General

· The DC's intrusion at the end of the novel is a commentary on a certain kind of narrative. In European conceptions of Africa, the DC's attitude is typical. Okonkwo's death, a great tragedy, is worth only one paragraph of entertaining reading. The DC also reflects on the need to cut out any unnecessary detail. The book the DC imagines is in many ways the opposite of Things Fall Apart, with its focus on a great African man, its many beautiful digressions, and its loving and sympathetic portrait of Igbo culture. The novel is in some ways a response to earlier depictions of "savage" Africa. Now that we have reached the end, the digressions pay off. In the course of following Okonkwo's tragedy, we have learned a great deal about Igbo life. Now we know that the culture depicted in the novel is a culture that in many ways no longer exists. Imperialism changed many aspects of life in Africa, and usually not for the better. The destruction of tribal social institutions and traditions led to great social and cultural voids.

· Portrays a human picture that pictures the complexities of an actual human

· The very title ‘Things Fall Apart’ foreshadows the tragedy which takes place at the end of the novel. The novel depicts the tragedy of an individual as well as the tragedy of a society. Thus, the novel records not only falling apart of Okonkwo’s life but also his whole society. Achebe uses the third-person point of view, pronouns like "he" and "she," to showcase the narrative's cultural conflict through voice.

· It can be argued that things fall apart due to time, there were already existing tensions

·  In a culture without written language, the arts of conversation and oration are prized. Wisdom is transmitted through proverbs, stories, and myths. 

· Digression is one of Achebe's main tools. The novel is the story of Okonkwo's tragedy, but it is also a record of Igbo life before the coming of the white man. The novel documents what the white man destroyed. The reader learns much about Igbo customs and traditions; depicting this world is a central part of the novel.

· Though most of the novel is focused on Okonkwo, the narrator generally provides insight into the thoughts of most characters. There are times when the narration is focused around different characters – namely Ikemefuna, Nwoye, Obierika, and Ekwefi. The multiplicity of voices allows the reader to see different characters through a variety of lenses. Access to the internal thoughts of a variety of characters also gives dimensionality to the Igbo people as a whole – Achebe never lets the reader assume that the Igbo people are homogenous and could be summed up in one single character.

· Although Achebe writes in English, he captures the cadence of the Ibo people, particularly noticeable in the book’s dialogue. In the narration, Achebe keeps it simple, directly to the point, and centered on nature. His goal is to use language to depict how the Ibo view their world.

· The main occupation of the men is sowing and growing yams since yams are considered the most important crop. The women grew less significant crops like coco-yams, beans and cassava.

· In addition to the cadence and content choice, Achebe also uses a ton of proverbs – which is indicative of the Ibo’s traditional oral culture – as well as lots of tiny stories shared people and well known in certain villages, used to discuss everything. These stories are how the people communicate with one another; they’re used to explain acts of nature, traditions, history, why people act a certain way.

Some of the women cooked the yams and the cassava, and the others prepared vegetable soup. Young men pounded the foo-foo or split firewood. The children made endless trips to the stream. […]

“The market in Umuike is a wonderful place,” said the young man who had been sent by Obierika to buy the giant goat. “There are so many people on it that if you throw up a grain of sand it would not find a way to fall to earth again.

“It is the result of great medicine,” said Obierika. “The people of Umuike wanted their market to grow and swallow up their market and their neighbors. So they made a powerful medicine […]

“And so everybody comes,” said another man, “honest men and thieves. They can steal your cloth from off your waist in the market

· From its very title, Things Fall Apart foreshadows the tragedy which the novel depicts.

· The only point in the book in which the title is referenced is Chapter Twenty, when the main character, Okonkwo, and his friend, Obierika, are discussing the invasion of white men into their community. Obierika says, “The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” This passage clearly ties the destruction of the Igbo people’s way of life to sneaky, divisive action on the part of European missionaries and imperialists.

· Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart, the center cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. – W.B Yeats, "The Second Coming"

· By using lines from “The Second Coming” as the introduction to his book, Achebe points out parallels between a time of chaos in European history and the upheaval caused by the European colonization of Africa. In a way, Achebe uses the language of the colonizer (literally and figuratively) to enlighten them on the point of view of the colonized.

· The specifics of the poem are also incredibly relevant to Things Fall Apart as a whole. The poem begins with the image of a falcon flying out of earshot of its human master. In medieval times, people would use falcons or hawks to track down animals at ground level. In actual falconry, the bird is not supposed to keep flying in circles forever; it is eventually supposed to come back and land on the falconer’s glove. In this image, however, the falcon has gotten itself lost by flying too far away, which we can read as a reference to the collapse of traditional social arrangements in Europe at the time Yeats was writing, or the dissolution of the Igbo social and religious structure.

