Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart
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Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart reflects historical fact as it fictionally portrays traditional African life in a Nigerian village before and after the coming of the white man. The author portrays history not only in a fictional context, but also in a subjective way, clearly sympathetic to the plight of the Africans, especially the hero Okonkwo, and critical of the imperialistic Europeans. The book is effective in transmitting the injustices of imperialism and the tragedy of the Africans and their way of life in large part because it so realistically portrays both oppressor and oppressed. The novel gives Achebe an important advantage over a non-fictional work: it is easier for the reader to identify and sympathize with Ibo society through the invented character Okonkwo than it would be in a work which attempts to objectively present the "facts" without appealing to the reader's deeper emotional and psychological impulses. Achebe describes the Nigerian village as one defined by traditions and rituals which give the society order and organization. The author gives his novel historical accuracy by including all the prejudices, chauvinism and superstitions of the African people. For example, after reading the horrible treatment of the dead body of the child Onwumbiko by the medicine man, no reader could accuse Achebe of idealizing the Ibo people: He brought out a sharp razor . . . and began to mutilate the child. Then he took it away to bury it in the Evil Forest, hol
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mic--Ibo life was disrupted by the white man. He is effective in getting these ideas across because he fictionally personalizes them in the anguished mind and soul of Okonkwo, with whom the reader identifies. Okonkwo resists, but to what end? The others are frightened or seduced into adopting the white man's ways---his God, his government, his technology, his economic arrangements. The white man instituted his religion and law for the traditional African church and law: " . . . Apart from the church, the white man had also brought a government. They had built a court where the District Commissioner judged cases in ignorance" (174). As Obierika says: "Our own men . . . have joined the ranks of the stranger [and] his religion and they help to uphold his government" (176). The white man would have overwhelmed the Africans no matter what they had done to resist. If they had not submitted, the Africans would have been slaughtered wholesale by the military technology of the white man.
As effective as Achebe is in fictionally portraying the plight of the Ibo, the question remains whether his work is historically reliable. Clearly, it is not as reliable as a scholarly work with every point documented. On the other hand, few scholarly wo
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Approximate Word count = 1625
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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