The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
When the vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darknexss drops again; but now I know
That tweny centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rogh best, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930, in Ogidi, where two distinct cultures cohabitated: the
traditional Igbo society and religion, and British colonial rule and Christiality. Achebe was educated in a
“western” university studying liberal arts. As a writer, Achebe believes that the artist has a social
responsibility, and for him this responsibility is manifest in his descriptions of a culture that before had been
reduced to violent and simple minded savages (Heart of Darkness...). Achebe also believes in the
importance of literature because it frees the imagination; it “begins as an adventure in self-discovery and
ends in wisdom and human conscience.” While criticized for writing in English rather than Igbo, Achebe
maintains his right to write in English, which he has used since he was a child, and in therefore able to
communicate to those who are either unfamiliar with, or who have lost Igbo. And it is eloquently in
English, in Things Fall Apart, that Achebe gives us a story in which a “complex and dignified traditional
society disintegrates before foreign invaders who assault its political, economic, and religious institutions,”
in essence setting forth an example of Africa’s rich history before colonialism. Achebe also gives us,
through Okonkwo, an epic hero with his tragic flaw coupled with fierce attention to balance, a theme found
throughout Igbo culture.
Things Fall Apart Study Guide
-Characters and names, roughly in order of appearance:
Okonkwo
Amalinze
Unoka
Okoye
Mbaino
Ibo
Ikemefuna
Umoufia
Ogbuefi Ezeugo
Oracle/Agbala
Elders (ndichie)
Nwoye
Obi
Chi
Nwakibie
Osugo
Nwayieke
Ekwefi
Enzinma/ Ezigbo
Obiageli
Ikezue
Obierika
Ofoedu
Ogbuefi Ndulue
Ozoemena
Akueke
Mgbafo
Uzowulu
Ezenwa
Iguedo
Uchendu
Mr. Kiaga
Ugonna
Mr. Brown
Akunna
Rev. James Smith
Ekwueme
Okudo
Egonwanne
Onyeka
Main themes to watch for throughout the book are Balance/Chi, Tradition/Rites, Tragic Hero