Do you agree that Achebe shows an - awareness of the human qualities
common to all men of all times and places - or do you find the novel
only uniquely African and of its time?
Achebe’s style has been described as one of “remarkable economy and
subtle irony… uniquely and richly African .. revealing Achebe’s keen
awareness of the human qualities common to all men of all times and
places”. Do you agree that Achebe shows an “awareness of the human
qualities common to all men of all times and places” or do you find
the novel only uniquely African and of its time?
“Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe is a twentieth-century African
tragedy written about the destruction of the African Igbo tribe by
‘white men’ from the west. The novel focuses on Africa’s gradual
invasion by white Westerners and the effects of colonisation on
specific individuals and groups within the society. The novel has many
distinct African features that define the pre-colonial culture of the
Igbo tribe. The very beginning of the novel describes an African
festival, in which drums and flutes are being used whilst the
spectators look on in awe,
“The drums beat and the flutes sang and the spectators held their
breath.”
Achebe’s use of sensory language, such as the sounds of the
instruments, gives the audience a greater sense of shared experience
of what it was like to be part of the Igbo tribe. Achebe’s style of
writing throughout the novel allows the audience to imagine being in
the position of characters such as Okonkwo who had their common,
traditional beliefs and rituals gradually overridden by the
increasingly-dominant Western ideology.
Achebe uses simple language throughout the novel, particularly at the
beginning and this reflects the simplicity of the African oral
storytelling tradition. As most African stories were told in
traditional verbal ways by illiterate people, the language used tended
to be simple,
“Unoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden
disc containing a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of white
chalk.”
Achebe uses this technique to provide some simple, vivid visual
imagery for the reader, while making them aware of traditional African
foods such as kola nuts. This type of sentence perfectly illustrates
Achebe’s intentions of making this novel ‘uniquely African’.
Henrickson suggests “Things Fall Apart uses language and structures …
that make its world seem familiar to Western readers; but questions
whether it really is familiar to us.” Henrickson believes that the
novel is there to provide an understanding of the African perspective
of colonisation; however, he does not argue that the novel is relevant
to us.