In Achebeã¢â‚¬â„¢s Things Fall Apart, How Does Okonkwo Behave Towards His Family?

1958 novel by Chinua Achebe

"Ikemefuna" redirects hither. For the American football histrion, run into Ikemefuna Enemkpali.

Things Fall Apart

First edition
Author	Chinua Achebe
Country	Nigeria
Language	English
Publisher	William Heinemann Ltd.
Publication engagement	1958

Things Fall Apart is the debut novel past Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, first published in 1958. It depicts pre-colonial life in the southeastern role of Nigeria and the invasion by Europeans during the late 19th century. Information technology is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, and one of the first to receive global disquisitional acclaim. It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and is widely read and studied in English-speaking countries around the world. The novel was first published in the UK in 1962 by William Heinemann Ltd, and became the start piece of work published in Heinemann's African Writers Series.

The novel follows the life of Okonkwo, an Igbo ("Ibo" in the novel) human and local wrestling champion in the fictional Nigerian association of Umuofia. The work is divide into three parts, with the first describing his family, personal history, and the community and society of the Igbo, and the second and 3rd sections introducing the influence of European colonialism and Christian missionaries on Okonkwo, his family, and the wider Igbo customs.

Things Autumn Apart was followed past a sequel, No Longer at Ease (1960), originally written as the second part of a larger work along with Arrow of God (1964). Achebe states that his two later novels A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987), while not featuring Okonkwo's descendants, are spiritual successors to the previous novels in chronicling African history.

Plot [edit]

Part one [edit]

The novel's protagonist, Okonkwo, is famous in the villages of Umuofia for being a wrestling champion, defeating a wrestler nicknamed "Amalinze The Cat" (because he never lands on his back). Okonkwo is strong, hard-working, and strives to testify no weakness. He wants to dispel his father Unoka'southward tainted legacy of unpaid debts, a neglected married woman and children, and cowardice at the sight of blood. Okonkwo works to build his wealth entirely on his own, equally Unoka died a shameful death and left many unpaid debts. He is too obsessed with his masculinity, and whatsoever slight compromise to this is swiftly destroyed. Equally a effect, he frequently beats his wives and children, and is unkind to his neighbours. However, his drive to escape the legacy of his father leads him to be wealthy, courageous, and powerful among the people of his village. He is a leader of his hamlet, having attained a position in his guild for which he has striven all his life.^[ane]

Okonkwo is selected past the elders to be the guardian of Ikemefuna, a boy taken by the clan every bit a peace settlement between Umuofia and another clan subsequently Ikemefuna's father killed an Umuofian woman. The boy lives with Okonkwo's family and Okonkwo grows addicted of him, although Okonkwo does not show his fondness so as not to announced weak. The boy looks up to Okonkwo and considers him a second father. The Oracle of Umuofia eventually pronounces that the boy must be killed. Ezeudu, the oldest man in the hamlet, warns Okonkwo that he should have cipher to exercise with the murder because it would exist like killing his ain child – only to avoid seeming weak and feminine to the other men of the hamlet, Okonkwo disregards the warning from the one-time homo, striking the killing blow himself even every bit Ikemefuna begs his "male parent" for protection. For many days after killing Ikemefuna, Okonkwo feels guilty and saddened.

Shortly after Ikemefuna'due south decease, things begin to get wrong for Okonkwo. He falls into a great depression, as he has been greatly traumatized by the human activity of murdering his own adopted son. His sickly daughter Ezinma falls unexpectedly sick and information technology is feared she may die; during a gun salute at Ezeudu's funeral, Okonkwo's gun accidentally explodes and kills Ezeudu'southward son. He and his family are exiled to his motherland, the nearby village Mbanta, for 7 years to appease the gods he has offended.

