This article is also the answer to the question given below.
Discuss Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe as a
postcolonial novel. What do you think Achebe is trying to prove through the
story of the novel?
Things Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe, is a postcolonial novel. In
this novel, he portrayed the Igbo culture of Africa and the impact of
colonial power over that. To define all these things, he has used the English
language, a colonial language. The writer is an African who was grown up in a
colonial power but did not forget his norms, cultures, and traditions. So to
portray the actual picture of Africa from the perspective of an African was the
motive of Chinua Achebe. Because before this piece of writing, novelists
depicted the picture of Africa from the perspective of colonial power,
according to them they were noble savage, and very primitive people.
Postcolonial literature means writing back to the center. Postcolonial literature is a
combination of three things. The first thing is that the writer portrays
the exact indigenous cultural traditions of a colonized place before colonial
power. Second, the language he uses is English but a new form of
English, and the last thing he portrays that what impact was there on
that culture after the colonial power and its aftermath.
Chinua Achebe has portrayed these things in exactly the same way that this
novel becomes a piece of postcolonial literature. In the first part of the
novel he described the cultural traditions of Igbo society, and to
portray this tradition, he used third-person narration. Characters are depicted
in their voice, and they represent their culture. Before colonial power,
Africans were living peacefully, they had their traditions, culture, and their
political and government system. They had a religion to follow. They had rules
and regulations to follow though some rules were missing, and some were out of
mind. They had a firm myth about their religion, which portrays how Chukwu
created this world and the people here and how they started living by farming
for their own sake. They had a structure of different gods. There were
different punishments for various crimes, and they had divided the whole clan
into different groups to behave in such a manner that they knew each other and
respect their elders. Their belief in religion was firm in them. They believed
in many gods and goddesses. They used to perform different religious teachings
according to their culture. They had a proper system of family, marriages,
religion, and all others.
Okonkwo is the protagonist, of the novel, and through him, a vast
culture is portrayed. He was a guy with all his masculinity. He was not like
his lazy father, who was called Agbala (woman), but he tried to work
hard to earn a great life. He had three wives and several children. They had a
great system of putting their wives in different huts so there will be no
conflicts between their wives. Each wife cooks and looks after her children,
and so forth. According to their religion, some punishments were out of
understanding. Why do they throw away twins at birth no one knows? According to
them, those twins were evil and will one day lead to their destruction. There
were some crimes after committing them, a person's body did not remain pure,
but it became evil, and they would not touch that or bury that, but they threw
that away in forests. Okonkwo was also punished by priests two or more
times. Once, he broke the law of the week of peace and beat his wife. Then he
was punished. Okonkwo accidentally killed the 16-year-old boy of Ogbuefi
Ezeudo, he was exiled for seven years from his village, and all his
property was burnt to ashes to purify that land from his evil. They had the
concept of Chi in their religion. Everyone has his god, Chi. A
man's Chi is his destiny. These were the cultural assets of the
Africans, the Igbo society that was complete in itself, and they all
were living peacefully in that culture, but this culture was affected by the
colonists, and all things fell apart.
The next thing is the use of the English language. He has chosen
the English language to portray the exact culture of Africa so that everybody
can easily understand it. And this English is not the same as the colonists'
language, but this is changed, and in this, he has used African language words
which do not give that same sense in English. So according to him, he has
portrayed African culture well in this language by doing some changes to it.
The third thing is the impact of colonial power on African
culture which is described by him in the last part of the novel, how British
people came there and dominated everything. They came there with their religion,
their politics, and their culture. Both cultures were very different and
difficult to understand, and there was a huge language difference between them,
but after building their churches, they started converting them to
Christianity. This new religion was much easier for Africans to believe because
there were so many things that were not forbidden. Mr. Brown, who is
portrayed in this novel has a unique technique. First, he tried to understand
their culture, and then he started preaching to them the teachings of
Christianity and giving them their culture, but Smith was the arrogant
one and a bad guy. He was not compromising on anything and was trying to finish
everything. When he was appointed in charge of the Church, things worsened. Due
to the great difference in language, they didn't understand anything and the Umofian
people burnt the Church. District Commissioner called a meeting and put all of
them in prison, and demanded a handsome amount of money for their bail. When
they were set free, they called a meeting. Five colonizers came for the
meeting. Okonkwo killed one of the messengers, then the villagers left
the others and let them go. At that moment, he realized that everyone from his
clan was dead from the inside, so he committed suicide in the end. The thing
because of which they converted was the lack of their unity, their religion.
This new system broke all the norms and traditions from the inside, and all
things fall apart with the death of Okonkwo and the devasted Igbo
culture.
Through the novel's story, Achebe
proved the evil impact of colonial power on the peaceful culture of Africans,
which destroyed them by imposing their beliefs, traditions, and culture on
them. Achebe wrote back to those novelists who have portrayed the
picture of Africa from the perspective of colonialism. He has portrayed the
actual picture of Africa in which they were living peacefully with their norms,
traditions, and culture.
