Things Fall Apart

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1994. Print.

Things Fall Apart is about man named Okonkwo, who lives in a village called Umuofia, which is one of several that belong to the Ibo tribe.  Okonkwo is known for being an excellent wrestler and a brave warrior.  He has three wives, several children, and a plot of land on which he grows yams.  The book itself falls into three parts, each of which covers a different period of Okonkwo’s life.

Part One introduces Okonkwo’s family and way of life.  Tribal life in Umuofia is dominated by male beliefs and values.  Okonkwo works the land, but his wives are responsible for raising his children and preparing him frequent meals.  On multiple occasions, Okonkwo is threatening and even physically abusive to his wives (38).  Okonkwo’s violent nature is also proven when he kills his adopted son, Ikemefuna, by clan decree (61).  Part One ends when Okonkwo is banished from his village for seven years because, during a funeral, his gun accidently explodes and kills a young boy (124).

Part Two follows Okonkwo’s exile into Mbanta, his mother’s village.  Okonkwo is depressed, but he acquires new wives and continues to work hard and promote his position in the tribe.  During Okonkwo’s stay, the tribe begins to encounter white men who ride “iron horses” (138).  Over time, the white men encroach upon the tribe even more, and reveal themselves to be missionaries for the one true God (145).  Part Two ends with Okonkwo’s preparing to return to Umuofia after sevens years (163-7).

Part Three covers the growing conflict between the white Christians and Okonkwo’s people.  Okonkwo returns to his home village to find that the white men have made a permanent settlement and have begun to convert some of his fellow tribesmen. They have also set up a justice system with its own “District Commissioner” (174).  On several occasions, tribe members are arrested and held in prison for various “crimes.”  Spoiler Alert: The conflict reaches a point of no return when Okonkwo realizes that his people may have no future.  He decapitates a white messenger and then hangs himself before he can be caught (204, 207).  The Commissioner decides to write a story about these events called: “The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger” (209). 

My personal response to this book is devastation.  To be fully honest, I felt like crying at the end of the book, because of the terrible circumstances surrounding Okonkwo’s death, which also seems to me to signal the death of his tribe.  Okonkwo is difficult to like at times, because of his callousness, but the culture to which he belongs is undeniably rich and beautiful.  This is shown throughout the book in their language, customs and daily routines.  One of my favorite descriptions in the book captures several of these features: 

“Enzima and her mother sat on a mat on the floor after their supper of yam foo-foo and bitter-leaf soup.  A palm-oil lamp gave out yellowish light.  Without it, it would have been impossible to eat; one could not have known where one’s mouth was in the darkness of that night.  There was an oil lamp in all the four huts on Okonkwo’s compound, and each hut seen from the others looked like a soft eye of yellow half-lit set in the solid massiveness of night” (95). 

Okonkwo’s people have their own world, their own lives, and their own spaces.  I felt welcomed into their way of life, and I even began to recognize some of their words, like ekwe (drums), obi (male’s hut), and umunna (male’s kinsmen).  It’s for this reason that the arrival of the white colonists really felt to me like an invasion.  I think I finally understand what Deleuze means by “deterritorialization.”  This happens literally when the white men clear the land and build a church in the “Evil forest” (148-9).  But I think this also happens with the language of the book itself.  Near the end, the pages are filled with Christian discourse and words like church, Lord, God, government, judgment, law, etc.  Strangely, these words are familiar to me, but they feel alien in the context of Okonkwo’s life.  The displacement of language is, for me, the most unwelcome and jarring aspect of the book.

I have to admit that I enjoyed the passage where Okonkwo slashes the messenger with his machete, cutting off his head.  It sounds terrible, but Okonkwo has no choice but to lash out at this point.  His masculine, tribal identity demands that he does so.  Besides, the colonists claim to uphold peace and justice, but ultimately they operate by brute force as well.  Sadly Okonkwo, and his tribe, are simply outnumbered.  Because of this, I feel strongly that Okonkwo’s choice to end his life, while tragic, was not detestable, since he’d rather die than live their life, under their law.  It's his way of affirming himself.  Especially chilling, of course, is the revelation that Okonkwo’s story will only be retold under the perspective of the aggressors.  It makes me wonder how many times this has happened to people like Okonkwo, and how many times it will happen again.