Introduction

First edition of Things Fall Apart, published in 1958 by William Heinemann Ltd.

Things Fall Apart is the first novel by the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. It portrays the life of Okonkwo, a traditional influential leader of the fictional Igbo clan, Umuofia. He is a feared warrior and a local wrestling champion who opposed the European colonialism and Christian missionaries. An early modernist novel, it received positive reviews upon publication. The novel was published in the United Kingdom in 1958 by William Heinemann Ltd.

The novel takes its title from a verse of the poem, "The Second Coming" by W. B. Yeats. It was written in three parts, and was followed by a sequel, No Longer at Ease, originally written as the second part of a larger work along with Arrow of God.

Background

Achebe was born in 1930, in Ogidi, Anambra State, where Igbo-speaking people lived together in groups of independent villages ruled by titled elders. Within the forty years of the colonization of Nigeria, and by the time of his birth, the missionaries were already established.

Written in English, Achebe felt that the written standard Igbo language was stilted, which he connected to the fact that the standard was deliberately created by combining various dialects. In a 1994 interview with The Paris Review, Achebe said, "the novel form seems to go with the English language. There is a problem with the Igbo language. It suffers from a very serious inheritance which it received at the beginning of this century from the Anglican mission. They sent out a missionary by the name of Dennis. Archdeacon Dennis. He was a scholar. He had this notion that the Igbo language—which had very many different dialects—should somehow manufacture a uniform dialect that would be used in writing to avoid all these different dialects. Because the missionaries were powerful, what they wanted to do they did. This became the law. But the standard version cannot sing."[1]

Achebe's choice to write in English has caused controversy. While both African and non-African critics agree that Achebe modelled Things Fall Apart on classic European literature, they disagree about whether his novel upholds a Western model, or, in fact, subverts or confronts it.[2] Achebe continued to defend his decision: "English is something you spend your lifetime acquiring, so it would be foolish not to use it. Also, in the logic of colonization and decolonization it is actually a very powerful weapon in the fight to regain what was yours. English was the language of colonization itself. It is not simply something you use because you have it anyway."[3]

Achebe is noted for his inclusion of and weaving in of proverbs from Igbo oral culture into his writing.[4] This influence was explicitly referenced by Achebe in Things Fall Apart: "Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten."

Publication history

Achebe titled his manuscript Things Fall Apart, and while revising the work, he removed the second and third sections. He allowed only the story of his main character Okonkwo during the British Administration in Nigeria. He later included sections, restructured the prose of the book, as well as edited many chapters.

In 1957 he sent his a copy of his handwritten manuscript to London, where it could be typed by a manuscript typing service. After there was no reply, Achebe asked Angela Beattie who works at the Nigerian Broadcasting Service, to visit the company whenever she travels to London. Beatrice went to the company, and made them send a typed manuscript to Achebe.

The next year Achebe sent his novel to the agent recommended by Gilbert Phelps in London. It was sent to several publishing houses, where it was speedily rejected with the reason that the fiction from African writers had no market potential. The executives at Heinemann read the manuscript and decided to publish the book. Heinemann published 2,000 hardcover copies of the novel on 17 June 1958.

Plot summary

The main character Okonkwo, is famous in the villages of Umuofia for being a wrestling champion. He is characterized as being starkly different from his father, Unoka, who had been a debtor unable to support his wife or children, and who preferred playing his flute over conflict. Okonkwo therefore works to build his wealth entirely on his own from a young age, as his father had not left him any inheritance. Obsessed with his masculinity, and non expression of his emotions if not anger, he often beats his wives and children. He is the leader of his village, Umuofia.

Okonkwo is selected by the elders to be the guardian of Ikemefuna, a boy taken as a peace settlement between Umuofia and another clan after Ikemefuna's father killed an Umuofian woman. The boy looks up to Okonkwo as his second father. The Oracle of Umuofia eventually pronounces that the boy must be killed. Ezeudu, the oldest man in the village, warns Okonkwo not to associate himself with the murder but he disregards the warning and kills Ikemefuna. Shortly after Ikemefuna's death, Okonkwo falls into depression and nightmares. During a gun salute at Ezeudu's funeral, Okonkwo's gun accidentally explodes and kills Ezeudu's son. He and his family are exiled to Mbanta, his motherland, for seven years in order to appease the gods.

While Okonkwo is in Mbanta, he learns that white men are living in Umuofia with the intent of introducing their religion, Christianity. As the number of converts increases, the foothold of the white people grows and a new government is introduced. The village is forced to respond with either appeasement or resistance to the imposition of the white people's nascent society. Okonkwo's son Nwoye becomes curious about the missionaries, and after he is beaten by his father for the last time, he decides to leave his family behind to live independently. Nwoke is introduced to the new religion by a missionary, Mr. Brown. In the last year of his exile, Okonkwo instructs his best friend Obierika to sell all of his yams and hire two men to build him two huts so he can have a house to go back to with his family. He also holds a great feast for his mother's kinsmen.