Part ii [edit]

While Okonkwo is away in Mbanta, he learns that white men are living in Umuofia with the intent of introducing their religion, Christianity. As the number of converts increases, the foothold of the white people grows and a new government is introduced.^[2] The hamlet is forced to respond with either appeasement or resistance to the imposition of the white people's nascent gild. Okonkwo's son Nwoye starts getting curious about the missionaries and the new faith. After he is browbeaten by his father for the final time, he decides to go out his family unit behind and live independently. He wants to be with the missionaries considering his behavior have changed while being introduced to Christianity by Mr. Brown. In the last year of his exile, Okonkwo instructs his all-time friend Obierika to sell all of his yams and hire two men to build him two huts so he can have a house to go back to with his family. He also holds a great banquet for his mother'due south kinsmen, where an elderly attendee bemoans the current state of their tribe and its future.

Part 3 [edit]

Returning from exile, Okonkwo finds his village changed past the presence of the white men. After a convert commits an evil act by unmasking an elderberry equally he embodies an ancestral spirit of the clan, the village retaliates by destroying a local Christian church building. In response, the District Commissioner representing the colonial authorities takes Okonkwo and several other native leaders prisoner pending payment of a fine of two hundred bags of cowries. Despite the District Commissioner's instructions to care for the leaders of Umuofia with respect, the native "courtroom messengers" humiliate them, doing things such as shaving their heads and whipping them. As a result, the people of Umuofia finally gather for what could be a great uprising. Okonkwo, a warrior past nature and adamant most following Umuofian custom and tradition, despises any course of cowardice and advocates war against the white men. When messengers of the white government attempt to end the meeting, Okonkwo beheads one of them. Considering the crowd allows the other messengers to escape and does not fight alongside Okonkwo, he realizes with despair that the people of Umuofia are not going to fight to protect themselves – his society'due south response to such a conflict, which for so long had been predictable and dictated past tradition, is changing. The District Commissioner Gregory Irwin then comes to Okonkwo's firm to take him to courtroom, he finds that Okonkwo has hanged himself to avoid being tried in a colonial courtroom. Amidst his own people, Okonkwo's deportment have tarnished his reputation and condition, as it is strictly confronting the teachings of the Igbo to commit suicide. Equally Irwin and his men prepare to bury Okonkwo, Irwin muses that Okonkwo's death will make an interesting chapter for his written volume: "The Pacification of the Archaic Tribes of the Lower Niger."

Characters [edit]

• Okonkwo, the protagonist, has iii wives and 10 (full) children and becomes a leader of his clan. His father, Unoka, was weak and lazy, and Okonkwo resents him for his weaknesses: he enacts traditional masculinity. Okonkwo strives to make his manner in a civilisation that traditionally values manliness.
• Ekwefi is Okonkwo'south second wife. Although she falls in love with Okonkwo afterward seeing him in a wrestling lucifer, she marries another man because Okonkwo is as well poor to pay her helpmate price at that time. Two years later, she runs abroad to Okonkwo's compound one night and subsequently marries him. She receives astringent beatings from Okonkwo only like his other wives; but unlike them, she is known to talk dorsum to Okonkwo.
• Unoka is Okonkwo's father, who defied typical Igbo masculinity past neglecting to grow yams, take care of his wives and children, and pay his debts before he dies.
• Nwoye is Okonkwo's son, about whom Okonkwo worries, fearing that he volition become similar Unoka. Similar to Unoka, Nwoye does non subscribe to the traditional Igbo view of masculinity being equated to violence; rather, he prefers the stories of his female parent. Nwoye connects to Ikemefuna, who presents an alternative to Okonkwo'southward rigid masculinity. He is one of the early converts to Christianity and takes on the Christian name Isaac, an human activity which Okonkwo views as a final betrayal.
• Ikemefuna is a male child from the Mbaino tribe. His father murders the married woman of an Umuofia man, and in the resulting settlement of the matter, Ikemefuma is put into the intendance of Okonkwo. Past the decision of Umuofia authorities, Ikemefuna is ultimately killed, an act which Okonkwo does not prevent, and even participates in, lest he seems feminine and weak. Ikemefuna became very close to Nwoye, and Okonkwo's conclusion to participate in Ikemefuna's expiry takes a cost on Okonkwo'southward relationship with Nwoye.
• Ezinma is Okonkwo'southward favorite girl and the only kid of his wife Ekwefi. Ezinma, the Crystal Dazzler, is very much the antithesis of a normal woman within the culture and Okonkwo routinely remarks that she would've made a much ameliorate male child than a daughter, even wishing that she had been built-in as one. Ezinma often contradicts and challenges her father, which wins his adoration, affection, and respect. She is very like to her begetter, and this is made apparent when she matures into a beautiful immature woman who refuses to marry during her family unit's exile, instead choosing to help her begetter regain his place of respect inside guild.
• Obierika is Okonkwo's best friend from Umuofia. Different Okonkwo, Obierika thinks before he acts and is, therefore, less trigger-happy and arrogant than Okonkwo. He is considered the voice of reason in the book, and questions certain parts of their culture, such every bit the necessity to exile Okonkwo after he unintentionally kills a male child. Obierika'due south own son, Maduka, is greatly admired by Okonkwo for his wrestling prowess.
• Ogbuefi Ezeudu is one of the elders of Umuofia.
• Mr. Brown is an English language missionary who comes to Umuofia. He shows kindness and pity towards the villagers and makes an attempt to sympathise the Igbo behavior.
• Mr. Smith is some other English missionary sent to Umuofia to replace Mr. Brown afterward he falls sick. In stark contrast to his predecessor, he remains strict and zealous towards the Africans.