· The notion that “things fall apart” serves as a transition to the images of more general chaos that follow. The second part of the line, a declaration that “the centre cannot hold,” is full of political implications, like the collapse of centralized order into radicalism. In the novel, the traditional social structure of the Igbo is challenged by the missionaries and the white court. As a result, the Igbo people no longer have one set of social or moral rules to live by and the unity of the clan is shattered.

· What better way to illustrate that decline of Western morals than for Achebe to show white men coercing and brutalizing a civilized people into destroying themselves. The “anarchy loosed upon the world” is, to Achebe, the horrors of imperialism.

Plot

· Things Fall Apart tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a "strong man" of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first story traces Okonkwo’s fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives. It provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual society. The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo’s world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. 

Characters

Okonkwo

· A man that symbolises masculinity in a society that values traditional masculine characteristics. He is a strict husband/father and works hard to prove himself opposite to his lazy father, Unoka. Okonkwo is a man powerful in strength (he was once the unbeaten wrestling champion of the nine Igbo villages for seven years) and in influence (he was among Umuofia’s most influential men before his exile), who resolves all conflicts with violence, or the threat of it. By portraying an archetype of Igbo masculinity as a difficult-to-sympathise-with character, Achebe undoubtedly challenges ideas of how men are supposed to be.

· He has three wives and ten (total) children, and is a brave and rash Umuofia (Nigerian) warrior and clan leader. Unlike most, he cares more for his daughter Ezinma than his son Nwoye whom he believes is weak. Okonkwo is the son of the gentle and lazy Unoka, a man he resents for his weaknesses. He therefore rejects everything for which he believes his father stood: Unoka was idle, poor, profligate, cowardly, gentle, lazy, and interested in music and conversation. Okonkwo consciously adopts opposite ideals and becomes productive, wealthy, brave, violent, and opposed to music and anything else that he regards as "soft," such as conversation and emotion. He is stoic to a fault. He is also the hardest-working member of his clan. Okonkwo's life is dominated by fear of failure and of weakness—the fear that he will resemble his father. Ironically, in all his efforts not to end up like his father, he commits suicide, becoming in his culture an abomination to the Earth and rebuked by the tribe as his father was (Unoka died from swelling and was likewise considered an abomination).

· Okonkwo's tragic flaw is his pride. As the son of a lazy debtor, Okonkwo constantly feels the need to prove himself, both in battle and in life. He builds a successful farm, takes three wives and two titles, and becomes a respected leader in his village; but his great success makes him arrogant, and when his life begins to fall apart Okonkwo is unprepared for it, having never experienced failure before.

· Much of Okonkwo’s behavior results from a reactionary desire to be completely unlike his father. This means that Okonkwo attempts to work hard, provide for his family materially, be brave, and be masculine in every possible way. As a result, Okonkwo’s becomes successful in many ways – he becomes very wealthy, holds a high-ranked position in the community, has three wives, and is known for his skill as a wrestler and warrior. But he also tends toward emotions that are extreme, and his fear motivates him to take actions which are often unnecessary and ultimately destructive. His fear of being feminine leads him to assist in the murder of Ikemefuna whom he loved, to beat his wives, be emotionally distant from his children, and to disown his oldest son.

· There is, however, the problem of love and intimacy. Okonkwo rarely shows these aspects of himself since he considers emotion soft and feminine – but the emotions are there nonetheless. The fact that he lies to Ikemefuna to protect the boy from fear and later feels guilty about killing him are proof of that Okonkwo isn’t devoid of positive human emotions. But, whenever there is a clash between showing true emotion and maintaining the show of his strength, Okonkwo will always go with the latter.

· Thus we come to one of the central conflicts in the novel: the divide between Okonkwo’s personal pride and the actions forced on him by the external social laws of the Umuofia. His final act of suicide is the ultimate demonstration of things falling apart because it is the first and only time that Okonkwo purposefully and calculatedly breaks the clan laws. As a character, Okonkwo remains pretty consistent throughout the book. We see no sudden changes in behavior or mindset; in fact, that may be Okonkwo’s problem – his inability to adapt or compromise his ethics to changing situations that call for more tolerance or compassion. Okonkwo, whose sense of pride and dignity continues until the end, chooses to live and die on his own terms rather than submit to the white man. For Okonkwo, giving in would be against so much of what he has stood for – courage, tradition, and manliness.