Returning from Mbanta, Okonkwo finds his village changed by the presence of the white men. After a convert commits the crime of unmasking an elder as he embodies an ancestral spirit of the clan, the village retaliates by destroying a local Christian church. In response, the District Commissioner representing the colonial government takes Okonkwo and several other native leaders prisoner pending payment of a fine of two hundred bags of cowries. Despite the District Commissioner's instructions to treat the leaders of Umuofia with respect, the native "court messengers" humiliate them, doing things such as shaving their heads and whipping them. As a result, the people of Umuofia finally gather for what could be a great uprising. Okonkwo, a warrior by nature and adamant about following Umuofian custom and tradition, despises any form of cowardice and advocates war against the white men.

When messengers of the white government try to stop the meeting, Okonkwo beheads one of them. Because the crowd allows the other messengers to escape and does not fight alongside Okonkwo, he realizes with despair that the people of Umuofia are not going to fight to protect themselves – his society's response to such a conflict, which for so long had been predictable and dictated by tradition, is changing. When the District Commissioner, Gregory Irwin, comes to Okonkwo's house to take him to court, he finds that Okonkwo killed himself because he saw that he was fighting the battle alone and his tribe had given up. Among his own people, Okonkwo's actions have tarnished his reputation and status, as it is strictly against the teachings of the Igbo to commit suicide. Obierika struggles not to break down as he laments Okonkwo's death. As Irwin and his men prepare to bury Okonkwo, Irwin muses that Okonkwo's death will make an interesting chapter - or "a reasonable paragraph, at any rate" - for his written book, "The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger".

Reception

Things Fall Apart is regarded as a milestone in Anglophone African literature, and for the perception of African literature in the West. It has come to be seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English,[5][3] and is read in Nigeria and throughout Africa. It is studied widely in Europe, India, and North America, where it has spawned numerous secondary and tertiary analytical works. It has achieved similar status and repute in Australia and Oceania.[6][5] Considered Achebe's magnum opus, it has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.[7] Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.[8] The novel has been translated into more than 50 languages, and is often used in literature, world history, and African studies courses across the world.

Achebe is now considered to be the essential novelist on African identity, nationalism, and decolonization. Achebe's main focus has been cultural ambiguity and contestation. The complexity of novels such as Things Fall Apart depends on Achebe's ability to bring competing cultural systems and their languages to the same level of representation, dialogue, and contestation.[3]

Reviewers have praised Achebe's neutral narration and have described Things Fall Apart as a realistic novel. Much of the critical discussion about Things Fall Apart concentrates on the socio-political aspects of the novel, including the friction between the members of Igbo society as they confront the intrusive and overpowering presence of Western government and beliefs. Ernest N. Emenyonu commented that "Things Fall Apart is indeed a classic study of cross-cultural misunderstanding and the consequences to the rest of humanity, when a belligerent culture or civilization, out of sheer arrogance and ethnocentrism, takes it upon itself to invade another culture, another civilization."[9]

Achebe's writing about African society, in telling from an African point of view the story of the colonization of the Igbo, was noted at its publication in Europe and America to help combat the systemic Western misconception that African culture was savage and primitive. In Things Fall Apart, western culture is portrayed as being "arrogant and ethnocentric," insisting that the African culture needed a leader. As it had no kings or chiefs, Umuofian culture was vulnerable to invasion by western civilization. It is felt that the repression of the Igbo language at the end of the novel contributes greatly to the destruction of the culture. Although Achebe favours the African culture of the pre-western society, the author attributes its destruction to the "weaknesses within the native structure." Achebe portrays the culture as having a religion, a government, a system of money, and an artistic tradition, as well as a judicial system.[10]

Legacy

The publication of Achebe's Things Fall Apart helped pave the way for numerous other African writers. Novelists who published after Achebe were able to find an eloquent and effective mode for the expression of the particular social, historical, and cultural situation of modern Africa.[2] Before Things Fall Apart was published, most of the novels about Africa had been written by European authors, portraying Africans as savages who were in need of western enlightenment.

Achebe broke from this outsider view, by portraying Igbo society in a sympathetic light. This allows the reader to examine the effects of European colonialism from a different perspective.[2] He commented: "The popularity of Things Fall Apart in my own society can be explained simply ... this was the first time we were seeing ourselves, as autonomous individuals, rather than half-people, or as Conrad would say, 'rudimentary souls'."[3] Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has described the work as "the first novel in English which spoke from the interior of the African character, rather than portraying the African as an exotic, as the white man would see him."[11]

The language of the novel has not only intrigued critics but has also been a major factor in the emergence of the modern African novel. Because Achebe wrote in English, portrayed Igbo life from the point of view of an African man, and used the language of his people, he was able to greatly influence African novelists, who viewed him as a mentor.[3]

