Paper 2: Things Fall Apart

To what extent has an awareness of context enriched or enhanced your understanding of Things Fall Apart?

The way I understood Things Fall Apart changed a lot after the class developed an understanding of the context. This is due to the highly specific aims of the text – author Chinua Achebe was writing against the colonial oppressors with the aim of changing the way Nigerians (and other colonized cultures) saw their histories. With this understanding of context in mind, many of the decisions Achebe made regarding what aspects of Igbo culture to include and which to exclude made more sense. In this essay, I will be exploring examples of how an understanding of context and culture has furthered the depth at which we understand the text.

One of the most apparent examples of this is the debate concerning the text’s sexist connotations. On a casual reading without additional cultural context, it appears as if Things Fall Apart is very sexist – wife beating is accepted as a normal part of society, men can take more than one wife, and husbands are expected to have “control” over their households.

After reading essays on the Igbo cultural background, however, we learn of the existence of women’s groups like the “Umuada” or daughters of the clan. These groups controlled the “civil and familial spheres of influence”, and contained powerful women who even had the power to take titles and (in some tribes) marry other women. This is unsurprising if we consider that the central cultural axiom of Igbo life is Balance. Although this disparity between the way Igbo culture is portrayed by Achebe and the way it actually was may be even more infuriating at first, upon greater consideration it deepens the personal connections we form to the text.

In Rhonda Cobham’s essay Problems of Gender and History in the teaching of Things Fall Apart, she proposes that Achebe purposefully leaves out the traditional power that Igbo women had because it does not fit our Western culture. While the idea that Achebe was trying to “fit” western culture seems absurd at first, it makes more sense when considering the context of the novel. Things Fall Apart was written in 1958, with the aim of giving the world a traditional African narrative and character to identify with. One of the devices Achebe used to make sure we identified with Okonkwo is reducing the disparity between Western and African culture and customs.

Apart from not giving autonomous women’s societies more power, Achebe also focuses on the seemingly ‘polygamous’ relationship of Okonkwo and Ekwefi by not describing in as much detail the love between Okonkwo and his other two wives. This is strengthened when we realize that in the majority of instances where Okonkwo shows caring emotion, Ezinma and Ekwefi are involved (e.g. when Okonkwo follows Ekwefi to the Oracle; when we learn of his worry before this event; and when he prepares medicine to cure Ezinma’s fever). Through this, the difference between these cultures seems smaller, and allows the non-African audience another potential facet to identify with.

In the same vein, Achebe excluded some realistic actions that actual Igbo women could have taken during the course of the novel. For example, in the case of the wife-beating Uzowulu, the earlier mentioned Umuada (or daughters of the clan) could have organized a “sexual strike” until his wife got the justice she deserved. Cases like these are unheard of in the west, however, and so their exclusion give the non-African readers a structure that they can identify with. By doing so, Achebe is able to focus on building cultural similarities in Part One of the novel, which play a big role in allowing the audience to identify with Okonkwo when Igbo society falls apart in Part Two.

This decision of his also helps the audience center on the focal point of the text: the reality of colonization. If Igbo culture had been described in all it’s glory, it’s likely that many other issues would have been raised (e.g. sexism), not pertaining to Achebe’s original plan. We see him exercising his right as an author to create (to a certain extent) his own version of Umuofia, which is ideal for telling his story.

This idea that Achebe’s Umuofia is just one interpretation of an African village of many others that could exist also introduces the readers to the fact that “there is no truly objective, unbiased version of traditional life” (Cobham). The observer effect comes into play – once the village is being recorded it’s reality has been affected by the person recording it. This realization is one that goes beyond just Things Fall Apart, enriching our understanding of any texts we may read in the future (especially those relating to traditional life).

A cultural concept that enriched my understanding of the text was that of Balance. In the essays we read, a lot of emphasis was placed on how much the Igbo value Balance in all forms – seen in the novel, for example, when the male is the ‘lead’ of the household but the concept of ‘Nneka’, or mother being supreme, also exists.

This understanding of the Igbo culture sheds light on why Okonkwo is so conflicted – he interprets his own tribe’s values as being direct and clear-cut, whereas in reality there are often two sides to the same coin. Okonkwo associates masculinity solely with courage and strength, and he fails to realize the complex system of morals encompassing both compassion and strength that the Igbo value. One example of this is in the case of Ndule and Ozeomena, where Okonkwo’s counterpart Obierika positively recognizes their inseparability while Okonkwo questions the masculinity of Ndule.

This concept of balance also helps us understand the wider narrative that Achebe is weaving – that of the intertwining western and African stories. This is done very interestingly in Part One, where Achebe tells a western story structure with African characters and cultural practices. For example, in the biblical parallels he includes relating the Okonkwo-Nwoye dynamic to Abraham and Isaac, he balances Christian and Igbo values by showing their similarities. The earlier discussed selectivity that Achebe employs when discussing Igbo women also elaborates to the concept of balance: we see an Umuofia that is closer to our cultural practices and so are more likely to understand it better.

In conclusion, the increased awareness of context (relating to place, agenda, and time) have greatly strengthened our understanding of the many layers of Things Fall Apart. On hindsight, these contexts are crucial to a full comprehension of the many subtleties of the text, and are especially relevant when making sure readers don’t make sweeping judgmental statements on Igbo culture.