Ekwefi

· Ekwefi is Okonkwo's second wife. Although she falls in love with Okonkwo after seeing him in a wrestling match, she marries another man because Okonkwo is too poor to pay her bride price at that time. Two years later, she runs away to Okonkwo's compound one night and later marries him. She receives severe beatings from Okonkwo just like his other wives; but unlike them, she is known to talk back to Okonkwo. She is the only one who has the audacity to knock on the door of his obi at dawn. Having met with the grave misfortunes of the deaths of her first nine children, she is a devoted mother to Ezinma, whom she protects and loves dearly. When Chielo, a priestess of Agbala, the Oracle of the Hills and Caves, says that the oracle wishes to see Ezinma, Ekwefi follows the priestess through the dark woods and even makes up her mind to enter the cave where Agbala resides and to die with her daughter if need be. Okonkwo looks for them and goes to the mouth of the cave himself after waiting for a certain period, because he too was very worried about Ezinma and Ekwefi even though he had kept this worry to himself. Upon finding Ekwefi, he was very relieved and they both waited for Ezinma.

Nwoye

· Nwoye is Okonkwo's son, about whom Okonkwo worries, fearing that he will become like Unoka. Similar to Unoka, Nwoye does not subscribe to the traditional Igbo view of masculinity being equated to violence; rather, he prefers the stories of his mother. Nwoye connects to Ikemefuna, who presents an alternative to Okonkwo's rigid masculinity. He is one of the early converts to Christianity and takes on the Christian name Isaac, an act which Okonkwo views as a final betrayal.

· In Christianity, Nwoye finds comfort for things that have long disturbed him. But the religion also provides him with a way to rebel against his father. And the social effects of Christianity will be as bad as the Igbo fear. The new religion undermines the hierarchies of the culture; Achebe also points out that the religion provides hope to those who have suffered under Igbo law. Nneka's defection to the new faith is telling. She has born four pairs of twins, and has been forced to throw all of them away. Pregnant again, she is desperate to save her children. Not coincidentally, she bears the name that Uchendu mentioned earlier: "Mother Is Supreme."

Ikemefuna

· Ikemefuna is a boy from the Mbaino tribe. His father murders the wife of an Umuofia man, and in the resulting settlement of the matter, Ikemefuma is put into the care of Okonkwo. By the decision of Umuofian authorities, Ikemefuna is ultimately killed, an act which Okonkwo does not prevent, and even participates in, lest he seem feminine and weak. Ikemefuna became very close to Nwoye, and Okonkwo's decision to participate in Ikemefuna's death takes a toll on Okonkwo's relationship with Nwoye.

· Ikemefuna is depicted as a perfect son and brother. He succeeds where Okonkwo cannot: he helps Nwoye to be more self-assured and confident. The exaggerated shows of masculinity Nwoye begins to make are contrived and for the pleasure of his father, but Nwoye is becoming more comfortable and confident. Ikemefuna's, with his gentleness and his love of folktales, has provided Nwoye with the positive male role model that he needed. Ikemefuna is also something of a Christ figure. He dies as a sacrifice for the good of the many; it is no coincidence that Nwoye later converts to Christianity. Nwoye is disturbed by some of the practices of his own people. They fill him with a vague fear and sorrow, and he will later seek solace in a foreign religion.

Enzima

· Ezinma is Okonkwo's favorite daughter, and the only child of his wife Ekwefi. Ezinma, the Crystal Beauty, is very much the antithesis of a normal woman within the culture and Okonkwo routinely remarks that she would've made a much better boy than a girl, even wishing that she had been born as one. Ezinma often contradicts and challenges her father, which wins his adoration, affection, and respect. She is very similar to her father, and this is made apparent when she matures into a beautiful young woman who refuses to marry during her family's exile, instead choosing to help her father regain his place of respect within society.

Obierika

· Obierika is Okonkwo's best friend from Umuofia. He is a strong and powerful man in Umuofia, but unlike Okonkwo, he is a reasoning man and is much less violent and arrogant. Obierika often talks Okonkwo out of making rash decisions, and helps Okonkwo when he is on exile from Umuofia. He fully understands the changes going on in their society, and that their clan no longer had the unity it did before the white man appeared in Umuofia. Obierika's son, Maduka, is greatly admired by Okonkwo for his wrestling prowess, which (in Okonkwo's opinion) is something his own son, Nwoye lacks. Obierika is considered the voice of reason in the book, and questions certain parts of their culture, such as the necessity to exile Okonkwo after he unintentionally kills a boy.

· Obeirika, Okonkwo's good friend, shows that Okonkwo's attitudes, though influenced by culture, are not exactly typical for an Igbo man. Okonkwo, along the model of the tragic hero, is an extreme example of his people. He carries their traits to excess. Obeirika, on the other hand, is a rich man and a man of sensitivity. He was not present at the Ikemefuna's death, nor does he approve of Okonkwo's participation in the act.

