by: Zakridatul Agusmaniar Rane
Things Fall Apart
is an English language novel writen by
a Nigerian
author Chinua Achebe
and published in 1958. This novel is widely read and studied in
English-speaking countries around the world. It is seen as the archetypal
modern African novel in English, and one of the first
African novels written in English to receive global critical acclaim.
Chinua Achebe occupies
a significant place among non-native writers of English. He was born in 1930 in
the Igbo town of Ogidi in southeastern Nigeria. His father was a missionary
instructor in catechism where Achebe started his education at the Church
Missionary Society’s school. It is evident that Achebe is a writer who has
conscious literary aims and political motives. Chinua Achebe’s novels and
critical pronouncements have profoundly influenced his readers’ understanding
of Africans and their lives and have formed the basis for many discussions of
‘the African novel.
Achebe did an excellent
job of portraying the pre-colonial culture of the Ibo. This novel was not
only educational, but entertaining as well. His ability to focus mainly
on one individual and still show the complexity of the entire clan’s beliefs
and self-governing tactics was incredible. It is hard to believe that he
was able to show us so many aspects of the pre-colonial culture in so few pages.
The novel Things Fall
Apart takes place in Nigeria around the turn of the 19th
century. The novel depicts the life of Okonkwo,
a leader and local wrestling champion in Umuofia—one of nine villages in
Nigeria, inhabited by the Ibo ethnic group. In addition it focuses on his
three wives, his children, and the influences of British
colonialism and Christian missionaries on his traditional Ibo.
Okonkwo is a leader and wrestling champion in his village. He
is known to be hard working and shows no weakness to anyone. Although brusque with his family
and neighbors, he is wealthy, courageous, and powerful among the people of his
village. He is a leader of his village, and his place in that society is what
he has striven for his entire life.
Because of his great esteem, Okonkwo is selected to be the
guardian of Ikemefuna, a boy taken prisoner by the village as a peace
settlement between two villages after his father killed an Umuofian woman.
Ikemefuna is to stay with Okonkwo for three years until the Oracle instructs
the elders to kill the boy. The oldest man in the village warns Okonkwo,
telling him to have nothing to do with the murder because it would be like
killing his own child. In fact, Okonkwo ignores the warning and he himself
strikes the killing blow as Ikemefuna begs him for protection in order to
doesn’t seem weak and feminine..
Shortly after Ikemefuna's death, Okonkwo accidentally kills
someone at a ritual funeral ceremony. So, he and his family are sent into exile
for seven years to appease the gods he has offended. While Okonkwo is away in
exile, white men begin coming to Umuofia and they peacefully introduce their
religion. As the number of converts increases, the foothold of the white people
grows beyond their religion and a new government is introduced.
When Okonkwo return to his village, he and other tribal
leaders try to reclaim their hold on their native land by destroying a local
Christian church. In return, the leader of the white government takes them
prisoner and holds them for ransom for a short while, further humiliating and
insulting the native leaders. As a result, the people of Umuofia finally gather
for what could be a great uprising. When messengers of the white government try
to stop the meeting, Okonkwo kills one of them. He realizes with despair that
the people of Umuofia are not going to fight to protect themselves because they
let the other messengers escape and so all is lost for the village.
When the local leader of the white government comes to
Okonkwo's house to take him to court, he finds that Okonkwo has hanged himself,
ruining his great reputation as it is strictly against the custom of the Igbo
to commit suicide.
The Ibo seemed to have a very structured social order.
Everything from the way one attains status in the village to the way the people
receive their guests leads me to believe this. The use of titles in the village
to determine status demonstrates that they had a hierarchy of sorts in place,
much like we have judges, mayors, senators, and a president. For
instance, the egwugwu acted as judges by passing sentence in disputes between
the people. Their use of titles also seemed to make up a sort of
government.
The main conflict which builts this story is Okonkwo’s
terrified of being feminine. Okonkwo lives in fear of becoming like his father
who Okonkwo sees as being effeminate and weak.
“Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But
his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It
was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of
magic, the fear of the forest, and of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and
claw. Okonkwo’s fear was greater than these. It was not external, but lay deep
within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble
his father. (page 10-11)”
His fear make him abusive to people around him even his
family. Finally, his fear brings him commits a couple crimes. Okonkwo joins in
the group murder of his adoptive son, Ikemefuna, out of fear of seeming weak
and cowardly. His behavior causes him huge internal guilt and also alienates
him from his son, Nwoye. He also accidentally kills a boy during a funeral.
