The first chapter of Things Falls Apart introduces the reader to the Ibo society; Okonkwo is described as a man well known throughout the nine villages' for his solid personal achievements'[1] . Immediately the reader realises two things, firstly that Okonkwo is the novel's protagonist and secondly that the tribe appear to hold different values from our western culture. Okonkwo's fame is based primarily on winning a wrestling match against Amalinze the Cat'[2] , clearly a different standard from our society, but we also find out that he has been successful in farming, marriage and war. The novel's opening portrays the famous wrestling match, the drums beat and the flutes sang and the spectators held their breath'[3] ; in his essay The Story of a Man and his People' Ernest A Champion states that:
'The drums, wrestlers, and the people respond to one beat of a people. [Achebe] captures perfectly the cohesion and strength of a tribal community []. It is this cohesion, order and strength seen in the texture of Ibo society which Achebe examines in the first part of the novel [] not in an academic anthropological sense, but in the context of real life [].'[4]
At this point the reader is introduced to a community very much together, they all respond to one beat of a people', but it is this unity that begins to fall apart throughout the novel and ultimately concludes with the end of their culture.
The novel's title is taken from a W. B. Yeat's poem called the Second Coming'[5] , the ominous lines are:
'Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.' (Lines 1-4)
The tribes centre cannot hold' because of anarchy', loosed' upon their world both by the arrival of the white men who are Christians and by the actions of Okonkwo. The novel's tragedy, therefore works on two levels, one relating to Okonkwo and his family, and the other to the tribe as a whole .The tribes people are unaware and unprepared for the arrival of outsiders, they know only the way of life of the tribe, customs and beliefs passed down from generation to generation. The first chapter shows us that the Ibo society is a self-contained society; we later learn that everything is gendered, it is the males that have the control, especially the elders who are respected for their age. The location of Umuofia is not described to the reader and we get the impression that the Ibo world extends little further than the nine villages. When the Christians arrive, the people are offered another choice, another way of life, new customs and beliefs, and consequently the old ideas that held them together are doubted at large, for the first time. Ernest A Champion comments that the title is significant because it sets the mood for the novel'; the tribe are unaware of the dramatic changes that are only a falconer's step away'[6].
Chapter one makes clear that Okonkwo is held in high esteem, and tells us that the elders entrusted him to look after the small boy Ikemefuna, a peace offering from another village. Ikemefuna plays a key role in the unfolding tragedy, as does Unoka who is Okonkwo's father and another key figure introduced in chapter one. Unoka is an example of the tribal community and close link between members, he is a man with no titles, and is described as lazy and improvident'[7], yet he has managed to accumulate debt because he is a man supported by the tribe. Unoka is the Romantic figure, as a child he would sing with his whole being' to the first kites that returned with the dry season'[8] and as a man he still enjoyed music, festivities and life. He was not a bad man, but a man who could not feed his family without outside help, and by the standards of the tribe this made him an unsuccessful man. Okonkwo had no patience with unsuccessful men'[9]and considered his father a failure. He consequently rejected the qualities associated with his father, these included emotion and a dislike for war, attributes conventionally considered female, especially by the standards of Okonkwo. In Chapter two, we are told how Okonkwo resented his father and considered him a failure:
'Even now he still remembered how he had suffered when a playmate had told him his father was agbala. That was Okonkwo first came to know that agbala was not only another name for a woman, it could also mean a man who had taken no title.'[10]
Unoka is thus linked with the female not only because of his passive and sentimental qualities but also literally because he was a man of no title and therefore considered not a real man. This drives Okonkwo to distance himself from his father and prove his masculinity by becoming a successful man in the tribe and a complete contrast to his father. He becomes a war hero, and great wrestler in order to establish himself as masculine. He rejects the qualities in himself that could be thought female such as emotions, and this in turn results in his many violent outbursts and fear of appearing to be weak, both his tragic flaws.
Despite the advice of the oldest and very respected man in the tribe, Ogbuefi Ezeudu, not be part of Ikemefuna's death because the boy sees him as a father, Okonkwo has an uncompromising sense of duty and his fear of not being seen as weak causes him to ignore this advice. The death of Ikemefuna is a turning point in the novel, and the beginning of things falling apart for Okonkwo; Jack M Beckham writes in his essay Achebe's Things Fall Apart' that:
'In Africa, age is respected and representative of wisdom. Although Achebe describes Okonkwo as one of the greatest men of his time,'' he also mentions Okonkwo's youth. Although a great man, he lacked wisdom.'[11]
Okonkwo is wrong to ignore the advice of Ezeudu and therefore disrespects him, he follows along with the men who are supposed to kill Ikemefuna and even looks away when the machete is raised indicating that he is not an evil man, however, the boy manages to run to Okonkwo for help calling my father, they have killed me!' and Okonkwo dazed with fear' and afraid of being thought weak'[12]cuts him down.His friend Obierika later tells him:
'If I were you I would have stayed at home. What you have done will not please the Earth. It is the kind of action for which the goddess wipes out whole families.'[13]
