Study Guide to Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Intelligent Education

• Publisher: Influence Publishers
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781645420637
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, regarded as one of literature’s first counter narratives. As a classic novel written two years before Nigeria’s independence, Things Fall Apart showcases a pre-colonized Nigeria and the transformation of culture after English colonization. Moreover, Achebe is a colorful and gifted storyteller, allowing readers to experience a culture they otherwise might not have the pleasure of knowing. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores the context and history of Achebe’s classic work, helping students to thoroughly explore the reasons it has stood the literary test of time. Each Bright Notes Study Guide contains: - Introductions to the Author and the Work
- Character Summaries
- Plot Guides
- Section and Chapter Overviews
- Test Essay and Study Q&As The Bright Notes Study Guide series offers an in-depth tour of more than 275 classic works of literature, exploring characters, critical commentary, historical background, plots, and themes. This set of study guides encourages readers to dig deeper in their understanding by including essay questions and answers as well as topics for further research.

INTRODUCTION TO THINGS FALL APART

A STORY WITH UNIVERSAL APPEAL

Like any work of true art, Things Fall Apart can stand on its own, needing no study of historical background, literary history, anthropology, or current sociological concepts to make it meaningful. Plot, character development, theme, and overall style (use of language, structure, and so forth) are all strong enough to hold the reader’s interest, and it meets Horace’s criteria for great literature by being both entertaining and enlightening. Achebe is foremost a superb story-teller and the story that he tells contains universal elements so that it has a continuing meaning for people in times and cultures beyond that in which and about which it was written.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL ELEMENTS

On the other hand, it would be foolish to ignore certain levels of meaning in the book that give it added impact, reinforce its statements, or explain some of its nuances. Much of Achebe’s work, for example, has been the subject of studies with a decidedly anthropological or sociological bias, as opposed to a literary one. These elements are inherent in the tales and give anthropologists and sociologists’ glimpses into a culture that they might otherwise never experience - glimpses provided by one who is aware of the difference between the culture that he writes of and the culture that he is, at least in part, writing to. The anthropological and sociological examinations and discussions of Achebe’s tales also give the student of literature a wider perspective for understanding both the content of the novels and the author’s choice of techniques for expressing himself. For instance, R. Green’s “The Clashing of Old and New” (The Nation, CCL, II, 1965) might prove useful for an interdisciplinary point of view, and, while limited, The Literature and Thought of Modern Africa (London, 1966) by Claude Wauthier is also of interest.

EARLY NIGERIAN CULTURES

For the fullest understanding of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, it is worthwhile to trace certain historical facts and to examine pertinent aspects of Nigerian (or, rather, Ibo) culture, and then to review other African writing to gain a better appreciation of the scope of the author’s achievement, an achievement that becomes startlingly clear when his work is compared with that of his continental contemporaries. To begin, it is useful to consider that Nigeria has not always been a developing Third-World country, as it is perceived today. As early as 700 B.C., there were established cultures in the area. From about 500 B.C. to 200 A.D., the Iron Age Nok culture flourished on the Benue Plateau - this was during the time that Alexander the Great was creating the greatest empire yet seen in the Western world, and most of Europe was still in a primitive tribal state. Later, during the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, advanced cultures appeared in the Yoruba area and in the north (where Muslim influence was felt), and the Ife terra cottas were among the finest examples of that art form ever created.

EUROPEAN CONTACT

West Africa has had contact of one sort or another with Europe for many centuries. There is evidence of trade goods being imported from the Mediterranean area even during the time of the great African kingdoms, and trade was well established by the European Middle Ages. For obvious reasons, there was little interest in European countries regarding annexation of African colonies until better transportation and communication systems were developed and until there were trade goods that made the effort worth the cost economically.

SLAVERY

In West Africa, the two major sources of British interest were gold and slaves, and Nigeria was to become one of the major slave-supplying areas of all Africa. There had been slavery in Africa long before the arrival of the British, of course; there was a limited amount of slavery practiced among the blacks from prehistoric times, a practice that Achebe alludes to in his novels, and this practice was expanded greatly by the Arab nations to the North. The first instance of Europeans becoming involved in the slave trade was in 1441 when a Portuguese vessel returned to Lisbon from an exploratory expedition with twelve slaves. Within a few years, the number of slaves being taken from Africa reached the thousands.

“MAN-MONEY”

Portuguese and British slavers visited Nigeria as early as the fifteenth century, and it was the slave trade that stimulated English interest in the country, though not until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the trade was at its height. At one point in the early nineteenth century, in fact, Lagos was the largest slave depot in the region. Ironically, in 1807 England passed a law declaring the slave trade illegal and after that her interest in things African waned, although during an anti-slavery campaign Britain seized Lagos (in 1861), and continuing conflict with France led to a series of treaties between 1890 and 1898 that settled various boundary disputes. An interesting relic of slave-trading can still be found in Africa today in the form of the beaten black iron rods that were formerly used for money. The “country-money,” as the rods are now called, is long and thin and twisted, like wrought iron, with the two ends being beaten flat, roundly wide at one end, sharply triangle-shaped at the other. The value of the rod is determined by its length (in the mid-1970s, for example, a piece from twelve to fifteen inches long and about an eighth to a quarter of an inch thick was worth one or two American cents). A huge, heavy iron rod, four to five feet in length, was called “man-money” because it could be used to buy a man.

