Who Is Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart?

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History has been taught as a neutral discipline that many scholars utilized for the base of arguments and concepts. However, in The Historical Text as Literary Artifact by Hayden White, history is addressed to be more than a factual discipline. White expresses the various utilizations of history within a text and a culture. This interpretation of history is applicable to various forms of text, but specifically to the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. White’s argument that history is never incorrect because of cultural and personal biases is supported by Things Fall Apart through Ezimna’s story telling, the narrator’s version of the story, and the multiple facets of history of colonization given by multiple characters. White expresses …show more content…

The teller has the ability, whether consciously or subconsciously, to incorporate their own cultural customs on what is important and what is not (White 1537). In Things Fall Apart the narrator of the story is never identified, yet is aware of Okonkwo’s life and the cultural customs of Umuofia. The narrator makes a clear stance on what is deemed culturally acceptable and that is on side with the village and the people within it. Although the narrator is unidentifiable, the narrator is explain the history of Umuofia and its people, providing a history with the narrator’s own given bias. The narrator does not seem to react to controversial customs within the village, such as the killing of twins (Achebe 92) and the killing of Okonkwo’s adopted son (Achebe 61). Whether the narrator is Okonkwo or another individual of the village, it is arguable that the narrator is biased when telling this side of history because it is one that is familiar to the teller. With these biases, the narrator has the ability to subconsciously leave out crucial information because the culture does not deem that specific information as important, even if it could be to another culture. However, as proposed by White, this side of history cannot be ignored as it provides a window into unfamiliar territory that helps explain some sides of this particular past. Although a number of flaws may occur in the story, it is still a justifiable side of history of

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