Summary of Things Fall Apart
Summary of Things Fall Apart
Summary of Things Fall Apart
Critical Analysis
Things Fall Apart is a vision of what life being like in lgboland between
1850and 1900. Achebe makes a serious attempt to capture realistically the
strains and tensions of the experiences of Ibo people under the impact of
colonialism. Achebe is able to view objectively the forces which irresistibly
and inevitably destroyed traditional lbo social ties and with them the quality
of lbo life.
Things Fall Apart is written in three parts: the first and most important
is set in Umuofia before the coming of the white man--before his existence is
even known. The second part dramatizes Okonkwo's banishment to Mbanta,
the village of his mother's people, for sins committed against the Earth
Goddess, and describes, mostly through reports, the coming of the white man
to the nine villages, the establishment of an alien church, government, and
trading system, and the gradual encroachment of these on the traditional
patterns of tribal life. The third section and the shortest brings the novel
swiftly to a close, dramatizing the death of the old ways and the death of
Okonkwo.
Okonkwo was "clearly cut out for great things", but he had earned his
reputation: as a wrestler, he brought fame to himself and his village; as a
warrior, he had taken the approved symbols of his prowess, the heads of five
victims, by the time he was twenty-one years old; as a man who had achieved
personal wealth, he had three wives, two barns full of yams, and two
important titles, titles which could be acquired only when wealth had been
achieved and quality proven.
The woman's world is normally benign: but this central scene in the first
part of the novel dramatizes the essential power who governs and controls
the society. Incredible as he may be, the epitome of the male rule, Okonkwo
is compliant to the female principle, and he follows the course of Chielo with
his beloved daughter Ezinma with a terror equal to that of his wife, powerless
to alter the course of events.
Okonkwo’s downfall and eventual banishment from the tribe at the end
of the first part of the novel proceed from offences committed "against the
earth “he first occurs during a week of peace when he beats his wife for
recklessness. Characteristically impulsive, Okonkwo was not one to let fear
of a goddess stand in his way. For his offence, Ani demands retribution in the
form of money, which Okonkwo pays. The second offence relates to the killing
of IKemefuna, a boy-hostage taken from a neighbouring clan and placed
Okonkwo’s household. Ikemefuna becomes like a son to Okonkwo. Nwoye,
Okonkwo’s eldest son, and a source of grave concern to his father because
he shows all the signs of possessing the "female" disposition of his
grandfathers under the influence of Ikemefuna__Nwoye, we told, "grows like
a yam kiln the rainy season". The deity eventually decrees that lkemefuna
must be. Okonkwo is warned that he must take no hand in the killing. Yet
for fear of appearing weak earing weak and cowardly, Okonkwo cuts down
lkemefuna with his "matchet".
The horror is not that Okonkwo has killed this boy whom he has grown
to love -- the authority and decision of the Oracle are not questioned. But, as
Okonkwo’s friend Oboelike says with a voice prophetic of the doom which will
overtake Okonkwo, his is the "kind of action for which the goddess wipes out
whole families.
In the second and third parts of the novel the critical social conflict takes
place. These sections present the social and psychological effect and the
tragic consequences which result from the clash between traditional lbo
society and British Christian in imperialism. In the second section, as well,
the relationship between Okonkwo and his refractory son Nwoye is delineated
in such a way as to transmute the broader cultural conflict to the personal
level.
Though disappointed and disillusioned by the blows fate has dealt him,
Okonkwo begins with characteristic single-mindedness to build a new life for
himself along the same principles which he applied in his childhood, and to
design against his arrival to Umuofia seven years thus.
Achebe tells the story of the coming of the white men-at first the
missionaries and then, close behind, the civil administrators, soldiers, and
traders with an economy and a restraint which belie the complexity of the
issues involved, a complexity which is directly reflected in the structure of
the novel. Oboelike makes two visits to Okonkwo during the latter's exile.
During the first visit he reveals, almost casually, that Abame, of the villages
in the union or the nine villages, "is no more”.
This chapter and the two which follow describe the vicissitudes of the
missionaries and how they overcome them. At first, they are treated casually
by the lbo people. Eventually their evangelists arrive at Mbanta, and
Okonkwo pauses to listen to one of them in the market square "in the hope
that it might Come to chasing the men out of the village or whipping them".
But in the end Okonkwo was fully convinced that the man was mad.
Such is not the case with Nwoye, Okonkwo's son. Nwoye had grown
towards manhood under the influence and companionship of Ikemefuna, and
when the latter was killed, he "felt something give way inside him like the
snapping of a tightened bow. Now he is captivated by the new religion.
Umuofia has changed more than Okonkwo had been set up for. The
white man has constructed an exchanging store and just because palm-oil
and portion became things of great price, and much money flowed into
Umuofia. And he has brought in a "lunatic religion". It is the religious
principles which Okonkwo sees as the force that changes the nature of village
life. His fear at the time of Nwoye's defection has now become a reality. He
remains firm to the old ways, joins in an attack which is made against the
Christian church, and for this, with several others, is arrested by the District
Commissioner and placed in irons in the jail. His feeling of embarrassment
encourages his last activities which finish in his passing.