Things Fall Apart Analysis

“Things Fall Apart”, published in 1958, is a novel written by Chinua Achebe designed to challenge the colonial myths of Africa’s recurrent cycle of creation of order from chaos and the dissolution of order into chaos. The novel is set in a traditional Ibo village community in Nigeria at the turn of the century when the first European missionaries and administrative officials were beginning to penetrate inland. It is a story based on the village “egwugwu” Okonkwo, a wrestler who gained fame after defeating “Amalinze the Cat” in one of the fiercest fights Umuofia had seen since “the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights”. Throughout the novel the reader sees the dichotomy of the protagonist who in order to not fall into the footsteps of his weak and lazy father, Unoka, does everything in his power to gain power and prestige in the Ibo society. This was done so that his ideals of masculinity and devotion to the village and its religious customs were seen as unwavering and devoted.

When the British took control of Nigeria in the late nineteenth century they assumed that they brought “history”, enlightenment and advancement to people who had no valid social, political and religious customs of their own. Fanon observes that the imperialists only made history for the mother country instead of building one for Africa as in their eyes Africa was “blankness in the imagination, a land without narrative.” The problem also with writing Ibo