Groundwork [edit]

The title is a quotation from "The Second Coming", a poem by West. B. Yeats.

Most of the story takes place in the fictional village of Iguedo, which is in the Umuofia association. The identify proper name Iguedo is only mentioned 3 times in the novel. Achebe more frequently uses the proper name Umuofia to refer to Okonkwo's domicile village of Iguedo. Umuofia is located west of the bodily metropolis of Onitsha, on the east bank of the Niger River in Nigeria. The events of the novel unfold in the 1890s.^[three] The civilisation depicted, that of the Igbo people, is similar to that of Achebe'southward birthplace of Ogidi, where Igbo-speaking people lived together in groups of contained villages ruled by titled elders. The customs described in the novel mirror those of the actual Onitsha people, who lived most Ogidi, and with whom Achebe was familiar.

Within forty years of the colonization of Nigeria, by the fourth dimension Achebe was built-in in 1930, the missionaries were well established. He was influenced by Western culture but he refused to change his Igbo name Chinua to Albert. Achebe's father Isaiah was among the showtime to be converted in Ogidi, around the plow of the century. Isaiah Achebe himself was an orphan raised by his grandfather. His grandfather, far from opposing Isaiah's conversion to Christianity, immune his Christian marriage to exist celebrated in his compound.^[iii]

Language pick [edit]

Achebe wrote his novels in English language because the written standard Igbo linguistic communication was created by combining various dialects, creating a stilted written form. In a 1994 interview with The Paris Review, Achebe said, "the novel class seems to get with the English language. There is a problem with the Igbo language. It suffers from a very serious inheritance which it received at the beginning of this century from the Anglican mission. They sent out a missionary past the name of Dennis. Archdeacon Dennis. He was a scholar. He had this notion that the Igbo language—which had very many different dialects—should somehow manufacture a compatible dialect that would exist used in writing to avoid all these unlike dialects. Because the missionaries were powerful, what they wanted to do they did. This became the law. Only the standard version cannot sing. There's nothing you tin do with information technology to make it sing. Information technology's heavy. It's wooden. It doesn't go anywhere."^[4]

Achebe's choice to write in English has caused controversy. While both African and not-African critics agree that Achebe modelled Things Fall Apart on classic European literature, they disagree most whether his novel upholds a Western model, or, in fact, subverts or confronts it.^[v] Achebe continued to defend his decision: "English language is something you spend your lifetime acquiring, so it would be foolish not to utilize it. Besides, in the logic of colonization and decolonization it is actually a very powerful weapon in the fight to regain what was yours. English language was the language of colonization itself. It is not simply something you use because you take it anyway."^[6]

Achebe is noted for his inclusion of and weaving in of proverbs from Igbo oral culture into his writing.^[7] This influence was explicitly referenced by Achebe in Things Autumn Apart: "Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten."

