“Things Fall Apart”, by Chinua Achebe

 

209 pages, Penguin, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0385474542

I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe many moons ago as part of an anthropology class at Macomb Community College, only to find out later that it was the first book of a trilogy. Which I haven’t read. Anyway…Things Fall Apart was written back in 1958 and depicts precolonial life in the southeastern part of Nigeria and the colonization by Europeans during the late 19^th Century. The protagonist is a man named Okonkwo who, by the lights of his society, is at the top of the heap as a warrior, wrestler, father and husband. He also unflinchingly exercises his prerogatives in brutal fashion, throwing his weight around, so to speak, with an unthinking single-mindedness. But into this insular and self-satisfied world comes the Europeans and their alien teachings, teachings that many in the tribe find hard – if not impossible – to resist. One who can is Okonkwo but, being one of only a few, finds that things fall apart and he has nowhere to turn.

Things Fall Apart tells two concurrent stories that overlap and counterbalance each other throughout the novel: the protagonist Okonkwo, who represents traditional African culture and its attempt to resist the White Man and his Teachings; and Okonkwo’s tribe, the Umuofia, as it undergoes a drastic change in all areas of life once European missionaries enter the fray. The stark divide in ideologies between Okonkwo and the Umuofia becomes the focal point of the story and leads to some very contentious moments in the book – and to its final tragedy. While focusing on one man and his people, Achebe uses this tale to discuss the wider story of European colonization and exploitation of Africa; in a sense, by making his story smaller, he is better able to show how this disruption brought change and displacement to countless millions of people all across the continent, to better humanize and detail just what the White Man wrought.

And it is Okonkwo who drives the tale forward, this well-developed, flawed and, therefore, fascinating character through whom the reader witnesses just what is going on, to him and to his people. He is a tragic hero whose actions are in the best interests of his family and tribe, though not always; he is no saint, and one bemoans many of the things he does, but this only serves to humanize him and make one root for him all the more. But, seeing what he is up against – the relentless march of European civilization and Progress, as understood by them – it is hard to fault too many of his actions and not to sympathize with much of what he does. The brilliance of Things Fall Apart is how objective it manages to be while also establishing an intimate feel throughout; Achebe was able to shine a light on the culture of the missionaries as well as the Umuofia and point out their strengths and weaknesses while engaging the readers in a very personal tale of one tribesman’s struggle to come to terms with this newly imposed way of life.