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Jacob Tull
Ms. Susan Darraj
English 202
6/27/19
Literary analysis of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe is able to create an amazing and unique story in Things Fall Apart
allowing us to look at the life of the man Okonkwo from the days of his earliest childhood
growing up with a poor father in the village of Ibo in Nigeria, to him becoming the head of his
own house hold and ruling his family with an iron fist. Okonkwo hates the way that his father
was weak and “feminine” growing up, so he decides to become a harsh and unforgiving man as a
result. He is obsessed with the idea of becoming a “man” through the work on his farm and the
titles he receives from the village. He wishes to make sure his children successful, so he works
them hard and with anger in each action he tries to move them in the proper direction. One day
during a funeral Okonkwo accidently kills the child of a recently deceased head of the village
and is outcasted for 7 years. After coming back, he believed his village has changed for the
worse. They have become passive and have allowed the white man to rule over them and change
their religions to that of Christianity. Okonkwo knows no bounds when it comes to war and
killing, so when a messenger of the white man comes to stop a village meeting, without
hesitation he slaughters the man in cold blood. When the village doesn’t follow in his
bloodthirsty behavior, he leaves and is found the next day disgraced hanging from a tree,
committing one of the greatest sins you can in the tribe of Umuofia, suicide.
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The theme of greatness plays a large role in the book Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo
growing up to a father with no money and no land and debt beyond repair, he had to work his
hardest to become the man he wanted to be.
“He neither inherited a barn nor a title which many young men had, nor even a young
wife. But despite these disadvantages, he had begun to lay the foundations of a
prosperous future… and indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father’s contemptible
life and shameful death” (Achebe 18).
Okonkwo would do anything to become great and live a life that would put his fathers to
shame. So, he worked years and years to become one of the leaders of the village and earn
himself titles. This want and drive to become great carried Okonkwo through his early years to
be a man he always wanted to be. He was able to build his own barn and house and father
children with his 3 wives he had. He was able to go to war and bring back a head from an
opposing tribe member and become war delegate for his people. But this drive to become great
and having a brash nature usually doesn’t allow Okonkwo to think before he acts. When
confronted by white messengers during a meeting of the village who were asking the meeting to
stop Okonkwo,
“sprang to his feet as soon as he saw who it was… In a flash Okonkwo drew his machete.
The messenger crouched to avoid the blow. it was useless. Okonkwo’s machete
descended twice, and the man’s head lay beside his uniformed body.” (Achebe 204).
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Okonkwo was not joined by his brothers after he slayed the first messenger. He was
hoping to ignite his clan back into the warlike state that he loved and was very prominently
respected in. Instead they did not act out with such a twitch action as he did. “They had broken
into tumult instead of action. He discerned fright in the tumult. He heard voices asking: ‘Why
did he do it?’ He wiped his machete on the sand and went away” (Achebe 205). Okonkwo’s
inability to defend his honor and strive for greatness resulted in him killing an unarmed white
colonist and shaming himself beyond repair. He ended his life by committing suicide as he had
no place in this title less pacifist world. His whole life he hated his father for the life that he had
lived but, in the end, Okonkwo died just as his father did, title less and sinful.
Another theme that plays a role in this novel is the need to be masculine. Okonkwo
believes that masculinity and anger is the key to becoming a real man and he gets that from the
hatred that he has for his father. “Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly, unless it be the
emotion of anger. To show affection was a sign of weakness.” (Achebe 28). Okonkwo’s father
Unoka played the flute and didn’t take care of his family and Okonkwo saw this as weak and
“effeminate”. He rules his family like a dictator, and it shows in the way he treats his son for not
cutting a yam seed correctly,
“I will not have a son who cannot hold up his head in the gathering of the clan. I would
sooner strangle him with my own hands. And if you stand there staring at me like that…
Amadiora will break your head for you” (Achebe 33).
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Okonkwo’s way of making his kids learn is strict and abusive. He will beat them at the first sign
of laziness or insubordination, and wont stop until they have changed their ways. He thinks if he
beats and yells at them, they will toughen up and grow up to become strong farmers just as he is.
The masculine nature of Okonkwo also caused the death of his “son” Ikemefuna.
Okonkwo was asked to come along in the ceremony to kill his stepson and was told explicitly
“that boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death” (Achebe 57). Okonkwo was ready to
listen to them until the time of the ceremony. When Ikemefuna ran to him out of fear of death,
Okonkwo grabbed his machete and, “cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak.”
(Achebe 61). Okonkwo through his toxic masculinity killed the stepson that he “became very
fond of… inwardly of course.” (Achebe 28). This sense of having to be strong to prove himself
caused him to murder his stepson that he loved and caused him to spiral down into a depressive
drinking state where he, “drank palm-wine from morning till night, and his eyes were red and
fierce like the eyes of a rat when it was caught by the tail and dashed against the floor.” (Achebe
63). This theme of over masculinity has resulted in the death of himself and the death of a loved
one. This theme really hits home on the consequences that Okonkwo faces from trying to be to
masculine.
