also be considered as a
response to the stereotypical notion of western people on Africa and Chinua
Achebe is very critical of such Europeanizing of Africa and of European writers
who generate their own view on the African people from their biased perspective
without truly understanding the Africans and their culture as a whole. Joseph Conrad’s
Heart of darkness is a good example of European perspective and their
deep sense of prejudice on the African people.
Most of the novels written by European writers,
before Things fall apart was published, largely portray Africans as savage,
backward and uncivilized who need to be enlightened by the white people. The
way they presented Africans did not cross the line of their colonialist
stereotype which was challenged or broke apart by Chinua Achebe in his novel Things
fall apart.(1958)
The impact of constructed notion of
white people on Africans was strong and deep in the mind of people across the
world in general and African people in particular that the coming generation of
Africa might suffer from this stereotype, Chinua Achebe wrote Things fall apart
to show Africans, not as primitive and wild, from the view point of a native.
Achebe’s Things fall apart derives its
title from Yeat’s poem The second
coming and depicts the dilemma of Okonkwo who was fixed with the
traditional way of life in an extreme way who
could not deal with the undergoing change in his Igbo society . Things
fall apart deals with the conflict clash of culture and rapid transformation in
life and values which brought about by western colonizers in Nigeria.
Okonkwo is not an ideal character in the
novel, who tries to protect the distinct culture of Africa which the
missionaries likely to destroy in the name of “civilizing people”. His rigid
and violent nature however breed opposite of his intended goal which in a way
perpetuates the stereotype of the wild and savage in the colored eyes of
European people/readers. Achebe’s vivid description of African village life and
various traditions give an alternative view of Africa and its rich culture. He
wants his story about Africa, from his own view, to project the sophistication
of African society and culture which shape the identity, dignity and
personality of African people before the arrival of European people and to
reveal the deep wound the colonizer inflicted on social, culture and political
sphere of Africa.
Many western writers have harbored
strong sense of prejudice towards Africans and in Heart of darkness, all
the black people are generalized as savage and compared to animals or the wilderness
of jungle. Achebe countered that notion of colonialist and celebrated the
African culture, history and society.
In order to capture the attention of
larger audience, Achebe took strategic decision to write in English. He blended
the western linguistic form and literary tradition with Igbo society’s word,
proverb and other elements of oral storytelling tradition to preserve and
retain African oral tradition while subvert the colonial culture and their
notion. In the novel, Achebe describes the day to day life of Igbo people and
the way stories are narrated in the manner of their oral history without
translating some of African words gives the readers a different flavor of
literature which is unlike the Europeans’. Achebe projects a different image of
Africans in the mind of readers through the perspective of his native prism.
Achebe’s use of English has created heat
debate among the African writers of his time but he argued that English should
be used as a powerful weapon in the fight to regain what is yours and counter
the arguments of colonizer to build one’s identity and dignity. Achebe’s
portrayal of Igbo people and use of many narrative terms in the text have
influenced other African writers too.
Chinua Achebe grew up under the colonial
rule and he got the opportunity to attend the prestigious university where he
was benefited and privileged in terms of education during his university time,
there was a conscious movement going on in Africa and more and more African
writers were questioning the European justification of bringing enlightenment
to the Dark Continent. Achebe found the novels, insulting and racist, which
were written by western writers.
After reading many novels written by
European writers on Africa, Achebe drew the conclusion that the story of Africa
could not be told to the African people by anyone else no matter how it’s good
intended.
Chinua Achebe,in his Things fall apart ,has
successfully presented the real tribal
life and their culture, though it was
fictional but the more like a documentary account of the day to day life in
Igbo society without sophistry and evasion. Achebe rejected the European
assumption that colorized only can be the subject of their story. By telling
the story of colonized from “within”, he presented different version of
Africans which was likely to be disgusting and uncivilized in the eyes of
Europeans.
Achebe was not feeling ashamed of
narrating the detail account of native people’s daily routine but rather taking
pride in African culture and their way of life .Through his story, Achebe
resists the European stereotype and retrieves their own history to regain their
identity. European version of African
history is rejected and white people’s way of looking at Africans is undercut
in the novel. Chinua Achebe’s novel has given Africans a mirror to see them in
their true color and people realized that they were autonomous individual
rather than half-people.
Okonkwo is a typical masculine figure in
the novel whose nature is extreme and inflexible. He is unable to adjust the
situation and ready to act with violence. His violent nature has further
supported the European stereotype of Africans as violent and savage. However we can’t assume the whole Africans
through the figure of okonkwo because many of qualities which okonkwo sees as
weak (feminine) are respected in the Igbo society. Umuofia’s tolerance,
openness and responsiveness we see in the novel are different from okonkwo.
Are Africans truly savage?
Beneath the violent nature of okonkwo,
there lies certain softness too in his personality. He repents over his beating
of wife during the week of peace. He possesses a soft corner to his daughter
Ezinma and his reaction to her in all time is totally gentle and positive. He
was driven by pain and sadness after he had killed ikemefuna.
In umuafia, yam plays an important part in
determining a man’s status in the sense people’s status is based on their
individual hard work rather than inheritance.
The eldest men in the village have more
power in the decision making process and resolving conflicts. The system of
giving title has encouraged “hard work” and spread wealth in their society.
Okonkwo has called a feast before he left
Mbanta- his mother’s kinship, in order to show his gratitude. At the feast, “the meat was shared so that every member of
the umunna had a portion. Every man rose in order of years and took a share.
Even the few kinsmen who had not been able to come had their shares taken out
for them in due return”. In this passage, we can clearly see an order of
seniority and juniority not in terms of hierarchy but respect. The beauty of
African culture presented here in the novel, the biased European readers may
easily neglect or may not notice at all. And the strong bond of kinship exists
in the Igbo society is extraordinary and something that everyone should look up
to, however it hardly can find in the mechanized western world and among its people.
In Achebe’s novel, because of
missionary’s act of religious conversion, the earlier strong kinship and
culture of Igbo people have been destroyed. A new era of conflict and division
was emerged in the Igbo society and Africa as a whole whereby the ethnic groups
have been split, leading towards an internal tension and violence. The
cohesiveness of traditional society and its culture was gone, due to the
reordering of a culture and religion by the white colonizer.
At the end of novel, when the European
district commissioner sees the dead body of okonkwo, he thought to write a book
with “the pacification of the primitive
tribes of the lower nigers” as its title. This demonstrates the
commissioner’s sense of prejudice against the native Africans. The European
stereotype of Africans is universal in the sense they see Africans as savage
and uncivilized, they rarely take initiate to un-earth the roots of African
culture. Chinua Achebe rejects the European notion of African history by
showing the civilized and structured society of Africa in Things fall apart.
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