Unoka

· Unoka is Okonkwo’s father. Though he is a talented musician, he is lazy and irresponsible, falling into debt and bringing shame upon his family. Unoka’s bad reputation in Umuofia haunts Okonkwo throughout the novel. However, Unoka did not intentionally set out to defame his family, he just seemed to find no pleasure in anything but leisure, parties, and music. Passion for music occupies Unoka’s world more than anything and he finds his greatest joy playing his flute at festivals. What Unoka can’t seem to bring himself to do is work – despite his family nearly starving and his massive list of unpaid debts. His inability to even give his worthy son any sort of inheritance only increases his shame in the eyes of the community and his son. Unoka’s fear of blood and warfare combined his laziness mark him as dangerously effeminate in Okonkwo’s eyes.

· A foil to Okonkwo

Setting

· Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart is concluded with the fictive Igbo village Umuofia, which chose to accept defeat by the British without resisting. Achebe’s choice to focus on the Igbo people (Achebe is Igbo himself) and his criticism of Igbo norms and values gives his novel a great sense of objectivity. He does not hesitate to criticize certain traditions of the Igbo nor does he overlook the collectivist and democratic aspects of Igbo society, allowing the reader a sensible Africanist perspective of an African society.

· The first half of the novel introduces us to traditional Igbo society, its religion, traditions, laws, rituals and other social practices. Achebe’s account of Igbo society demonstrates a lively and historic culture, which greatly undermines the colonial idea that Africa was a dark and primitive place. “An animal rubs its aching flank against a tree, a man asks his kinsman to scratch him”.

· Achebe has shown the great social mobility of the Igbo. A man's worth is not at all determined by the wealth of his father: with hard work and determination, a man can rise to greatness. Okonkwo is proof of that. Consequently, one of his central belief's is faith in the fairness of the world. A man gets what he deserves.

· Disintegration of Igbo society is central to Things Fall Apart; the idea of collapse, on both an individual and social level, is one of the novel's central images. This image also gives the book its title. The Christians arrive and bring division to the Igbo. One of their first victims is Okonkwo's family. The new faith divides father from son, and the Christians seek to attack the very heart of Igbo belief; such an attack also attacks the core of Igbo culture, as the tribe's religious beliefs are absolutely integral to all other aspects of life. Not coincidentally, the first converts are people who stand to profit from a change in the social order. They are people who have no title in the tribe, and thus have nothing to lose.

· Umuofia is the Igbo word for “people of the forest.” The word “village” is a loose translation of a complicated concept in Igbo society and is used in Things Fall Apart to represent both the nine villages and the larger area; thus, the village of Umuofia comprises nine villages.

· The setting in Nigeria around the turn of the 19th century is extremely important; it allows Okonkwo’s life to straddle the pre- and post-European imperial era. Because Okonkwo experiences both periods, we the reader have a window into the dramatic changes that occurred in Igbo culture and society as a result of imperialism. For example, we see two different manners in which crimes of murdering a clansman are treated: Okonkwo is exiled for seven years under Igbo laws while another man, Aneto, is hanged by the white court for a similar crime.

· We also see two different examples of courts and justice. In the traditional Igbo system of justice, villagers bring their complaints to a group of nine elders dressed as masked gods, and the group jointly and publicly settles disputes. However, when the white men arrive, they set up their own court which settles disputes in favor of the highest bidder and isn’t above secretly ambushing respected clansmen who come to court to have a civilized discussion. These are only a few examples of how the temporal setting allows for clear and easy comparison between the Igbo way of life before and after the arrival of Europeans.

· The physical setting of forest the forest villages are extremely important. The Umuofia clan has an elaborate religious system largely based on their natural environment. Surrounded by dense, dark woods, the forest is both respected and feared as a chief god, the Evil Forest.

· The earth goddess is also revered and feared; as farmers, the Umuofia rely completely on the produce of the land and are subject to drought and flooding. The earth goddess is seen as in control of the weather and productivity of the land, so much of the clan’s social structure is set around not displeasing the earth goddess. Fear of offending the earth goddess motivates the punishment for many crimes, such as Okonkwo’s seven-year exile for killing a clansman. Achebe’s descriptions of the isolation of the Umuofia people and their complete dependence on their natural setting make their culture and practices understandable to a Western audience.

Themes

Ambition

· The theme of ambition has its converse, and it is Okonkwo's fear of failure that makes him a harsh man. He is strong, but he fails to see that his wives and children are not as physically strong as he. Yet he drives them to work as hard as he does. All of his wives and children fear him. Okonkwo tries to help his son, Nwoye, by being doubly harsh on him. But this approach is turning Nwoye into a sad and resentful youth.

