Chinua Achebe chose to write his novels in English to reveal a deep response of his people to colonisation and to make that response understood to people all over the world. Things Fall Apart was written in English to teach people worldwide of the struggles he faced and the people of Nigeria faced growing up. Many authors and critics have written about Achebe’s ‘Things fall apart’ adding their valued opinion on what he was trying to say and his decision to write in English. In the following essay I will be discussing why Achebe wrote the novel Things Fall apart in English and what messages he was trying to reveal, through the help of critics and secondary sources.
Achebe wrote in English to teach the reader the value of the Igbo culture. According to Brucker Achebe’s education in English and exposure to European societies has allowed him to capture not only the African perspective in the novel but also the European perspective on colonial expansion, religion, race, and culture (Brucker 1). Brucker states that Achebe’s decision to write Things Fall Apart in English was an important and significant choice (Brucker1). Achebe wanted this novel to respond to earlier colonial accounts of Africa; his choice of language was for that reason political (Brucker 3). Many African authors chose to write in native languages as a method of resistance to colonial culture; however Achebe wanted to achieve cultural renewal within and through English (Brucker 3). Nonetheless, he succeeds to capture the rhythm of the Igbo language and integrates Igbo vocabulary into the narrative (Brucker 3). Brucker also states that the stereotypes of African culture, especially the view that traditional African cultures are authoritarian, amoral, and u...
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...t they had poetry and, above all, they had dignity." However, Achebe does not idealize the precolonial past, as he knows that it cannot survive unchanged in a modern world (reference).
Through the opinion of authors and writers through the use of secondary sources, Chinua Achebe’s “things fall apart” has many different views and outlooks of why and how it was written. Chinua Achebe wrote “things fall apart” in English to inform and teach people worldwide the struggles he faced and the struggles most Nigerian people faced in Africa. Things Fall Apart is presented in English from the viewpoint of the Ibo culture. It deals with how individual characters as well as the society as a whole deals with change. Achebe creates a masterwork that presents the significance of balance. He says that when this balance is lost, chaos is inevitable and things essentially fall apart.
Okpewho, Isidore. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart: A Casebook. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.
Cook, David. “The Centre Holds: A Study of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.” Critical Insights: Things Fall Apart(2010): 124-144. Literary Reference Center. Web. 30 Jan. 2014
The novel "Things Fall Apart" examines African culture before the colonial infiltration. Achebe's novel forces us to examine the customs and traditions that make up an informal culture. At times we may find some their practices appalling, but Achebe makes us realize that the traditions and customs are what essentially hold the Ibo together. Achebe wrote 'Things Fall Apart" with the intention of changing the common view of African culture. He wrote the novel from an insider's perspective, revealing that African culture was not solely based on barbaric and mindless rituals. Achebe reveals the affects of the colonial infiltration on African societies. Through his novel he examines how colonization disturbed the unity and balance of a once strong cultural society.
The book Things Fall Apart successfully expressed how Chinua Achebe had succeeded in writing a different story. It pointed out the conflict of oneself, the traditional beliefs, and the religious matters of the Africans. Throughout the novel, Chinua Achebe used simple but dignified words and unlike other books, he also included some flashbacks and folktales to make the novel more interesting and comprehensible. Things Fall Apart was about a man named Okonkwo, who was always struggling with his inner fear although he was known for being a strong, powerful, and fearless warior. He feared of weakness, and failure more than the fear of losing and dying and that forshadowing the consequenses he got at the end. Through this man that Chinua Achebe represented the deep and rich human characteristics and the beliefs of one religion to another.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe tells the story of how one unified Umuofian community falls due to its own inner conflicts, as well as to the arrival of Christian missionaries. Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart to change the brutish image of Africa, for the Western world. The use of changing perspectives greatly aided Achebe in accurately portraying Africa as colorful, diverse and complex. For Westerners, viewing Africans as more than tribal and barbaric was a new concept, of which Achebe helped usher in. The story is told through the eyes of many Umuofians, which gives the reader a personal sense for the individuals within the tribe. When all the individual pieces of the story are brought together, the sifting perspectives creates a vast overview of the community, while also deepening the readers since for the tribe by allowing personal details to show through. Achebe captures the complexity of the Umuofia community by changing the perspective from which the story is being told frequently.
The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a story that opens the reader's mind to an entirely different way of living in a Nigerian village. Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930, perhaps this is why he writes a whole book on a Nigerian village and introduces to us the ways of life for the Nigerian people. From the first page of the book to the last, Achebe allows the reader to enter the mind of the main character Okonkwo. Okonkwo is the leader of his village and is very respected for his many achievements. Although Okonkwo means well for his village, the novel invites the reader to see him has a flawed character who eventually suffers from the consequences of bad "masculine" decisions he makes throughout the book.
