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Loading... Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1) (original 1958; edition 1994)by Chinua Achebe
Work InformationThings Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958)
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While I was reading this book, I couldn't help but feel myself transferred back to my high school days... reading a book that I had little invested interest in but felt an obligation to finish. This book definitely has the feeling of the kind of book a school would choose to give their students a proper introduction to other cultures. (If you don't read about other cultures you won't be cultured enough for us to let you graduate!) And this book is heavy with the feeling that it is trying to inform you about the wide world of peoples out there that have suffered in unimaginable ways. Now, I have no problem with a book that is written with that purpose, I have enjoyed many books like that, (Kaffir Boy, for instance). The problem I had with this book and its message, was that it portrayed it badly, in many ways. The first thing that really bothered me was the main character, Okonkwo. If you're going to write a book where you're trying to emphasize the suffering a character is going through, you would think you'd write him as a character someone could empathize with. But it wasn't just the farming in the book that was boring – quite frankly not a lot of interesting things happen in this book. There are a few intriguing scenes but they are so minor, and lacking in conclusion, that they aren't enough to make up for the scenes that are dull. The last thing that I had a big problem with was the cookie-cutter stereotypes of the characters. It is a story about how white colonizers negatively affected an African tribe. This is not a type of story I have a problem with. What I did have a problem with was how the white and African characters pretty much followed a very predictable scenario – This is a really hard book to give a bad review, too. It's easy to think that someone must be racist because of giving this book a bad review... but there are so many parts of this book that I personally think are dangerously on the edge of being racist, and work to prolong stereotypes. And to add on top of that problem – it has bad characters and is generally just boring. Perhaps, in the end, I am thinking about this book in too simple of terms, that I'm under-analyzing it. Maybe it's the sort of book where you have to look even deeper than you might think to try and get the "true message" out of it. Maybe. But then maybe there are a million other books out there that I could be better spending my time on. A haunting parable. The final chapter of this book still stings my western heart with every reading. Others have written eloquently on this work - and some reviews on here posit an alternative viewpoint on the apparently uppity and unreasonable, if not downright ungrateful aims of postcolonialist literature - so you can make up your own mind on that. But gosh I think this was an important novel 60 years ago, and it remains so. A challenge to its western readership, from the use of untranslated words to its matter-of-fact, quasi-Dickensian ironic descriptions of the local culture as seen through the protagonist, and sometimes his children - already questioning their own culture, as we all do. A complex portrayal of colonialism that twists the knife very well indeed. Although the main theme of this novel is the colonialization of Africa by Great Britain in the late 19th century, it also exposes the folly of hubris, particularly of its protagonist, Okonkwo. The first part of the story centers on Okonkwo's life in his agriculture-centric society, Umuofia, and its kinship ties, superstitions, and rituals. Okonkwo has some reason to be proud: he pulled himself up by the bootstraps, so to speak, not having the same advantages as his Igbo clansmen because his father was considered lazy and contemptible, and he suffered an outcast's death. Okonkwo fear of failure haunts him throughout, and he becomes hard man with an inflexible will and a fiery temper that he blames on his personal god because of the shame his father brought to the family. Although he achieves great success in his fatherland, Okonkwo is ultimately banished for seven years and seeks shelter in his motherland, Mbanta, where he again prospers but still longs to return to his fatherland. Upon his return to Umuofia, he finds much has changed, largely as the result of the British missionaries and administrators who are trying to "civilize" the non-Christians. Achebe explores the impact of colonialism on different aspects of village life and the different categories of villagers. It was refreshing to see colonialism portrayed through the eyes of the colonized, not of the colonizers, as in Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. To be, the real reason things fell apart was a failure of communication between the Western interlopers and the natives. An engaging story about an African man, his family and tribe. Achebe depicts the brutality of the animistic, pagan patriarchal, honour-shame culture before colonisation. When the colonisers arrive they bring their own form of brutalitiy coloaked beneath British law and order: It is a story of contrasts: strong vs weak, masculine vs feminine, fortune vs failure, pagan animism vs Christianity, African tribal culture vs Western colonisation. Achebe depicts the first missionary to the tribe in contradistiction to the colonisers. The Christianity that arrives is bold yet gentle, confident yet wiling to suffer. In contrast to the darkness of pagan animism, the missionaries bring freedom from the fear of evils spirits, curses and capricious gods. They welcome outcasts and adopt twin babies who have been left to die in the jungle. They speak of a Father God full of love in a culture where fathers were harsh and unyielding. The missionaries weren’t perfect (especially the second who arrives later in Achebe’s story), but Achebe makes the point that the Christianity the missionaries brought enriched the lives of the Africans. The final sentance in the novel reveals what Achebe thinks his work is about: "The Commissioner went away, taking three or four of the soldiers with him. In the many years in which he had toiled to bring civilization to different parts of Africa he had learned a number of things. One of them was that a District Commissioner should never attend to such undignified details as cutting a hanged man from a tree. Such attention would give the natives a poor opinion of him. In the book which he planned to write he would stress that point. As he walked back to the court he thought about that book. Every day brought him some new material. The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger." I found this review helpful: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/830031498
Set in the late 19th century, at the height of the "Scramble" for African territories by the great European powers, Things Fall Apart tells the story of Okonkwo, a proud and highly respected Igbo from Umuofia, somewhere near the Lower Niger. Okonkwo's clan are farmers, their complex society a patriarchal, democratic one. Achebe suggests that village life has not changed substantially in generations. The first part of a trilogy, Things Fall Apart was one of the first African novels to gain worldwide recognition: half a century on, it remains one of the great novels about the colonial era. [Achebe] describes the many idyllic features of pre-Christian native life with poetry and humor. But his real achievement is his ability to see the strengths and weaknesses of his characters with a true novelist's compassion. Is contained inIs a reply toHas as a reference guide/companionHas as a studyHas as a commentary on the textHas as a student's study guideHas as a teacher's guideNotable Lists
First published in 1958, this novel tells the story of Okonkwo, the leader of an Igbo (Ibo) community who is banished for accidentally killing a clansman. The novel covers the seven years of his exile to his return, providing an inside view of the intrusion of white missionaries and colonial government into tribal Igbo society in the 1890s. No library descriptions found.
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The region that is described had 9 different clans. While other clans had their high title deluded, as they were able to be purchased by anyone, Okonkwo’s clan kept the high title very sacred and exclusive. Okonkwo had earned one such title while he was always ashamed that his father had not. Okonkwo’s belief system expresses itself by doing everything opposite of what his father had done, such as being lazy. When Okonkwo sees the same defects in his children, the children get a harsh treatment.
The story presented many difficult situations, and showed the cultural aspects in creating the set decisions in dealing with the situation. The book’s cultural divisions and lessons arrive more steadily as the book progresses, leaving the biggest differences of culture to the end. Great book for helping to understand the struggle of cultural, and other, divides.
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