Since killing a clansman means exile for seven years, Okonkwo has to leave town
along with his family.
The arrival of wtihe men in the town bring this story into a
complication. The white Christian missionaries show up, start converting
villagers, and force the English system of government on the Igbo people.
Essentially the white men are destroying the clan’s unity. Even Okonkwo’s
oldest son joins the Christians. Now Okonkwo is faced with enemies of a
different kind – not simply fear of himself or his sons becoming womanly, but
the potential that his whole tribe will be impotent and not fight the white
men.
Okonkwo gets fed up and kills one of the white government
officials. It is the climax of this story. Okonkwo exercises his long-repressed
desire to physically lash out at the missionaries. In an expression of his
masculinity, he hacks off a court messenger’s head. When none of the other
villagers back him up, Okonkwo realizes that his clansmen will never go to war
against the white men.
“Let us not reason like
cowards,” said Okonkwo. “If a man comes into my hut and defecates on the floor,
what do I do? Do I shut my eyes? No! I take a stick and break his head. That is
what a man does. These people are daily pouring filth over us, and Okeke says
we should pretend not to see.” Okonkwo made a sound full of disgust. This was a
womanly clan, he thought. Such a thing could never happen in his fatherland, Umuofia.
(page 126)
The leader of white government humiliating and insulting the
native leaders. As a result, the people of Umuofia finally gather for what
could be a great uprising. When messengers of the white government try to stop
the meeting, Okonkwo kills one of them. Okonkwo has clearly committed a serious
crime. So, the white District Commissioner comes to make Okonkwo pay for his
crime . After killing a white government official and failing to spur his
people to war, Okonkwo knows that his clan will soon be completely destroyed.
He also knows that the white men will inevitably demand his death or at least
incarceration. Instead of bowing in submission, Okonkwo decides to take his own
life. He hangs himself.
This whole story gives a clear picture
not only of an effort to preserve tribal customs. more than that, this story
illustrates the struggle to defend the ideology. the ending of this story
suggests that something old is naturally bound to be replaced by new ones. No
matter how we defend it, all things must change in order to better.
Okonkwo’s struggle and the tragic ending
which is happened to him describe repict that we must make peace with the
changes. we can not be too fanatical because if we can not adapt ourselves to the
alteration, we will get difficulty.
Okonkwo plays a major role in the novel and is projected as a
heroic figure and a wrestler who is constantly at war with others, with his
‘chi’, his legacy of his father whom he despises, his own character and
finally, with the white man. He work hard to be successfull and be brusque to
hide his feminin side.
“During the planting
season Okonkwo worked daily on his farms from cock-crow until the chickens went
to roost. He was a very strong man and rarely felt fatigue. (Page 11)
“Okonkwo never showed
any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To show affection was a
sign of weakness, the only thing worth demonstrating was strength. (page 22)”
“But in spite of these disadvantages, he had begun even in
his father’s lifetime to lay the foundations of a prosperous future. It was
slow and painful. But he threw himself into it like one possessed. And indeed
he was possessed by the fear of his father’s contemptible life and shameful
death. (page 14)”
“"Who killed this
banana tree?" He asked. A hush fell over the compound immediately . . .
Without further argument Okonkwo gave her a sound beating and left her and her
only daughter weeping. (page 30)”
Okonkwo’s character which shows his injustices to his
children and wives reevaluates the significance of not only the pain of these
women and children, but also their importance as individuals within their
community. But one of Achebe's great achievements is his ability to keep alive
our sympathy for Okonkwo despite the moral revulsion from some of his violent,
inhuman acts. Eventhough Okonkwo shows a bad moral by doing many violence, but
the way he strugle to achieve his success and be different from his father
gives the readers a message about the importance of hard work and not being
lazy.
opposite
of Okonkwo,
Nwoye (Okonkwo oldest son) precisely
similar to his grandfather Unoka.
he's being more callous,
shows the feminine side and doesn’t like violence.
“Okonkwo’s first son,
Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great
anxiety for his incipient laziness. At any rate, that was how it looked to his
father, and he sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating. And so
Nwoye was developing into a sad-faced youth. (page 11)”
More
than any other character, Nwoye encapsulates an innocent child who is very
sensitive to his surroundings and is baffled by the seemingly arbitrary
cruelties being committed around him. His dominant characteristic is his
incredible ability to feel and sympathize, even more so than some of the female
characters.
