Things Fall Apart

 

Break down discussion into parts:

 

Title:  Things fall apart – how does this connect to the poem by Yeats.  Why use a poem by one of the whitest of dead white male writers for a novel about Africa?  TO SHOW THAT THE CULTURES ARE EQUAL – CF. Very important – clash of cultures – see 190-91 v. 194.  Ibo recognize there are many cultures – the whites only recognize one. – Very timely message.

•              Why do "things fall apart"?  Is it only the arrival of the colonials?

 

 

Ibo Culture

From Frederick Lugard's Report on the Amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria, 1912-19 "The Southern Provinces were [mostly] populated by tribes in the lowest stage of primitive savagery, without any central organisation. . . . A great part of the North, on the other hand, had come under the influence of Islam, and . . . had an elaborate administrative machinery" (qtd. in Izevbaye 46)

•              What is the Ibo society like in part 1?  Point to some examples.  What is the society like in part 2?  Point to some examples and discuss why it changed and how.  What is the society like in part 3? Again, point to specific examples of the change and discuss why

•              What is the emphasis on in pre-colonial Ibo society, the group or the individual?  Point to three examples to back up your point.  Now explain how this compares or contrasts with the society after colonization.

•              What could the Ibo concept of chi resemble in Western culture? Fate

Now a larger question – how do we learn about this culture?  Does the narrator describe the events in a documentary fashion?  How would you describe the narrator’s voice? Why use does Achebe use this voice – knowing that his audience was primarily western?

•              What differences b/t colonial and native culture does Achebe make? Consider, for example, what westerners call a "plauge of locusts" How do the Ibo feel about it, and what does this feeling represent? Closer to nature -- sees locust not as a plauge but as a blessing 56?  ****Umuofia means "childern or descendants of the bush/wilderness" (Izevbaye 48)

 

Achebe "wanted to show that `Afridan people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans; that their societes were not mindless but frequent had a philsophy of great depth anf value and beaut, that they had poetry and, above all, they had dignity'" (qtd. in Gikandi 28)

 

•              (10) hint of sex; 21,

•              Point to some examples of Ibo's agressively masculine culture.  Is Achebe defending this?

•              Does Achebe defend all aspects of Ibo culture?  What about the outcasts, or the practice of casting twins aside? or the treatment of women (42, 172)

"Like the antagoinsm that Okonkwo feels toward his father, and that Nwoye feels even more storngly twoard Okonkwo, teh osu (outcasts) represent a weakness, a subtle flwa in the structure of the Igbo world -- a flaw that makes it possibel for things to fall apart." (Wren 44)

 

Language

Is speech important for the Ibo?  How can you tell?

•              Importance of speech for Ibo (7)  speak in parables: 20, 140 (to explain a point)

In an oral culture, speech is how morals and traditions are passed down.

•              Parables and fables in the novel: 96 -- the tortise story: what relation does it have to other incidents in the story? --

•              Why does Achebe decide to leave words in the orginal Igbo?  What does this say about them?  What kinds of words occur?

(the words retain their essential African deminesions, yet resembles some of our words)

•              Contrast with White man: "Does the White man understand our custom about land?" "How can he when he does not even speak our tounge?" (176) **** and note chilling last line of chapter (page 177)

•              Who has the last word in this novel? The colonizers Is it fitting?

 

 

Again, clash of cultures

Christianity:

First portrayal of missionaries 144-45.  Presentation of christianity, 144-45 and 180

Is the presentation of Christianity objective or subjective? Subjective.  146-47 – question from Okonkwo about Jesus and more than one God – and Nwoye described as having a “callow” mind (147).  Moved by song

 

“nobody gave serious thought to the stories about the white man’s government or the consequences of killing the Christians” (155) – nothing on killing the indigenous people.

 

179-181 what does this extended discussion aobut religion reveal about Ibo and Christianity?  What does it reveal about Reverend Brown (any symbolism in his name)

 

Why does Achebe bring in Reverend Smith -- and what is his special quality: "black was evil" (187)

 

Looking at pages 190 and 191, what do the Ibo have that Mr. Smith lacks?  tolerance.  cf. "The World is large.  I have even heard that in some tribes a man's children belong to his wife and her family" (74)

 

White Men

First mention of White men is connected to disease (74)  second mention is wiping out Abame (138)

 

Structure of Novel

Structure:

Why divided into three parts?  Why give Obierika the last word in part I 125?  An a different old man at the end of Part II and a white man at the end of Part III? Why not Okwonkwo – who opens each part?