Masculinity

· Masculinity is one of Okonkwo's obsessions. He sees any tender emotion as feminine and therefore weak. His culture is as patriarchal as any other, but in his need to be strong Okonkwo carries the preoccupation with manliness to an extreme. He has not learned restraint. His beating of Ojiugo is the first concrete incident in the book during which we watch Okonkwo lose control. Although he begins the beating having forgotten that it is the Week of Peace, when reminded he does not stop. He is not a man to do anything half-way, even if he knows there are consequences. Later, this hubris destroys him. His neighbors notice his pride. Even when Okonkwo feels penitent, he takes great pains to hide it. This drive and fierce pride have made him a great man, but they are also the source of all of his faults

· Much of the traditional Igbo life presented in this novel revolves around structured gender roles. Essentially all of Igbo life is gendered, from the crops that men and women grow, to characterization of crimes. In Igbo culture, women are the weaker sex, but are also endowed with qualities that make them worthy of worship, like the ability to bear children. The dominant role for women is: first, to make a pure bride for an honorable man, second, to be a submissive wife, and third, to bear many children. The ideal man provides for his family materially and has prowess on the battlefield. The protagonist in the novel is extremely concerned with being hyper-masculine and devalues everything feminine, leaving him rather unbalanced. Much of the gender theme in the book centers around the idea of balance between masculine and feminine forces – body and mind/soul, emotionality and rationality, mother and father. If one is in imbalance, it makes the whole system haywire.

Although Okonkwo spends most of his time expressing his masculinity, he often ignores or violates feminine tenets like peace and valuing one’s family. Shunning of all things feminine causes him to commit ever-escalating crimes that lead to his downfall.

· Okonkwo is not exactly a typical Igbo male: though Achebe sets up Okonkwo's fall as parallel to the fall of his people, he also shows us that Okonkwo is an extraordinary man among the Igbo, in ways both good and bad. In other men of the village, we see restraint and humility.

· Masculinity is one of Okonkwo's obsessions, and he defines masculinity quite narrowly. For him, any kind of tenderness is a sign of weakness and effeminacy. Male power lies in authority and brute force. But throughout the novel, we are shown men with more sophisticated understanding of masculinity. Okonkwo's harshness drives Nwoye away from the family and into the arms of the new religion.

Family

· For the Igbo, there are a few key ideas that form the basis of an ideal family: mutual respect for each other, a reverence for all past fathers, and unity. The father is not only the provider for the family, but defender of its honor and teacher of his sons. The mother’s main duty is to add to the family line by bearing healthy children and also to please her husband. Children are the inheritors of the future and are raised to continue the values of the older generation. This family unit is the most fundamental unit of society and its structure can be expanded to fit a whole community or even a pantheon of gods.

Women

· The ceremony of the egwugwu is clearly one dominated by men. Only men are in the cult of the egwugwu, and so only men are involved in the administration of justice. But for the first case of the ceremony, Achebe chooses a case involving a woman's well-being. Here and elsewhere, he tries to show that a woman's place in Igbo society, though vulnerable, is not unappreciated. Mgbafo, the abused bride, is protected by her brothers. Her case is viewed favorably by the judge. Although Achebe shows us that the Igbo society is deeply patriarchal, he also strives to show that Igbo woman, in at least a limited capacity, are respected and protected. There is an interest in justice and fairness. And to keep perspective on the issue, the reader should remember that women in 19th century England and America did not enjoy any more freedom than their counterparts in Nigeria.

· “A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland.”

Religion

· But just as Igbo faith is integral to Igbo society, the new religion also comes with social and political attachments. Once land has been granted for the building of the church, the whites become difficult to dislodge. They bring their laws and their guns soon afterward, and Igbo men and women are forced to live under the colonial yoke.

· We also see that the Christians fill a void in clan life; they do great good by rescuing the twins and providing comfort to outcasts. But it is also true that the Christians are the first wave of imperialism. The arrival of the missionaries is the precursor to subjugation

· The religion and the new government are wreaking havoc on the harmony of Igbo life. Social instability and the threat of violence have arrived in full force, and armed resistance is impossible. The old religion is threatened; with humiliation, the Igbo are forced to bow down to white authority.

· Towards the end of the novel, we witness the events by which Igbo society begins to fall apart. Religion is threatened, Umuofia loses its self-determination, and the very centers of tribal life are threatened. These events are all the more painful for the reader because so much time has been spent in sympathetic description of Igbo life; the reader realizes that he has been learning about a way of life that no longer exists.

· There is an Igbo saying that when a man says yes, his chi, or spirit, says yes also. The belief that he controls his own destiny is of central importance to Okonkwo. Later, several events occur to undermine this belief, and Okonkwo is embittered by the experience. As often happens with tragedy, the catastrophe comes through a complex mix of external forces and the character's choices.

