A Closer Look at Things Fall Apart

By Alex M.

Throughout his novel Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe’s main character, Okonkwo, deals with internal strife as he struggles to become a respectable man in the traditional African Igbo culture. Okonkwo strives throughout the novel to become everything that his lazy, drunken father was not: respected, hardworking, and wealthy. For the duration of the novel, Okonkwo attempts to prove himself—he grows yams, the masculine crop, retains complete control over his wives and children, and is careful to show no emotion, for fear that the tribe will look on him as weak. Okonkwo works hard for respect, and in his own eyes and in the eyes of his fellow tribesmen, he eventually succeeds. Achebe writes, “Okonkwo was clearly cut out for great things. He was still young but had won fame….He was a wealthy farmer and had two barns full of yams, and had just married his third wife. To crown it all he had taken two titles and shown incredible prowess in two wars. And so although Okonkwo was still young, he was already one of the greatest men of his time.” By Igbo standards, Okonkwo was a great man. However, when Christian missionaries arrive from Europe and begin to infiltrate Okonkwo’s community and threaten the traditional Igbo values, Okonkwo finds himself at a loss. The identity that he strove for so long to find in the Igbo culture begins to dissolve before his very eyes, as even his eldest son betrays him and turns to the Christian missionaries for help. Horrified by the changes taking place outside his control, Okonkwo takes matters into his own hands, rashly ending things before they can further Fall Apart.

While this book is a quick and easy read, Okonkwo’s incredibly harsh treatment of his wives and children initially made it difficult for me to sympathize with him as the protagonist. Okonkwo irrationally beats his wives for little to no reason at all, and kills one of his own children to demonstrate his masculinity—scenes which may have been normal to the Igbo people, but are difficult to comprehend in a modern context. However, Achebe uses Okonkwo’s cruelty in order to demonstrate the culture, which he re-created in the novel quite well. Achebe aptly portrays the day-to-day life of the Igbo people, from the crops they grew to the huts they lived in. Achebe also digs deeper into the hearts of the people, giving his readers a glimpse of their mystical belief system: ancestors take on a divine nature, the earth goddess is to be revered, and when a woman gives birth to twins, they must be discarded, because they are evil beings. The Igbo people are so enslaved to their gods that they live in perpetual fear of the anger of the gods—everything must be in accordance with the gods wishes. For Christians, this is a foreign principle: that God is not a loving, caring, benevolent creator; but rather a cold, demanding, vindictive being is something that we are not familiar with. Ultimately, Achebe uses the Igbo gods to further highlight the differences between Christians and the Igbo, showing his readers why Okonkwo and his people were so distraught at the appearance of the Europeans.

Although Okonkwo’s character at first seemed unrelatable, the conflicts that Achebe develops within his character are ones with which we can all relate: at some point, we’ve all wanted to correct situations that were out of our control, we’ve all hoped for approval, we’ve all desired to be liked and respected by our peers, and we’ve all desired to do something differently than our parents. Despite the extreme difference in beliefs and cultures, Achebe artfully creates a character in Okonkwo that we can all identify with—and that’s the beauty of Achebe’s work. Achebe is able to take a subject as foreign to modern-day readers as that of the Igbo people, and draw out basic truths within human nature that we can all relate to. Achebe creates a bridge in order for his readers to cross the gap from present to past, from modern day America to pre-colonial Africa. Ironically, Achebe’s greatest feat in Things Fall Apart is creating a way for multiple cultures to come together.