Part I

Establishing Umuofia as a self-sustaining culture

Part II

Exile -- Okonkwo breaks down -- intimations of change

Part III

Church and government

 

The novel looks backward: many references to the young who no longer follow the traditions

 

Themes

·         Hubris – the danger of too much pride – Page 124 – who does Okonkwo kill by mistake?  Son of Ezeudu. Why is it this person? Ezeudu had warned Okonkwo “That boy calls you father.  Do not bear a hand in his death . . . .  I want you to have nothing to do with it.  He calls you his father” (57). 

·         What do connections to you see in the father and son relationships b/t Unoka and Okonkwo and Okonkwo and Nwoye?

•              What are the contrasts b/t O. and his father, Unoka? (4) music and fun v. work and practicality -- poverty v. wealth.  O. had "fear of himself, lest he resemble his father" (13);  "ruled by one passion -- to hate everything Unoka had loved" (13)

•              O. likes war (8, 10), Unoka likes peace (6)

Many father and son Contrasts

·         Ikemefuna/O.  Oberiaka and ____, Patricarchal society

 

Characters

•              How does Okonkwo symbolize Igbo culture?  How is he different?

•              Why did he fall? (4) temper: no patience; "firey temper" feared "failure and weakness"; doesn't fear gods (30)

•              Is he a tragic hero?

•              What does the opening of the novel stress about Okonkwo?

•              Why does a novel "that opens with the celebration of a cultural hero end with such an umprecendented act of transgression?"

•              How is Okonkwo's portrait multideminsional?  For instance, does the narrator seem to approve of all of his actions? (consider Ikemefuna's death, the beating of his wife, displays of his temper, etc.)

•              O.'s "prosperity was visible in his household" (14)

•              Does Okonkwo change in the novel?  Why or why not?  What does his fate suggest?

•              Do you identify with Okonkwo

•              Did you sympathize with him?

•              describe the conflict b/t Okonkwo and his own people

•              Analyze Okonkwo from Nwoye's, Obiericka, etc. p.o.v.

What about Forshadowing of O’s death? 135, 142,

 

Other Characters:

•              Who are the sympathetic characters in the village?

•              Does Unoka deserve the censure from his son? (note that all of his family, Unoka, Okonkwo and Nowye, each break the traditions of the Igbo)

•              Anything special about the names chosen by the christian converts?  Consider, for example, Nwoye=Isaac (Son of Abraham, almost sacrificed cf. 151)

•              Obierika as voice of reason: he was "a man who thought about things" (125) page 176 -- he will fit in with the new culture -- he is adaptable.

•              What's Ikeumofia's purpose in the novel?  28, 34, 56, 61.

 

 

 

Emphasis on practicality -- what the Ibo "revere" (8)

•              11-12 demi-gods and oracles -- hints of greek tragedy

•              Unoka was "carried away to the Evil Forest" to die -- because of a "swelling in the stomach and limbs," he was considered unclean and unworthy of burial -- the swelling was a sign that he had offended the gods (18)

•              Change b/t Young and Old: Nwakibie: "our youth have gone soft" (22) -- except for Ok.: 166

 

•              ****ideas on page 73-5  -- contrast with 7 are important -- discuss in class

•              Contrasts: the novel sets up Okonkwo as a contrast to several other characters: Oberika, Nyowe, his father, Enchendu??

•              What seems to start O's decline? Killings Ikemefuna.  Ezeudu warned O. against killing Ikeme., and O. mistakenly kills his son at his (E.'s) funeral.

•              What are the causes of Okonkwo's downfall?  Is it only the arrival of the white man?

•              Is Okonkwo a typical Umuofian?  Who is? Is his emphasis on the communal or the individual?  What is the emphasis of Umuofia -- and more importantly, point to specific quotes to back up your claims.