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is a powerful novel about the social changes that occurred when the white man first arrived on the African continent. The novel is based on a conception of humans as self-reflexive beings and a definition of culture as a set of control mechanisms. Things Fall Apart is the story of Okonkwo, an elder, in the Igbo tribe. He is a fairly successful man who earned the respect of the tribal elders. The story of Okonkwo’s fall from a respected member of the tribe to an outcast who dies in disgrace graphically dramatizes the struggle between the altruistic values of Christianity and the lust for power that motivated European colonialism in Africa and undermined the indigenous culture of a nation.
Achebe himself once said, "Language is a weapon and we use it, and there's no point in fighting it." ( Gallagher, The Christian Century, v114, 260) These are words that Achebe lives by. He stood by this statement throughout his entire career with a language style that would change African literature. was no exception. He accomplished his goal by writing about his own culture and his own family in a poetic, proverbic style. < qtd. in http://www.upress.state.ms.us/catalogs/books/c/html/conache.html > The unique language style of Things Fall Apart not only changed Achebe's career, but it also changed his country. Achebe himself once said, " Art is, and always was, at the service of man. Our ancestors created their myths and told their stories for a human purpose. Any good story, any good novel, should have a message, should have a purpose." < http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/achebe.html> Achebe used the "weapon" of language to convince "outsiders" that Nigeria is a nation with great potential.
Well-acclaimed author, Chinua Achebe from Wes Africa, is recognized worldwide for his exquisite and intelligent usage of literary devices to bring to the limelight pertinent issues facing the African continent, more specifically Nigeria. He introduces the world to his main character Obi Okonkwo whom; through his eyes, a glimpse is given into the world of a Nigerian .In Things Fall Apart, his first of three novels, Okonkwo, upon his arrival from England is completely detached from his African heritage. From the novel, it is noticed that Obi Okonkwo slowly becomes a part of a dominant class whose corruption he finds repugnant. In an effort to choose between the acceptance of traditional values and the pleasures of a fast changing world, Obi finds himself in a tight fix .He is faced with growing pressures from the expectations of his family, his community, and the larger society around him. With unprecedented lucidity and a growing passion, Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease remains till date a brilliant account of the challenges facing Nigeria today. This paper seeks to examine the representation of the colonial experiences of Obi Okonkwo in the fiction of Chinua Achebe.
Throughout history, there have been many instances of people struggling to identify and cope with change and tradition, and this is no different in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
In Chinua Achebe 's classic novel "Things Fall Apart," the development of European colonization 's lead to extreme cultural changes, leaving a lasting impact on the Igbo village of Umofia in West Africa. In the novel, Achebe displays the impacts of European colonization in both critical and sympathetic terms to provide the reader with both positive and negative factors of Imperialism to develop an unbiased understanding of what the Igbo culture and society went through. While addressing the hardship 's of life by showing the deterioration of Okonkwo 's character, the cultural and traditional changes of society, and the positive and negative impacts of imperialism, Achebe keeps touch on the overall theme of the novel, once a dramatic event
Achebe writes Things Fall Apart to revise the history that has been misplaced. He writes to the European and Western culture. This fact is evident because the book is written in English and it shows us the side of the African culture we wouldn’t normally see. Achebe is constantly ...
Gikandi, Simon. "Chinua Achebe and the Invention of African Literature." Classics in Context: Things Fall Apart. Chinua Achebe. Portsmouth: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1996
Colonization in Nigeria affected the Igbo culture and its people in many different ways. In the novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the author portrays events in the novel that reflect real experiences that he had. Many of the events in the novel deal with the act of colonization and how it affects different members in society, an idea that Achebe has experienced for himself. The author 's first hand experience with colonization allows the story to depict how colonization affected the Igbo people more accurately. Chinua Achebe creates an accurate representation of colonialism with his use of real events that occurred.
Things Fall Apart, a novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe is a story about an Igbo village in Nigeria and a man that once was a powerful influence in the tribe, but begins to lose his influence as Nigeria is colonized and Christian missionaries come to evangelize. A deeper look at the novel, with a feminist critics point of view, tells a lot about the Igbo people as well as the author’s thoughts about women in the novel. Feminist critics look at female authors, and female characters and their treatment as well as women’s issues in society. Since Achebe is a male, the main focus of feminist literary criticism for Things Fall Apart is the women in the novel and their issues as well as the Igbo view of gender identity. Many issues that women