· Particularly since one of the threats to Igbo life is the coming of the new religion, tribal belief is a theme of some importance. Igbo religious beliefs explain and provide meaning to the world; the religion is also inextricable from social and political institutions. Achebe also shows that Igbo religious authorities, such as the Oracle, seem to possess uncanny insights. He approaches the matter of Igbo religion with a sense of wonder.

· The Igbo gods are mostly manifestations of nature and its elements, which makes sense because they are an agricultural society that depends on the regularity of seasons and natural phenomena to survive. They worship the goddess of the earth and are always careful to avoid committing sins against her for fear of vengeance that might wipe out an entire generation. The Igbo ancestors also take on a divine nature to some extent. Family plays such a central role in Igbo life that the spirits of their ancestors are consulted for almost every decision and even serve as judges in legal trials (in the form of masked elders). The Igbo emphasis on numerous gods associated with nature and also on ancestors and somewhat divine contrasts sharply with the single God of Christianity which seems far less directly relevant to the Igbo lifestyle.

Justice

· The theme of justice is one of the preoccupations of the novel. Throughout the book, we have seen Igbo justice in action. Igbo laws and traditions preserve order. Justice is impossible under the new system. The DC is completely ignorant of local ways, and he has no intention of learning about them; the different ideas of justice ensure conflict.

· Justice is another powerful preoccupation of the novel. For the Igbo, justice and fairness are matters of great importance. They have complex social institutions that administer justice in fair and rational ways. But the coming of the British upsets that balance. Although the British claim that local laws are barbaric, and use this claim as an excuse to impose their own laws, we soon see that British law is hypocritical and inhumane. The final events leading up to Okonkwo's death concern the miscarriage of Justice under the British District Commissioner.

Death

· Okonkwo's suicide, in retrospect, seems nearly inevitable. Determined to fight the white man, alone if necessary, the betrayal by his people is more than he can bear. He realizes that he will resist alone, even after the outrage of the white man ordering a stop to the clan meeting. Okonkwo understands that his people have been broken. Instead of a war, he will have only the white man's noose; he will not even be tried under his own people's laws. He chooses suicide instead.

· Long years of difficulty and disappointment have contributed to this moment. The accidental death and then exile darkened Okonkwo's view of life. The betrayal of his son was a very heavy blow. Now, the betrayal of his people, and their inevitable subjugation, pushes Okonkwo into despair. Okonkwo's central beliefs have been undermined. He believed that a man was the master of his own fate; his exile and the loss of his son challenged that belief. He also had great faith in his clan, but now his clan will be a subservient people. He cannot bear this disgrace. Parallel to Okonkwo's tragedy is the tragedy of his people's subjugation. As a final bit of bitter irony, Okonkwo's suicide violates the very traditions that are being menaced by the white man.

Tradition

· Igbo lifestyle is highly stylized, from its ritual speech to the actions performed for certain ceremonies. Most of these formalized interactions occur in an attempt to show respect to some external being – another man, an ancestral spirit, or a god. Respect and knowledge of one’s role in society is very important in determining such customs. Another institution that rituals address and honor is the family unit. Stylized language, in particular, seeks to hold the family together by means of promises.

· As an agricultural society, the survival of the Umuofia depends on the earth and its predictable cycle of seasons. Thus we see frequent worship of the earth and her bounty, especially at the new year and during harvest season. The Igbo also reap the earth’s wealth in rather economical and effective ways – tapping trees for palm-wine, capitalizing off of locust plagues, and making medicine with herbs. Human beings are implicitly viewed as the children of the earth, though the conduct of the white men throws doubt on that assumption. In addition to being generous, the earth can also be deadly and is ruthless and not provide food and resources if offended in some way by human actions.

Change

· As a story about a culture on the verge of change, Things Fall Apart deals with how the prospect and reality of change affect various characters. The tension about whether change should be privileged over tradition often involves questions of personal status. Okonkwo’s sense of self-worth is dependent upon the traditional standards by which society judges him. This system of evaluating the self inspires many of the clan’s outcasts to embrace Christianity. Long scorned, these outcasts find in the Christian value system a refuge from the Igbo cultural values that place them below everyone else. In their new community, these converts enjoy a more elevated status.

· The villagers in general are caught between resisting and embracing change and they face the dilemma of trying to determine how best to adapt to the reality of change. Many of the villagers are excited about the new opportunities and techniques that the missionaries bring. This European influence, however, threatens to extinguish the need for the mastery of traditional methods of farming, harvesting, building, and cooking. These traditional methods, once crucial for survival, are now, to varying degrees, dispensable. Throughout the novel, Achebe shows how dependent such traditions are upon storytelling and language and thus how quickly the abandonment of the Igbo language for English could lead to the eradication of these traditions.

