A Cultural Interpretation of Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart'
It has been said that our era will see the beginning of a new period in world history, the 'Age of the Indigenous Peoples', a reassertion of the "third world's" identity in reaction to the imperial and colonial expansion which dominated international relations of the past few centuries. With few exceptions, colonialism has wreaked havoc on native peoples, killing or displacing large populations, exploiting resources, demarcating arbitrary national boundaries, and leaving regions economically and politically dependent on former imperial powers. Yet this multicultural contact has also fostered a new global consciousness and facilitated the rise of international institutions that have given political substance to the belief in universal human rights. Already one can see civil wars and popular uprisings throughout the developing world sparked by the unstable mixture of foreign-sponsored despots and democratic or socialist ideas. Meanwhile, historians today are being forced to reexamine fundamental assumptions regarding the European incursion on the rest of the world. To speak of 'civilizing the primitives' or 'saving the souls of the heathens' is not only intellectually naive, such euphemisms are repugnant to the modern sense of mo
The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others. In his best known novel, Things Fall Apart, he gives the Western audience an insider's appreciation for traditional Igbo culture while maintaining a certain objectivity that allows him to criticize aspects of both colonial and indigenous society. Such a chauvinistic reaction might be understandable among the Igbo, who have lived in largely self-contained communities for millennia, completely cut off from other races or religions. Fortunately, real positive change is already in motion. In the process of dispelling stereotypes of traditional African culture, he also touches on some of the most universal issues that face any society. This clash of cultures, far from promoting civilization, brings out the worst in each. The Igbo and the British, for all their shortcomings, are neither wholly evil nor good. Indeed, the killing of the first white man in the region by the villagers of Abame proves to have disastrous repercussions that the vague pronouncements of the oracle did not portend. This aside establishes that Okonkwo sowed the seeds for the 'leading astray' of his own family through his inability to adapt to new times and new situations. Disillusioned with past conquests and faced with unprecedented possibilities for future catastrophe, we must strive for a new understanding of the indigenous cultures so alienated and embittered by our predecessors' misconceptions (Achebe vii). In light of such a statement, one cannot help but ask 'who are the primitives:' the Christians, who divide into totally separate sects over the question of whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son or the Father alone , or the Neolithic agricul-turalists such as Uchendu, who recognizes all metaphors (heresies included) as possessing some value? By saying "the world has no end" he seems to imply that customs necessarily adapt to new times, and that there is no absolute standard for moral decisions. However, as Uchendu elucidates with the story of Mother Kite, the Igbo elders are well aware of the danger in attacking a foe one knows nothing about. This simple story also serves to illustrate that though such an action may not be morally wrong per se, i. This forcing of alien standards of religion, culture, and justice on another people is, as critic Charles Nnolim observes, analogous to trying to play poker against someone who thinks that you are playing blackjack, rules from one system are arbitrarily applied to an outside system. Significantly, Achebe also resists the Rousseauistic temptation to idealize the "state of nature" as a utopian Garden of Eden, free from the conflicts and injustices of modern life.
Common topics in this essay:
Indigenous Peoples',
Fall Apart,
Christians Achebe,
Kite Igbo,
Igbo British,
Charles Nnolim,
Apart Western,
Chukwu Brown's,
Father Neolithic,
Garden Eden,
fall apart,
igbo society,
adapt times,
okonkwo represents,
universal human,
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Acceptance Essays