Nyowe is the wisest one in the story. He willingly
opens his mind to new things, and basically sets his own morals based on what
he feels is right for him. As much as he may have wanted to be loyal to
his father he could never completely please him. Nyowe’s unwillingness to
share completely identical views as his father apparently ruined the
relationship between them, or quickly deceased anything that was left of
it. It’s as if Okonkwo despises Nyowe. He says this in referral to
his friend Obierka’s son; “ He will do great things. If I had a son
like him I should be happy. I am worried about Nyowe…… I have done my
best to make Nyowe grow into a man, but there is too much of his mother in
him.”(page 52) this shows Okonkwo’s narrow mindedness, a narrow-
mindedness which is eventually the cause of his own death. Nyowe
understands that it was wrong to kill Ikemefuna, even though it may have been
masculine. Ikemefuna was a brother to him. Nyowe learns that maybe
its worth showing signs of weakness, if it means being true to yourself.
Even if Ikemefuna thinks that the murder just goes along with the Ibo way,
Nyowe sees that it has to rational reasoning so he pulls away.
Instead of focusing on Okonkwo, this reading is focused on
two major female characters, Ekwefi and Ezinma. Exploring the relationships
between these women reveals not only alliances between mother and daughter, but
also alliances between comrades in arms.
Ezinma is
Okonkwo’s oldest daughter. She is the daughter of his second wife Ekwefi. Okonkwo
strongly wishes that Ezinma had been born a boy, which, from his frame of mind,
shows how much he loves and values her. The girl has a very close relationship
with her mother and grows similar to her traditional father.
” Okonkwo was very
lucky in his daughter. He never stopped regretting that Ezinma was a girl. Of
all his children she alone understood his every mood. A bond of sympathy had
grown between them as the years had passed. (Page 134)”
"She should have
been a boy, he thought as he looked at his ten-year-old daughter . . . If
Ezinma had been a boy I would have been happier. She has the right spirit.
" (page 50)
Ezinma did not call her
mother Nne like all children. She called her by her name, Ekwefi, as her father
and other grown-up people did. The relationship between them was not only that
of mother and child. There was something in it like the companionship of
equals, which was strengthened by such little conspiracies as eating eggs in
the bedroom." (page 61)
Ezinma’s mother, Ekwefi is Okonkwo’s second wife. Once a
village beauty, she ran away from her home and husband to marry Okonkwo. She
was smitten with Okonkwo when he beat the notorious Cat in a legendary
wrestling match. Ekwefi’s life has been full of sadness. She has bad luck with
bearing children; despite giving birth to ten children, only one has survived.
Thus, she nurtures a deep bond with her single daughter.
The
characterization of Ekwefi, Okonkwo's second wife, almost seems insignificant
to one reading from a patriarchal standpoint, but when reevaluated, one will
find that she is a well of knowledge, love, and fierce independence. Ekwefi has
endured much heartache and stigmatism. In Things Fall Apart
“and she said so. Without further argument Okonkwo gave her a sound
beating and left her and her only daughter weeping. Neither of the other wives
dared to interfere beyond an occasional. (page 30)”
“Unfortunately for her Okonkwo heard it and ran madly into his room for
the loaded gun, ran out again and aimed at her as she clambered over the dwarf
wall of the barn. He pressed the trigger. .... He threw down the gun and
jumped into the barn and there lay the woman, very much shaken and frightened
but quite unhurt.(page 30-31)”
In this novel, Ekwefi is
the repict of woman condition in that era where women are viewed
mainly as child bearers and help mates for their husbands. Woman doesn’t have
right to show their opinion. Besides that, Ekwefi represent the figure of women
as a good mother for their children.
As the conclusion, overall
this story convey the message to the reader that it is important to be
ambisious but when we couldn’t control our ambition, it will shatter ourselves.
It is important to be firm and strick but it mustbe balance with our
conscience. We also sould not too fanatical because everything needs a
changing.
Besides that, the relation between character is this
story tell the reader that male and female roles are societal
constructs, and thus, male and female should behave accordance to their nature.
Women are taught to mother, while men are conditioned to dominate and control.
Hence, we know that men may also read as women, if they are willing to rethink
their positions, as well as women's positions within patriarchal constructs. For
a woman to play a role she constructs with reference to her identity as a
woman, and so does man.
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