These words not only echo the ignored advice of Ezeudu but also suggest that Okonkwo is not a victim of circumstances but a person who has made bad decisions'[14]; they also foreshadow Okonkwo's female crime and consequent exile, and also Nwoye joining the Christians. The death of Ikemefuna is part of the reason why Okonkwo's real son Nwoye struggles with the masculine qualities revered by his father, and instead prefers the female qualities revered by his grandfather, Unoka. Nwoye finds difficulty approving of some of the tribes customs, such as the sacrifice of Ikemefuna and the exposure of twins. We are told that he preferred his mother's stories but realised that if he feigned that he no longer cared for women's stories' then his father was pleased, and no longer rebuked him or beat him'[15]. The Christians offer Nwoye an alternative culture under his new name of Isaac; this becomes a means of avoiding growing up in the way of his father and with the customs of the tribe. The death of Ikemefuna and his father's involvement is therefore partly to blame for Nwoye reaching this decision and rejecting his father. Austin J. Shelton points out in his essay The Offended Chi in Achebe's Novels', that the warning of Obierika describes precisely what happened to Okonkwo's lineage'. He goes on to explain that:
'At least among his own descendants, it was Okonkwo himself who made things fall apart'' []. He thus caused the chi of his descendants to work against any glorification of the name Okonkwo.'[16]
However, the novel's tragedy is not only the death of Okonkwo's lineage but his culture as a whole, Okonkwo is exiled for what they call the female crime meaning the inadvertent crime of murder, when his gun explodes and kills a boy at Ezeudu's funeral. This is perhaps symbolic for the Earth goddesses revenge on Okonkwo, the Earth being female can both provide life and take it away, their culture's purity laws result in his home and livestock being destroyed and he is exiled for seven years. In Okonkwo's absence and with the tribe lacking his spirit of war, the white man and Christianity takes hold and begins to form splits in the tribe. When he returns, its power has been firmly established.Okonkwo has realized his position in the tribe has changed after such a long absence, and is eager to go back to the old ways, along with other tribal leaders, he burns down the Christian church that has insulted their way of life and beliefs. But this violent action, results in more violence when they are arrested by the established white government and put in prison where they are beaten and their status in the tribe is humiliated. This attack on the tribes status, further enrages Okonkwo and upon his release a meeting is arranged in which they call for war against the Christians, Okika described as an orator' and one of the men who had been imprisoned with Okonkwo says:
'We must root out this evil. And if our brothers take the side of evil we must root them out too. And we must do it now.'[17]
For these men in the tribe, their belief system is being undermined and they feel it can no longer be compromised, they feel that they have already lost too many tribesmen to the false religion of Christianity and that war is the only available action. However, some of the white men's messengers arrive to stop the meeting, and most prominent example of Okonkwo's violent outbursts is seen when in a flash' he drew his matchet'[18]and severed the head of one of the messengers. Following the incident, Achebe writes that Okonkwo knew the tribe would not go to war because they had let the other messenger escape, that they had broken into tumult instead of action' and that he discerned fright in that tumult'[19],this is the last time Okonkwo is seen alive, by the next chapter he is found hanging on a tree by the Commissioner.
Okonkwo's hamartia being his fear of weakness, and his tragic circumstances and death mark him as the tragic heroic figure. The heroic quality of his death is suggested in the essay, The plight of a hero in Achebe's Things Fall Apart', where Patrick C Nnoromele writes that:
'His suicidal act was an ultimate expression of the compound effects of his own experiences in his unflinching desire to become a hero. Okonkwo was a hero. Hence, he had to depart from the battlefield as one. A hero would rather die than be captured and/or humiliated by the enemy, Okonkwo's death cheated his enemies, the European colonizers, of their revenge.'[20]
However, the Commissioner who considers his authority over the tribe as their pacification' [21] decentres Okonkwo. Although, Okonkwo is a key figure in the tribe even after his death, his importance is pushed to the periphery of the larger society that now occupies the tribe. The Christians who see themselves as the moral superiors can not just choose what parts of the Ibo customs to suspend without effecting the core of their belief system, the ideal is that both cultures can co exist is therefore flawed because inevitably one overcomes the other with its beliefs appearing to be more true:
'The tribe that had one heartbeat is now divided, the things that held the people together no longer do so, the widening gyre'' turns and turns until it is destroyed.'[22]
In this case, it is the Ibo culture that dies and unfortunately the good values of that culture appear to die with it. Although, it is morally right for the Christians to end practices such as the throwing away of twins, this cannot be done without shattering the beliefs of the Ibo people and causing them great offense. For me, the title is apt for the novel because Things Fall Apart' suggests the inevitably of change, and that things will fall part if cultures can't adapt or compromise in order to accept such change. The Ibo belief system and the Christian code of morality are as uncompromising as Okonkwo, so as the Yeats' poem forewarns the centre cannot hold' and Things Fall Apart'.
[1]Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1986), p. 3.
[2]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 3.
[3]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 3.
[4]Ernest A Champion, The Story of a Man and his People: Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart', Negro American Literature Forum, Vol 8, No 4 (Winter, 1974), p. 272.
[5]E.A Champion, Negro American Literature Forum, p. 272.
[6]E.A Champion, Negro American Literature Forum, p. 272.
[7]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 3.
[8]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 4.
[9]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 3.
[10]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 10.
[11]Jack M. Beckham, Achebe's Thing's Fall Apart', The Explicator; Washington (Summer, 2002) p.230.
[12]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 43.
[13]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 47.
[14]J.M. Beckham, The Explicator, p. 230.
[15]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 38.
[16]Austin J.Shelton, The Offended Chi in Achebe's Novels', Transition, No.13 (Mar-Apr, 1964), p.37.
[17]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 146.
[18]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 146.
[19]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 147.
[20]Patrick C Nnoromele, The plight of a hero in Achebe's Things Fall Apart, College Literature, Vol 27, Issue 2, West Chester Univ (Spring, 2000) pp. 146-156.
[21]Achebe, Things Fall Apart, p. 150.
[22]E.A Champion, Negro American Literature Forum, p. 272.