People Fall Apart in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

People Fall Apart in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Karl Marx believed that all of history could be reduced to two tiny words: class struggle. In any period of time a dominant class exploits a weaker class. Marx defines a dominant class as one who owns or controls the means of production. The weaker class consists of those who don't. In Marx's day, the age of Almighty Industry, the means of production were factories. But as a literary theory Marxism needs no factories to act as means of production. All that are needed are words, specifically chosen to justify an Official View of a dominating class, in our case, in a society guided by capitalism. This Official View is sometimes disguised as what we might otherwise call culture. Marxist Theory can be applied to Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart in two ways, one from inside the story, and the other from outside. First let's examine the story itself.

It would be inaccurate to claim that the Igbo society of Things Fall Apart is no different from a western society in its representation of capitalism. But that?s because the Igbo culture does not represent capitalism as we may think of it. There are no factories in turn-of-the-century Africa, but there are similarities between a capitalist society and the Igbo society. For example, they both emphasize the importance of strength and competition amongst individuals. In Igbo culture competition is presented more as a game than a business. The opening pages of the novel explain Okonkwo?s notoriety to his village. ?As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat. Amalinze was the great wrestler who for seven years was unbeaten...? (3). On page eight, at the end of the first chapter...

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...village. The damage was done before the British even arrived. His society was complacent to change, content to surrender its traditions to a different culture. In killing the messenger at the end of the novel, Okonkwo was looking to save the culture that had fell apart long before that moment. And like his culture before him, he fell apart when no one else resisted. Whether or not he had hanged himself, under British rule, he would have still been dead.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York, NY: Anchor Books: Doubleday. 1959.

Appiah, Anthony. ?Topologies in Nativism.? Literary Theory: An Anthology. Edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers Inc. 1998.

Said, Edward. ?Orientalism.? Literary Theory: An Anthology. Edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers Inc. 1998.