The African language and culture that Chinua Achebe uses in his book creates a sense of
authenticity to the culture that the book is trying to explain and convey to the reader. The reason
that this is the case is that when there is a specific cultural item or word instead of translating it
directly onto the page for the reader to read, the original African word is used. The use of the
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original African word allows the reader to become more immersed in the atmosphere that the
book is creating for the reader. “Many years ago, another egwugwu had dared to stand his ground
before him and had been transfixed to the spot for two days” (Achebe 122). In the back of the
book the reader can translate the words that are in italics from the appendix. Egwugwu is a
masquerader who impersonates one of the gods. Using real African words and not translating in
the middle of the story allows the book to keep its flow so if the reader wants to look at the
definition they can. In Diana Rhoads book African Studies Review, she talks of how Chinua can
portray the Igbo as “Individual”, “humanistic” and “Realistic” (Rhoads 62) in their culture. The
culture of Things Fall Apart is true to that of the natives that lived there before colonization.
Imagery used in the book really helps the reader image the world that these people in
precolonial Africa were in. As a 21st century man its hard to imagine the world that someone in
Africa in the 19th century. With such a difference in culture and life the author Chinua Achebe
really does a great job of immersing the reader into this culture through the imagery that he
provides.
“But the year had gone mad. Rain fell as it had never fallen before. For days and nights
together, it poured down in violent torrents, and washed away the yam heaps. Trees were
uprooted and deep gorges appeared everywhere. Then the rain became less violent. But it
went from day to day without a pause. The spell of sunshine which always came in the
middle of the wet season did not appear. The yams put on luxuriant green leaves, but
every farmer knew that without sunshine the tubers would not grow.” (Achebe 24).
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The way that Chinua Achebe explains the pattern of rain allows the reader to feel the violence
that it fell with. The reader can see the yams uprooting along with the trees and the holes that
they were creating. Another example of vivid detail comes from a wrestling match were the
“crowd had surrounded and swallowed up the drummers, whose frantic rhythm was no longer a
mere disembodied sound but the very heartbeat of the people. (Achebe 50). Having such a vivid
explanation keeps the reader attached to the story and keeps them moving along with crystal
clear imagination of the story.
Fate plays a large impact in Chinua Achebe’s book. In the book there is mention of
something call chi. Chi is a man’s person god and fate. Each man had their own and some had
good chi others had bad. Okonkwo always hated his father Unoka and would do anything to be
as opposite as him as he could. He would tirelessly work and farm unlike his dad and this
showed as Okonkwo having a good chi. His father was always said to be ill fated and thus it
showed in the way he lived poor and unable to feed his family. So, when it was Unoka’s time to
go he was overcome with the “swelling” which turned man into an abomination. They become
bloated and it was a sin for a man to die in the village with such condition. So as a result, they
cast Unoka into exile not allowing him to be buried at all and stripping him of what little things
he had left. Unoka was the bane of Okonkwo’s existence, being all that he hated. Although
Okonkwo appeared to have shaken the bad chi that his father had the fate of Okonkwo was
always set. He died just as his father did, “It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. it
is an offense against the earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansman. His
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body is evil, and only strangers may touch it.” (Achebe, 207). Okonkwo could not escape the
fate that his father had even though he tried his whole life to fight against the cursed chi that his
father had.
Critically many authors like the straightforwardness that Chinua Achebe gives on the life
before the colonizers. The ability for Chinua to give an accurate description of life in Africa
while including many implements of culture and politics without adding crazy addictive story
elements creates for a good story. Mercedes Mackay says that there is now “at last a Nigerian
writer … who can give us a straightforward, penetrating, and absolutely honest picture of
African village life before the advent of the first missionaries” (Mackay, 242-243). Kate
Turkington states that “Achebe has… started a movement that has placed a microcosm of Africa
clearly on the map of our literary consciousness.” (Turkington, 62). Overall this book was seen
with great overall praise when it first came out and was critically acclaimed. Kwame
Okoampaahoofe Jr. wrote that Things Fall Apart is the “pioneering and seminal African
contribution to world literature” (Okoampaahoofe Jr. 35) Things Fall Apart can be seen as a
great portal back to a time before the white colonizers were able to so horrifically destroy the
culture and society that Africa once had.
Overall the book suited my tastes very well. Chinua was able to create an authentic
experience and I could very easily follow along without much help from outside sources to
understand some of the diction. The plot of the story was very well put together and I was able to
read the whole book without the want to put it down for fear of missing out on a new and
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interesting plot point. Okonkwo’s story from Things Fall Apart will stay in my memory for a
long time as a great and powerful story.
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Work Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. First Anchor Books Edition, 1994.
Mackay, Mercedes. African Affairs. Vol. 57, Oxford University Press, 1958. 242-243. Print
Turkington, Kate. Things Fall Apart Studies in English Literature. London: Arnold, 1977. 62.
Print.
Rhoads, Diane Akers. African Studies Review. Culture in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.
2nd ed., vol. 36, Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Okoampaahoofe Jr., Kwame. “Chinua Achebe: Literary Giant of Our Time.” New York
Amsterdam News, vol. 89, no. 40, Oct. 1998, p. 35. EBSCOhost,
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