Literary significance and reception [edit]

Things Fall Autonomously is regarded as a milestone in African literature. It has come to exist seen as the archetypal modernistic African novel in English,^{[3] [6]} and is read in Nigeria and throughout Africa. It is studied widely in Europe, India, and North America, where it has spawned numerous secondary and tertiary analytical works. It has achieved like status and repute in Australia and Oceania.^{[eight] [3]} Considered Achebe's magnum opus, information technology has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.^[nine] Fourth dimension magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.^[10] The novel has been translated into more 50 languages, and is often used in literature, globe history, and African studies courses beyond the earth.

Achebe is now considered to exist the essential novelist on African identity, nationalism, and decolonization. Achebe'due south chief focus has been cultural ambiguity and contestation. The complexity of novels such as Things Fall Apart depends on Achebe's ability to bring competing cultural systems and their languages to the same level of representation, dialogue, and contestation.^[6]

Reviewers have praised Achebe's neutral narration and have described Things Fall Apart every bit a realistic novel. Much of the critical discussion well-nigh Things Autumn Apart concentrates on the socio-political aspects of the novel, including the friction between the members of Igbo society as they face the intrusive and overpowering presence of Western authorities and beliefs. Ernest North. Emenyonu commented that "Things Autumn Autonomously is indeed a classic study of cantankerous-cultural misunderstanding and the consequences to the rest of humanity, when a belligerent culture or civilization, out of sheer arrogance and ethnocentrism, takes it upon itself to invade another civilization, some other culture."^[11]

Achebe'due south writing most African society, in telling from an African bespeak of view the story of the colonization of the Igbo, tends to extinguish the formulation that African civilisation had been savage and primitive. In Things Autumn Autonomously, western civilization is portrayed as being "arrogant and ethnocentric," insisting that the African culture needed a leader. As information technology had no kings or chiefs, Umuofian culture was vulnerable to invasion by western civilization. It is felt that the repression of the Igbo linguistic communication at the end of the novel contributes greatly to the destruction of the culture. Although Achebe favours the African culture of the pre-western gild, the author attributes its destruction to the "weaknesses within the native structure." Achebe portrays the culture every bit having a faith, a government, a organisation of coin, and an artistic tradition, too as a judicial organization.^[12]

Influence and legacy [edit]

The publication of Achebe's Things Fall Apart helped pave the way for numerous other African writers. Novelists who published after Achebe were able to notice an eloquent and effective mode for the expression of the detail social, historical, and cultural state of affairs of modern Africa.^[5] Earlier Things Fall Apart was published, virtually of the novels about Africa had been written by European authors, portraying Africans as savages who were in need of western enlightenment.

Achebe broke from this outsider view, by portraying Igbo society in a sympathetic light. This allows the reader to examine the effects of European colonialism from a different perspective.^[5] He commented: "The popularity of Things Fall Apart in my own society can exist explained simply ... this was the beginning time we were seeing ourselves, equally autonomous individuals, rather than half-people, or as Conrad would say, 'rudimentary souls'."^[6] Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has described the piece of work every bit "the first novel in English which spoke from the interior of the African character, rather than portraying the African as an exotic, as the white homo would come across him."^[thirteen]

The language of the novel has not merely intrigued critics merely has as well been a major factor in the emergence of the mod African novel. Considering Achebe wrote in English language, portrayed Igbo life from the bespeak of view of an African human, and used the language of his people, he was able to greatly influence African novelists, who viewed him as a mentor.^[6]

