Things_Fall_Apart_Critical_Review

Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart is perhaps one of the most famous of all African novels and is well known for its display of African culture and heritage as well as the reaction of African culture to colonization. Chinua Achebe wrote this fictional story using the cultural references of his own native Nigerian Igbo heritage to describe the chaotic period just prior to British colonization. This novel is centered on the violent protagonist Okonkwo who is a well-respected member of the Umuofia clan. Though outwardly stern and powerful, much of his life is dictated by internal fear. His greatest, overwhelming worry is that he will become like his father – lazy, unable to support his family, and coward. Okonkwo considers many of his father’s characteristics to be feminine. Much of Okonkwo’s behavior results from a reactionary desire to be completely unlike his father. This means that Okonkwo attempts to work hard, provide for his family materially, be brave, and be masculine in every possible way. As a result, Okonkwo’s becomes successful in many ways – he becomes very wealthy, holds a high-ranked position in the community, has three wives, and is known for his skill as a wrestler and warrior. But he also tends toward emotions that are extreme, and his fear motivates him to take actions which are often unnecessary and ultimately destructive. His fear of being feminine leads him to assist in the murder of Ikemefuna whom he loved, to beat his wives, be emotionally distant from his children, and to disown his oldest son. In my opinion, Okonkwo is not a bad person he is just doing not want to repeat the history as his father does. The culture of the village is also marked by the significance of the family in the village. What is most interesting to note is that in this society, the man does work and he works hard and so do the women but they each have differing roles. The men deal with the yams and the women harvest other crops and do other tasks. There is a constant comparison going on in the novel between Okonkwo, who is the manliest of men, and lesser men and women. There are several instances in the novel where a distinction is made between women and men where women are always seen as weak. Anyone who is described as being cowardly also has the description of being womanly. Okonkwo laments about one of his daughters, Ezinma, that she wasn’t born a boy since she is like her father and hardworking contrariwise to her brother Nwoye. I depict the Igbo as a people with great social institutions. Their culture is rich and impressively civilized, with traditions and laws that place great emphasis on justice and fairness. The people are ruled not by a king or chief but by a kind of simple democracy, in which all males gather and make decisions by consensus. Ironically, it is the Europeans, who often boast of bringing democratic institutions to the rest of the world, who try to suppress these clan meetings in Umuofia. The Igbo also boast a high degree of social mobility. Men are not judged by the wealth of their fathers, and Achebe emphasizes that high rank is attainable for all freeborn Igbo. He does not shy from depicting the injustices of Igbo society. No more or less than Victorian England of the same era, the Igbo are deeply patriarchal. They also have a great fear of twins, who are abandoned immediately after birth to a death by exposure. Violence is not unknown to them, although warfare on a European scale is something of which they have no comprehension. The novel attempts to repair some of the damage done by earlier European depictions of Africans. But this recuperation must necessarily come in the form of memory; by the time Achebe was born, the coming of the white man had already destroyed many aspects of indigenous culture. Things Fall Apart is set in the 1890s, during the coming of the white man to Nigeria. Umuofia is the home place of Okonwo and is described as a village that was feared by all its neighbors. Mbaino is a neighboring village from which the character Ikemefuna comes in order to appease the villagers of Umuofia.  The other geographic location in this novel is Mbanta where Okonkwo is exiled for killing a man in the village. While these may be the few physical geographic locations in the novel, physical geography is not the most important factor in the novel. Rather, this novel is full of the complexities of the Igbo culture and therefore I think it is necessary to study the cultural geography of this novel. In conclusion, this novel is primarily centered on the culture of the Igbo people right at the beginning of British colonization. While the novel doesn’t describe the physical geography of the place or region, it gives a very complex description of the cultural geography of the Igbos. I do think that Chinua Achebe wrote this story for his people and Westerners to learn the beauty of his culture before it was harmed by British colonization. Therefore I would say its well-known story to some but not all. Since I have read this book, I have learned to respect and love this novel and the complicated African culture within it. I would highly recommend it as a literary work of art and even as a book which describes cultural geography but since Achebe doesn’t give many details on physical geography I wouldn’t use it for a resource for physical geography. It would be better for a cultural geography course.