Achebe's fiction and criticism continue to inspire and influence writers around the world. Hilary Mantel, the Booker Prize-winning novelist in a 7 May 2012 article in Newsweek, "Hilary Mantel's 5 Favorite Historical Fictions", lists Things Fall Apart as one of her five favourite novels in this genre. A whole new generation of African writers – Caine Prize winners Binyavanga Wainaina (current director of the Chinua Achebe Center at Bard College) and Helon Habila (Waiting for an Angel [2004] and Measuring Time [2007]), as well as Uzodinma Iweala (Beasts of No Nation [2005]), and Professor Okey Ndibe (Arrows of Rain [2000]) count Chinua Achebe as a significant influence. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the author of the popular and critically acclaimed novels Purple Hibiscus (2003) and Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), commented in a 2006 interview: "Chinua Achebe will always be important to me because his work influenced not so much my style as my writing philosophy: reading him emboldened me, gave me permission to write about the things I knew well."[3]

Things Fall Apart was listed by Encyclopædia Britannica as one of "12 Novels Considered the 'Greatest Book Ever Written'".[12]

The 60th anniversary of the first publication of Things Fall Apart was celebrated at the South Bank Centre in London, UK, on 15 April 2018 with live readings from the book by Femi Elufowoju Jr, Adesua Etomi, Yomi Sode, Lucian Msamati, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Chibundu Onuzo, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Ben Okri, and Margaret Busby.[13][14]

On 5 November 2019 BBC News listed Things Fall Apart on its list of the 100 most influential novels.[15]

Adaptations

A radio drama called Okonkwo was made of the novel in April 1961 by the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. It featured Wole Soyinka in a supporting role.[16]

In 1970, the novel was made into a film starring Princess Elizabeth of Toro, Johnny Sekka and Orlando Martins by Francis Oladele and Wolf Schmidt, executive producers Hollywood lawyer Edward Mosk and his wife Fern, who wrote the screenplay. Directed by Jason Pohland.[17][Filmportal 1]

In 1987, the book was made into a very successful miniseries directed by David Orere and broadcast on Nigerian television by the Nigerian Television Authority. It starred several established film actors, including Pete Edochie in the lead role of Okonkwo and Justus Esiri as Obierika, with Nkem Owoh and Sam Loco Efe in supporting roles.[18]

In 1999, the American hip-hop band the Roots released their fourth studio album Things Fall Apart in reference to Achebe's novel.

In 1999, a theatrical production of Things Fall Apart adapted by Biyi Bandele was performed at the Kennedy Center.[19]

In September 2024, a television adaptation was announced to be in development at A24 with Idris Elba set to star as well as act as executive producer alongside David Oyelowo.[20]

Citations

^ Brooks, Jerome, "Chinua Achebe, The Art of Fiction No. 139", The Paris Review No. 133 (Winter 1994).
^ a b c Booker (2003), p. 7.
^ a b c d e f Sickels, Amy. "The Critical Reception of Things Fall Apart", in Booker (2011).
^ Jayalakshmi V. Rao, Mrs A. V. N. College, "Proverb and Culture in the Novels of Chinua Achebe", African Postcolonial Literature in English.
^ a b Appiah, Kwame Anthony (1992), "Introduction" to the Everyman's Library edition.
^ "Chinua Achebe". BOOK OF DAYS TALES. 16 November 2015. Retrieved 18 October 2020.
^ THINGS FALL APART by Chinua Achebe | PenguinRandomHouse.com.
^ "All-TIME 100 Novels| Full list", Time, 16 October 2005.
^ Whittaker, David, "Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart", New York, 2007, p. 59.
^ Achebe, Chinua (1994). Things Fall Apart. London: Penguin Books. pp. 8. ISBN 0385474547.
^ The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education 2001, pp. 28–29.
^ Hogeback, Jonathan, "12 Novels Considered the 'Greatest Book Ever Written'", Encyclopædia Britannica.
^ Murua, James, "Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' at 60 celebrated", Writing Africa, 24 April 2018. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
^ Edoro, Ainehi, "Bringing Achebe's Masterpiece to Life | Highlights from the 60th Anniversary Reading of Things Fall Apart | Eddie Hewitt", Brittle Paper, 24 April 2018.
^ "100 'most inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News. 5 November 2019. Retrieved 10 November 2019. The reveal kickstarts the BBC's year-long celebration of literature.
^ Ezenwa-Ohaeto (1997). Chinua Achebe: A Biography Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p. 81. ISBN 0-253-33342-3.
^ Moore, David Chioni; Analee Heath; Chinua Achebe (2008). "A Conversation with Chinua Achebe". Transition. 100 (100): 23. JSTOR 20542537.
^ "African movies direct and entertainment online". www.africanmoviesdirect.com. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
^ Triplett, William (6 February 1999). "One-Dimensional 'Things'". Washington Post. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
^ Otterson, Joe (26 September 2024). "Idris Elba to Star in 'Things Fall Apart' TV Series From A24, Elba's 22Summers, David Oyelowo (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 26 September 2024.