Things Fall Apart: Context (Edexcel IGCSE English Literature): Revision Note
Exam code: 4ET1
Things Fall Apart historical context
Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, was published in 1958 but set in the late 19th century, during the early stages of British colonisation
The novel, thus, details Igbo traditions and governance:
Male elders and Oracles managed villages
Disputes were settled by a community of elders from nine villages
Igbo society was patriarchal, and men were permitted many wives:
However, celebrations such as Peace Week advocated tolerance
Spiritual belief systems were integral to the moral fabric of the community, and medicine men performed sacred rituals to encourage health:
Animals were respected, and often revered in spoken fable and proverb
Sinners were exiled, and personal chi steered moral values
Before colonisation, Nigeria was inhabited mainly by indigenous farmers:
Currency and status were determined by yams, and harvest and fertility were celebrated in festival and feasts
How this links to Things Fall Apart | |
Igbo culture | The novel’s portrayal of life in a pre-colonial, rural Igbo village offers an indigenous perspective on African culture, justice, and tradition. However, Achebe offers a balanced view of Igbo life, often highlighting hypocrisies and discriminatory practices. The importance of the natural world is symbolised through fables told by mothers, proverbs spoken by elders, and harvests or fertility festivals. |
Colonialism
In order to maintain control after colonisation at the end of the 19th century, the British government sent commissioners to govern African villages:
This created tensions as District Commissioners would settle disputes based on British law, which contrasted African belief systems
Commissioners would employ indigenous converts to carry out British law
In the event of protest or resistance, villages would be massacred:
Under British indirect rule, violent retaliation to resistance was often sanctioned, leading to events like the massacre of Abame
The British government divided Africa according to their own borders (fifty states) and dismissed existing indigenous borders
British missionaries and colonists influenced the Igbo judicial, religious, and cultural traditions:
Christian missionaries gradually converted Igbo people from their original spiritual beliefs towards Christianity
Aspects of Christianity that emphasised equality appealed to those who felt restricted or oppressed by the rigid traditions of Igbo society
They encouraged Western values, for example British schooling, and the idea that reading and writing should replace Igbo oral traditions
How this links to Things Fall Apart | |
Attitudes to colonisation | Achebe portrays the reactions of Nigerian villagers to the advance of British settlers and colonists. The village’s suspicion is shown in dialogue between clansmen when they describe the “strange” white skin, share stories of massacred village Abame, and express their powerlessness against men with guns. |
The novel details the clash of belief systems when the District Commissioner begins to govern the villages: clansmen attempt to enforce traditional Igbo justice and are arrested and tortured by the District Commissioner. The violence worsens when Okonkwo kills the commissioner’s messenger and, afterwards, takes his own life. | |
Western influence | Achebe’s omniscient narrator illustrates the reasons many of the Igbo people submitted to Western influence. The protagonist’s son escapes his father’s oppressive control by converting to Christianity for its less hierarchical and more egalitarian approach to its followers. |
Things Fall Apart social context
Chinua Achebe, born in 1930, grew up in an Igbo town in Nigeria, although his parents were Christian
During his lifetime, Achebe witnessed colonial life as well as Nigerian independence from British rule
His dual heritage affords Achebe viewpoints on both Western and Nigerian culture
After independence, to invigorate lost African heritage, Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was taught in African high schools as a classic
How this links to Things Fall Apart | |
Dual perspectives | Achebe presents both British and Igbo reactions to the changes in Africa as a result of colonialism. Readers hear from villagers who submit to British rule as a result of their fear of the “strange” men with guns and prisons. Achebe also presents the District Commissioner’s thoughts. But by ending the novel referring to the commissioner’s book, Achebe highlights the significance of the Western literary tradition, and the power of widespread stories told from the British perspective, in contrast to the local Igbo oral tradition. |
Things Fall Apart literary context
Achebe’s title Things Fall Apart comes from a W.B. Yeats poem called ‘The Second Coming’ (“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”):
It describes chaos in the moments of change, as, inevitably, the past makes way for the present
Things Fall apart is written as a classical tragedy, and so follows a typical structure
Its five-part plot allows a writer to portray the development of a tragic hero
In the exposition, the tragic hero is a popular, noble member of their community
During the rising action, the tragic hero reveals their fatal flaw as they are pressured by external events and their own weaknesses
This allows a writer to present both the injustices of the world and an individual’s human flaws and the torment they experience as a result of both
By the climax, the tragic hero has submitted to their flaws and societal ills, usually by acting in a hypocritical manner, and often violently
The falling action relates the protagonist’s guilt and turmoil, which leads to their doomed fate: death
How this links to Things Fall Apart | |
Tragic hero | Achebe’s tragedy portrays the fatal flaws that lead to Okonkwo’s downfall. Okonkwo’s inability to reflect on, or manage, his fixation with a version of masculinity that appeals to nobody in his village, least of all his son, leads to violence. |
Resolution | As typical for a classic tragedy, the novel ends with the tragic hero’s death, a result of his fateful circumstances and his submission to his violent aggression. |
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