 

"the narrator deliberate seeks to restore to the African character three elements that are missingin colonial narratives, namely subjectivity, history, and voice" (Gikandi 30)

 

Art/technique of novel -- narrator

•              irony on narrator's part? should Okonkwo be ashamed of his father? (8)

•              Why is the narrative told in such a convulted style?  It shifts back and forth in time.

•              How does his writing style contrast with Conrad's?  Why? to make the culture real and not an exotic hothouse flower -- yes the natives are dancing to drumbeats, but since the point of view is changed, the reader understands it, and doesn't feel alienated.

•              How could it be considered an answer to Conrad?

 

*******: Why do Things fall apart?

Central conflicts in the novel: "the contrast between Okonkwo's masculine heroic tradition and the weakness of his times and teh contrast between Umuofia before and after the arriveal of the whithes -- both derive from the impossibility of completely imagining one individual or culture in terms of another" (Nichols 55)  And this goes for both the white and blacks

 

 

 

 

Umoufia

“Umuofia was feared by all its neighbors.  It was powerful in war and in magic” (11)

 

Begins being tainted by capitalism 178, 182

 

Ibo Culture

On the drum beating for wrestling “It was like the pulsation of its heart” (44) 50 as well

 

The locusts (54) “Soon it covered half the sky, and the solid mass was now broken by tiny eyes of light like shining star dust.  It was a tremendous sight, full of power and beauty” (56)

 

Or is this Okonkwo “No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man” (53)

 

Okonkwo “told them [Nwoye and Ikemenfuea] stories of the land – masculine stories of violence and bloodshed” (53)

 

Old man at party before O returns to Umufumio: “You do not know what it is to speak with one voice” (167).

 

Religion

“The land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the ancestors.  There was coming and going between them, especially at festivals and also when an old man died, because an old man was very close to the ancestors.  A man’s life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors” (122)

 

After Enoch unmasks the egwugwu “It seemed as if they very soul of the tribe wept for a great evil that was coming – its own death” (187)

 

Nwoye

“preferred the stories that his mother used to tell . . . stories of the tortise and his wily ways . . .”

 

Okonkwo

“His whole life was dominated by fear; the fear of failure and weakness . . . . It was the fear of himslef, lest he should be found to resemble his father” (13)

 

“Okonkwo was ruled by one passion – to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved.  One of those things was gentleness and another was idlenss” (13)

 

“Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger.  To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worh demonstrating was strength” (28)

 

“He heard Ikemefuna cry, ‘My father, they have killed me!’ as he ran towards him.  Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down.  He was afraid of being thought weak” (61)

 

Death of Ezedu’s son

“Okonkwo had committed the female [crime], because it had been inadvertent” (124)

 

Unoka to Okonkwo after the failure of his first yam crop “A proud heart can survive a general failure because such a filure does not prick its pride.  It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone” (24-25)

Important because it foreshadows what finally brings Okonkwo down.

 

“Okonkwo could never become as enthusiastic over feasts as most people . . . . he wa always uncomfortable sitting around for days waiting for a feast or getting over it.  He would be very much happier working on his farm” ( 37)

 

When he hears the drums calling for wrestling matches “He trembled with the desire to conquer and subdue.  It was like the desire for woman” (42). – this, right after he shot at one of his wives for dissing him.

 

On Nwoye “He [Okonkwo] would stamp out the disquieting signs of laziness which he thought he already saw in him. . . . ‘I would sooner strangle him with my own hands’” (33)

 

Ikemefuna

“Ikemefuna had begun to feel like a member of Okonkwo’s family” (34)

 

“Unoka was never happy when it came to wars.  He was in fact a coward and could not bear the sight of blood” (6)

 

“Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten” (7)

 

Wise Men

Obierika

“Obierika was a man who thought about things”(125)

 

Uchendu – Okonkwo’s Uncle – though afflicted with many griefs “I did not hang myself” (135)

After hearing that the people of Abame had killed the white man “Never kill a man who says nothing.  Those men of Abame were fools” (140) – note Okonkwo’s response in contrast – he thinks they should have fought back in the marketplace

 

Uchendu “There is no story that is not true . . . The world is without end, and what is good among one people is an abominatin with others” (141)

 

Forshadowing of O’s death

135, 142,

 

White Men

First mention of White men is connected to disease (74)  second mention is wiping out Abame (138)