Tone

Fear

· Fear is one of the primary sources of tragedy in the novel. We are constantly shown how Okonkwo's fear of failure and effeminacy drives him to ill-considered acts. The village of Abame is destroyed because of fear. The men hear the prediction of the Oracle and panic.

· The oracle of Abame correctly predicted that the white man was the harbinger of destruction. On the theme of tribal belief, Achebe is not out to prove that Igbo religion is "true." But he does show that the oracles often have uncanny insights. The use of the oracles in the novel also contributes to the theme of fate, which is always an important part of tragedy. One could argue that the Abame oracle's prophecy was self-fulfilling, which is another common aspect of tragedy: the more one tries to elude a foretold fate, the faster one reaches it. However, the Oracle's prophecy would have come true regardless of the townspeople's actions. European imperialists brought death and destruction on all of their subjects, innocent and guilty alike. In the same way, the tragedy that befalls Okonkwo is in part his own making, but also comes from predetermined forces.

· For all of his desire to be strong, Okonkwo is haunted by fear. He is profoundly afraid of failure, and he is afraid of being considered weak. This fear drives him to rashness, and in the end contributes to his death.

Symbols

Wrestling

· The wrestling matches are more of Achebe's documentation of Igbo life. From the large amount of exposition and commentary, it is clear that Things Fall Apart is not a book meant for Igbo readers. In fact, Achebe seems to assume that the reader has little or no knowledge of Igbo culture. We see the joy of festival time, and the excitement of the Igbo New Year. Achebe wants us to appreciate the beauty and strength of the Igbo people; sympathy and respect for the Igbo makes the end of the novel all the more painful.

Locusts

· The arrival of the locusts might initially worry the reader who knows that locusts are often disastrous for a community of farmers. These locusts pose no threat to the Igbo. However, they foreshadow a more dangerous swarm that will arrive later. Like the white man, they send scouts first and then arrive with overwhelming numbers and force.

Folktales

· To Okonkwo, folktales – especially those featuring animals – are a symbol of femininity. To him, the stories seem to show a childish love for escapism and provide few useful values or morals. Mothers and daughters in the novel have a tendency to share folktales, but they are also one of Okonkwo’s son Nwoye’s favorite forms of entertainment. Because Nwoye prefers folktales over bloody war stories, Okonkwo fears that his son is too effeminate.

Yams

· Yams are a crop grown exclusively by men. Growing yams is labor intensive, and the size of a man’s fields and harvest say much about his work ethic. Yams are grown to gain wealth and also to feed one’s family. They are a symbol of masculinity and ability as a provider.

Fire

· The narrator and characters often compare Okonkwo to fire, he even has the nickname around town as the “Roaring Flame.” For Okonkwo, fire is a symbol of boundless potency, life, and masculinity. However on realizing his complete disappointment in his son Nwoye, Okonkwo has the realization that “Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.” Like fire, Okonkwo sees his own progeny as impotent.

· Okonkwo links ash to emasculation. Not only does Okonkwo compare his own son, Nwoye, to ash, but the court messengers are also called “Ashy-Buttocks” – a comment about the color of their shorts but also about their masculinity.

The mother of the spirits

· The Mother of the Spirits is seen as the mother of the egwugwu and therefore a deity worshipped by the Umuofia. In many ways, she is the personification of the Umuofia clan. The point at which one of the Christian converts, Enoch, commits the terrible crime of unmasking one of the egwugwu is a climactic moment for the Umuofia. Unmasking an egwugwu is equivalent to murdering a god. It is a point at which the Umuofia way of life has been deeply disrespected and the damage done is irreparable. The night after the unmasking, the Mother of the Spirits loudly mourns the death of her son. The narrator draws a comparison between the Mother of the Spirits and the clan: “It seemed as if the very soul of the clan wept for the great evil that was coming – its own death.” It’s also important that the Mother of the Spirits takes no action but weeping and mourning – she doesn’t avenge the death of her son, and neither will the Umuofia people avenge the crimes the white men commit against them.

The Egwugwu

· The egwugwu are a symbol of the culture and independence of the Umuofia. The egwugwu are seen as ancestral gods, though in actuality they are masked Umuofia elders. The egwugwu serve as respected judges in the community, listening to complaints and prescribing punishments and deciding conflicts. Just as the egwugwu are superstitiously thought to be the spirits of the Umuofia ancestors, for the sake of the novel, they are symbolically the spirit of the clan. When the egwugwu lose power in the community and are replaced by a white court, the clan’s culture and independence is lost.