Achebe's fiction and criticism go along to inspire and influence writers around the world. Hilary Mantel, the Booker Prize-winning novelist in a vii May 2012 commodity in Newsweek, "Hilary Mantel's Favorite Historical Fictions", lists Things Fall Apart as one of her five favourite novels in this genre. A whole new generation of African writers – Caine Prize winners Binyavanga Wainaina (current director of the Chinua Achebe Center at Bard College) and Helon Habila (Waiting for an Angel [2004] and Measuring Time [2007]), also every bit Uzodinma Iweala (Beasts of No Nation [2005]), and Professor Okey Ndibe (Arrows of Rain [2000]) count Chinua Achebe every bit a significant influence. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the author of the popular and critically acclaimed novels Purple Hibiscus (2003) and One-half of a Xanthous Sun (2006), commented in a 2006 interview: "Chinua Achebe volition ever be important to me because his work influenced non so much my style as my writing philosophy: reading him emboldened me, gave me permission to write almost the things I knew well."^[6]

Things Fall Apart was listed by Encyclopædia Britannica equally one of "12 Novels Considered the 'Greatest Volume Ever Written'".^[14]

The 60th anniversary of the first publication of Things Fall Apart was celebrated at the Southward Bank Centre in London, United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, on xv April 2018 with alive readings from the volume by Femi Elufowoju Jr, Adesua Etomi, Yomi Sode, Lucian Msamati, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Chibundu Onuzo, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Ben Okri, and Margaret Busby.^{[15] [16]}

On November v, 2019, the BBC News listed Things Autumn Apart on its list of the 100 almost influential novels.^[17]

Film, television, music and theatrical adaptations [edit]

A radio drama called Okonkwo was made of the novel in April 1961 by the Nigerian Dissemination Corporation. It featured Wole Soyinka in a supporting function.^[eighteen]

In 1970, the novel was made into a film starring Princess Elizabeth of Toro, Johnny Sekka and Orlando Martins by Francis Oladele and Wolf Schmidt, executive producers Hollywood lawyer Edward Mosk and his wife Fern, who wrote the screenplay. Directed by Jason Pohland.^{[xix] [Flimportal 1]}

In 1987, the volume was made into a very successful miniseries directed by David Orere and broadcast on Nigerian television by the Nigerian Telly Authority. It starred several established picture show actors, including Pete Edochie, Nkem Owoh, and Sam Loco Efe.^[20]

In 1999, the American hip-hop band The Roots released their fourth studio album Things Fall Apart in reference to Achebe's novel. A theatrical production of Things Fall Apart, adapted by Biyi Bandele, took place at the Kennedy Center that twelvemonth also.^[21]

In 2019, the lyrics of "No Holiday for Madiba", a song honoring Nelson Mandela include the phrase, "things fall apart", in reference to the volume's title.

Publication information [edit]

• Achebe, Chinua. The African Trilogy. (London: Lowest'south Library, 2010) ISBN 9781841593272. Edited with an introduction past Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The volume collects Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, and Arrow of God in one volume.

Encounter likewise [edit]

• Middle of Darkness

References [edit]