BRITISH COLONIAL SYSTEM

Leaving aside any question of morality, the British system of colonization traditionally has been more moderate and humane than most others. This system was based on two things: (1) the general English attitude toward its colonies and its responsibilities to those colonies (at least in part fostered by their experiences in America), and (2) the educational system set up within the colonized country to train native clerical workers and civil service employees (“Nigeria boasts more university graduates than any other African nation,” according to a Newsweek cover story, “Nigeria: The First Black Power,” March 4, 1974, p. 13). “In West Africa,” George H. T. Kimble says in Tropical Africa (New York: Twentieth-Century Fund, 1960), “Britain assumed minimum responsibilities and developed an efficient and inexpensive system to govern a large area.” This was the system of “indirect rule”: “that policy of allowing the powers of traditional rulers to remain intact to the maximum degree consonant with imperial rule” (Immanuel Wallerstein, Africa: The Politics of Independence, New York: Random House, 1961). In Nigeria this pattern was instituted by Lord Lugard in 1914. After World War II Britain was among the leading powers to accept the legitimacy of the “objective of national independence,” and the rapid transfer of power to the native populations - with a minimum of violence and antagonism - was admirable.

NIGERIAN INDEPENDENCE

Because of the attitude of Great Britain toward her colonies, she was not adverse to granting them independence and, indeed, often made the metamorphosis as easy as possible by encouraging the development of a federal form of government. As mentioned above, the ease of this political change was partly due to the British system of providing a responsibility-sharing program and an education system which prepared the new nation’s leaders for the transference. From 1946 through 1958, the Nigerians moved toward a multi-party, parliamentary-type government as they framed their constitution. On October 1, 1960, an independent nation was proclaimed within the British Commonwealth. Three years later, on October 1, 1963, the first nationwide elections were held as Nigeria became a republic.

Colonization certainly had taken its toll in human terms, however, and it is perhaps at least partly for this reason that the Biafran question arose in 1966 and that the military government, led by General Yakubu Dan Yumma “Jack” Gowon, came to rule. The task of welding sixty-five million people, comprising 250 different tribes, into one nation seemed almost impossible when Gowon came to power, after the second coup in seven months, to establish a “military democracy.” But, “Guided by highly trained technocrats who were one of the better legacies of the British colonial period, the Nigerian civil service continued to function ably throughout the upheavals of the 1960s” (Newsweek, “Nigeria: The First Black Power,” March 4, 1974, p. 10) and Gowon proved a more competent, sensible, and sincere leader than had been expected. The announced intention was for Gowon to step aside in favor of a civilian government, though there was considerable speculation as to whether the country was ready for such a method of self-rule. Still, Gowon was replaced by a peaceful return to civilian government in October 1979, for it was generally believed that he would not have been willing to see his achievements destroyed and might have decided to retain control. Unfortunately, the democratically elected government was ousted in a coup on December 31, 1983, and military rule has returned. General Ibrahim Babangida assumed the position of head of state on August 30, 1985; the government promised that democratic rule would be instituted by 1992.

ACHEBE’S ATTITUDES

As it must be under the circumstances, Achebe’s writing is concerned with colonialism and the effect of colonialism on the native Nigerian, though it certainly would not be valid to claim that this is all that he writes about. It is interesting, therefore, to explore his feelings about Nigeria’s colonial and post-colonial periods. As might be expected, the writer’s attitude reflects feelings of ambiguity.

Moderate in comparison with many African political leaders, Achebe’s opinion is not “that Africa has gained nothing at all during the colonial period.… But unfortunately when two cultures meet … [what often happens] is that some of the worst elements of the old are retained and some of the worst of the new are added” (Quoted in Robert Serumaga’s “Interview with Achebe,” Cultural Events in Africa, 28, Transcription Center, London, 1967).

Elsewhere, Achebe is even more pessimistic:

… in her long encounter with Europe, [Africa] … suffered many terrible and lasting misfortunes. In terms of human dignity and human relations, the encounter was almost a complete disaster for the black races. It has warped the mental attitudes of both black and white.

(“The Black Writer’s Burden,” Presence Africaine, Paris, 1962, p. 135)

Achebe has also seen the encounter in a more optimistic light on occasion:

… I believe that in political and economic terms … this arbitrary creation called Nigeria [created by the intervention of the British] holds out wonderful prospects. Yet the fact remains that Nigeria was created by the British - for her own ends. Let us give the devil his due: Colonialism in Africa disrupted many things, but it did create big political units where there were small scattered ones before … Of course there are areas of Africa where colonialism divided a single ethnic group among two or even three powers. But on the whole it did bring together many that had hitherto gone their several ways.

(“The English Language and the African Writer,” Insight, October/December, 1966, pp. 19-20)

Among the unifying elements that Achebe details (discussed below) is the imposing of English on diverse native populations as a common - albeit second-language. This, he states, is a major contribution leftover from the colonial period.

IBO PERSPECTIVE

At the same time, Achebe’s heritage as an Ibo tribesman has given him an added perspective. The traditional Ibo government structure is not the same as that of the other tribes with which the British dealt, and the differences precipitated many of the conflicts that the writer describes in his novels (most notably in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God). Even when this basic distinction is not the explicit focus of Achebe’s writing, as in No Longer at Ease, it is still an important part of the background. William R. Bascom and Melville J. Herskovits have described the conventional native political system, which allowed the British system to be incorporated with such facility, as contrasted with the governmental structure of the Ibo people, in Continuity and Change in African Cultures (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959):

Nigeria affords a classic example of the effect of cultural backgrounds on the course of recent history. The policy of indirect rule was first applied among the Hausa in the north, where political authority was centered in the Emir [an Arabic influence] and where taxation, courts, and other governmental institutions comparable to those of Europe were already in existence. It was extended with little difficulty to the Yoruba in the southwest, since their traditional political structure was sufficiently similar. But the attempt to apply it to the Ibo in the southeast failed because comparable political units on which to superimpose the new systems were lacking.

According to Margaret Laurence in Long Drums and Cannons (London: Macmillan, 1968), those political units were...