Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: challenging colonial discourse on Africa

Ishqair 1
Anfal Abd-Almohdi
Dr. Abdullah Dagamseh
ENGL 645
5 April 2019
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: challenging colonial discourse on Africa
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart from African perspective is a way to challenge the colonial discourse on Africa, by giving the true image of civilized Africa. The writer wanted to show Africans’ life, culture, costume, traditions, and beliefs; to show that blacks are not savage or barbaric. Moreover, Achebe focuses on the Igbo culture while it symbolizes the strength and masculinity; to challenge the European perspective toward Africa. The novel portrays Africa as structured and civilized, although the protagonist defies the European stereotype. Things Fall apart is to break the stereotype of barbaric Africa.
Achebe invites us to go deeply inside Umuofia, by a native perspective; to show the richness and the thickness of the African culture, whether in the family’s relations, villager activities, or in Igbo traditions. This image of civilized Africa is missed in the eyes of the colonizer, who has the non-positive stereotype image of Africans. So, the novel is a project of writing history by going back to the past “pre-colonialism” of Africa, in contrast of non-civilized Africa that is already exists in the colonial discourse against Africa. On the other hand, Achebe offers the strengths and the weaknesses of the Igbo culture which lead to its downfall. Although, he does not idealize his people, because they are human beings, but he wants to show us the two sides of the coin.
To contrast this stereotype of savage and uncivilized African, Achebe shows a structured and civilized African society, by giving some positive aspects of the Igbo culture to challenge the colonial discourse against Africa. Moreover, Igbo culture as any other culture has its own standards and laws. For instance, they respect the elders “Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered” (Achebe 5). Having good family relations; they like to visit each other to strengthen their relations “My son has told me about you, and I am happy you have come to see us” Achebe 118). The richness of the proverbs indicates their wisdom “If a child washed his hands he could eat with kings” (Achebe 5). Moreover, they have their own rules and laws, and their own traditions that govern the people, otherwise they will be punished. We see that justice is the judge in the country, and the evidence of this is when Okonkwo beats his wife during the week of peace, he gets to be punished because of this “And that was also the year Okonkwo broke the peace, and was punished, as was the custom, by Ezeani, the priest of the earth goddess” (Achebe 24). Also, when Okonkwo killed Ikimifouna accidently, he exiled to his motherland. “It was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman, and a man who committed it must flee from the land” (Achebe 110).
Another positive aspect is the hierarchal society of Igbo, when it comes to the leadership. The Igbo suggest the most heroic man who has given more titles. This is an example of the manhood of Okonkwo and his refusal to be like his father. Okonkwo lives in fear to not be like him “It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father. Even as a little boy he had resented his father’s failure and weakness…One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness” (Achebe 10). Those people value the work, bravery, respect the costumes, and they are well organized people, not savage.
Achebe mentions a lot of the positive aspects of the Igbo, in order to prove the falseness of the European perspective toward the African. In which he shows the presence of laws, traditions, costumes, ethics, and the most important thing which is the internal system of the town. Achebe denies such a lie or a rumor about the African throughout the ages by giving the true image of civilized Africa. One more important point is that Achebe tries to prove throughout the positive aspects of the Igbo culture, is to highlight the spirituality of those people; to show the importance of this aspect of the Igbo as colonized during its absence in the colonizer.
Achebe shows us the other side of the coin; the weaknesses of the Igbo. One of the weaknesses in the Igbo culture is that some people do not respect individuality; that means one needs to be like others, and to do so hard to be like them. For example, when Okonkwo is compared with his father Unoko “Unoka was never happy when it came to wars. He was in fact a coward and could not bear the sight of blood” (Achebe 4). Achebe is very critical in some traditions. For example, the Igbo do not like to fight or to make wars “In Umofia’s latest war he was the first to bring home a human head. That was his fifth head” (Achebe 8). Those people are very peaceful “Never killed a man who says nothing” (Achebe 121). At this point Achebe criticizes the naivety of those people, when they do not believe the story of the white men; which leads them to their downfall “Those men of Abame were fools. They were fools,’ said Okonkwo after a pause...They have paid for their foolishness…but no one thought the stories were true” (Achebe 122).
The naivety of the Igbo makes Achebe a realistic and a straightforward in criticizing those people. For example, the very beginning of colonialism in Umuofia is by the coming of missionaries. The first followers that they join the church are the outcast, such as the woman who gives birth of twins. They think of the twins as evil spirits. So, they do not care of joining this woman the church. The Igbo ignore her and forget that she is one of them; which indicates their foolishness “Nneka had had four previous pregnancies and childbirths. But each time she had borne twins, and they had been immediately thrown away…when they found she had fled to join the Christians. It was a good riddance.” (Achebe 131). Another critique is when the Igbo wait the white to die, while the white are busy in building their government. They believe that setting a house in the forest for the white, the spirit of Mbanta will let them die within four days. “At last the day came by which all the missionaries should have died. But they were still alive, building a new red-earth” (Achebe 131).
Achebe represents the downfall of the clan by the downfall of the leader Okonkwo. He is a man of action, a man of violence, wants to lead his clan. Okonkwo thinks that things come over, and all things fall apart. “He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action. He heard voices asking: ‘why did he do it?’ he wiped his machete on the stand and went away. (Achebe 176). At the end, Okonkwo hangs himself, because of his disability to lead his people against the colonizer “Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwo’s body was dangling, and they stopped dead.” (Achebe 178).
Achebe highlights the idea of how the colonialists are able to address those negative aspects and make them useful for establishing their colony. And how the Igbo easily attracted to Christianity especially the outcasts; just because the people of this culture ignoring those members and considering them as unwelcomed in the society. Their naivety and ignorance of the missionary’s needs behind establishing the schools, churches, and hospitals, lead them to ignore their leader Okonkwo and to follow the missionaries.

Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. W.W. Norton & Co., 2009.