1. ^ Irele, F. Abiola, "The Crunch of Cultural Retentiveness in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart", African Studies Quarterly, Volume 4, Result 3, Fall 2000, pp. 1–xl.
2. ^ Smuthkochorn, Sutassi (2013). "Things Fall Apart". Periodical of the Humanities. 31: one–2.
3. ^ ^{a b c d} Kwame Anthony Appiah (1992), "Introduction" to the Everyman'south Library edition.
4. ^ Brooks, Jerome, "Chinua Achebe, The Art of Fiction No. 139", The Paris Review No. 133 (Winter 1994).
5. ^ ^{a b c} Booker (2003), p. 7.
6. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Sickels, Amy. "The Critical Reception of Things Fall Apart", in Booker (2011).
7. ^ Jayalakshmi V. Rao, Mrs A. V. N. College, "Maxim and Civilization in the Novels of Chinua Achebe", African Postcolonial Literature in English language.
8. ^ admin (2015-eleven-16). "Chinua Achebe". Book OF DAYS TALES . Retrieved 2020-10-18 .
9. ^ THINGS Autumn Autonomously by Chinua Achebe | PenguinRandomHouse.com.
10. ^ "All-Fourth dimension 100 Novels| Full list", Time, 16 October 2005.
11. ^ Whittaker, David, "Chinua Achebe'due south Things Fall Apart", New York, 2007, p. 59.
12. ^ Achebe, Chinua (1994). Things Fall Apart. London: Penguin Books. pp. 8. ISBN0385474547.
13. ^ The Journal of Blacks in College Education 2001, pp. 28–29.
14. ^ Hogeback, Jonathan, "12 Novels Considered the 'Greatest Volume Always Written'", Encyclopædia Britannica.
15. ^ Murua, James, "Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Autonomously' at 60 celebrated", James Murua's Literature Weblog, 24 Apr 2018.
16. ^ Hewitt, Eddie, "Brnging Achebe's Masterpiece to Life", Brittle Paper, 24 Apr 2018.
17. ^ "100 'near inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News. 2019-11-05. Retrieved 2019-eleven-10 . The reveal kickstarts the BBC's year-long commemoration of literature.
18. ^ Ezenwa-Ohaeto (1997). Chinua Achebe: A Biography Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p. 81. ISBN 0-253-33342-iii.
19. ^ David Chioni Moore, Analee Heath and Chinua Achebe (2008). "A Conversation with Chinua Achebe". Transition. 100 (100): 23. JSTOR 20542537.
20. ^ "African movies direct and entertainment online". www.africanmoviesdirect.com . Retrieved x Dec 2017.
21. ^ Triplett, William (1999-02-06). "1-Dimensional 'Things'". Washington Mail . Retrieved 2020-09-14 .

Grouped References

1. ^ Filmportal. "Things Autumn Apart".

Sources [edit]

• "Chinua Achebe of Bard College". The Journal of Blacks in College Education. 33 (33): 28–29. Autumn 2001. doi:10.2307/2678893. JSTOR 2678893.

Further reading [edit]

• Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Ballast Books, 1994. ISBN 0385474547
• Baldwin, Gordon. Strange Peoples and Stranger Customs. New York: Westward. W. Norton and Visitor Inc, 1967.
• Booker, G. Keith. The Chinua Achebe Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Printing, 2003. ISBN 978-0-325-07063-half-dozen
• Booker, M. Keith. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe [Critical Insights]. Pasadena, Calif: Salem Printing, 2011. ISBN 978-1-58765-711-5
• Frazer, Sir James George. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1942.
• Girard, Rene. Violence and the Sacred. Trans. Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Academy Printing, 1977. ISBN 0-8018-1963-six
• Islam, Doc. Manirul. Chinua Achebe'south 'Things Autumn Apart' and 'No Longer at Ease': Disquisitional Perspectives. Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2019. ISBN 978-620-0-48315-7
• Rhoads, Diana Akers (September 1993). "Culture in Chinua Achebe'due south Things Autumn Apart". African Studies Review. 36(two): 61–72.
• Roberts, J. M. A Curt History of the World. New York: Oxford Academy Printing, 1993.
• Rosenberg, Donna. Earth Mythology: An Anthology of the Great Myths and Epics. Lincolnwood, Illinois: NTC Publishing Group, 1994. ISBN 978-0-8442-5765-5

External links [edit]

• Chinua Achebe discusses Things Autumn Apart on the BBC World Book Club
• Teacher's Guide at Random House
• A "New English language" in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Autonomously
• Study Resource for writing about Things Fall Apart
• Study guide
• Words present in the novel used in past SATs. Includes definitions, words in society from the book, and three different tests.
• Things Fall Autonomously Reviews
• Things Autumn Autonomously on Wiki Summaries
• Things Fall Apart report guide, themes, assay, teacher resources
• Things Fall Autonomously Igbo Culture Guide, Igbo Proverbs
• Things Autumn Autonomously Summary

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