Structure

· Structurally, Things Fall Apart is broken into three parts. Part I chronicles Okonkwo's life in Umuofia prior to his exile, Part II details the seven years of Okonkwo's exile in Mbanta, and Part III returns to Umuofia, where Christians and British imperialists have encroached upon the village. Okonkwo returns home to find the village changed in ways he cannot accept.

· Achebe uses the traditions, narrative and otherwise, of two cultures in a highly allusive work that fully exploits their proverbs, tales, religious rituals, and customs. Okonkwo's life is evaluated in the light of both Igbo and Christian traditional values — values that often intersect. His fear of being thought of as weak causes him to negate the importance Igbo culture places on peaceful settlement of conflict and diplomacy. When telling stories to his children, he tells only tales of violence and bloodshed. The sacrifice of Isaac is evoked both in his actual murder of Ikemefuna and his psychic murder of his own son Nwoye, who takes the name Isaac upon his conversion. (His accidental killing of a third male child causes his banishment.) The more rigid British characters, such as Mr. Smith and the District Commander then appear like his white counterparts. Achebe is able at the same time to use Christian values to expose what is arbitrary and cruel about the Igbo religion, such as the existence of the pariah osu, and the throwing away of twins, and the Igbo custom and belief to expose the absurdities and contradictions in the Christian/ European perspective. The efforts of the missionaries in Mbanta (the place where Okonkwo is exiled) to explain the trinity right after telling the crowd that there is only one God are met with hilarious rejoinders.

· The manipulation of proverbs, both Igbo and biblical, and the testing of them against experience is also a common technique. Mr. Smith fails because, unlike Mr. Brown, he wants to make Christianity more selective. "Narrow is the way and few the number," he argues, doubtless buttressed by scripture, and he is appalled by the pockets of ignorance of common doctrines. Sometimes, the experience the proverb is meant to contain is too large and unfathomable, and the proverb seems pasted on, as if the character is clutching at straws, as when Obierika tries to rationalize his throwing away of his twin children: "The Earth had decreed that they were an offense on the land and must be destroyed," and "If one finger brought oil it soiled the others."

· A corollary to his concern with truths of two intersecting cultures is Achebe's problematical (at least for Western, more scientifically-minded cultures) substantiation of spiritual realities. The Ekwefi/Ezinma story is often cited in evidence of this aspect of his work. For not only are the Christians seen to err when they blatantly disregard Igbo beliefs, the spiritual is validated in both cultures and, among other things, provides a long view for lives and struggles of the characters. Okonkwo and Ezinma secure their daughter's chances for life and avert the fate of the ogbanje by careful vigilance and ritual, not by denying its reality or thwarting the belief irreverently.

Style

· Other hallmarks of Achebe's style are his ability to intersperse Igbo and pidgin expressions where appropriate for context sketching characters, and to adapt English to the rhythm of his African language. His numerous translations of Igbo proverbs reflect this ability, and as he uses them he builds a serious respect for a culture little understood previously by Westerners.

· But not everyone sees the book as narrated by two distinct voices. It can also be seen as having a single narrator, whose tone changes and adapts over time. This would be a reflection of the Umofian society's gradual change and adaptation in order to survive.

· emiotics and ColonizationGikandi claims that the semiotic codes in book (like breaking kola nuts, etc.) are intended to provide cultural background to the characters, warms that they should not be regarded merely as local color. They are included in the book to represent societal values, not exotic quirks. "After all, the most obvious sign of the destruction of Igbo culture and its authority is the repression of Igbo voices at the end of the novel when colonialism imposes its grammatology and henceforth represents the African as a subject with neither a voice nor a logos." (Gikanki, 33) The most profound and effective way to take control of someone is to control their speech. A language is not just a way to talk with another person; it reflects cultural information as well, it is the embodiment of the speakers' point of view. "When Umofia's scheme of meanings is colonized, the function of its culture is rapidly eroded." (Gikanki, 35) Another thing pointed out is the 'semiotics of the yam.' According to Gikani, the yams represent three things: manhood, prosperity, and control in society. Whenever they are mentioned, or used, they are always as one of these three signs.

· Things Fall apart is indeed a classic study of cross-cultural misunderstanding and the consequences to the rest of humanity, when a belligerent culture or civilization, out of sheer arrogance and ethnocentrism, takes it upon itself to invade another culture, another civilization." (Emenyonu, 84) One of the things pointed out is that Umofia had no kings or chiefs but had a highly democratic and efficient government. This is something the invaders did not see; Western sensibilities insist that each nation needs a leader, at least one person to take charge and prevent anarchy. The courts used the white man's justice: either a flogging or hanging: both senselessly brutal in Umofian eyes. The main reason for the culture clash is lack of social interaction and understanding between the cultures. And the misunderstanding did not end at the end of the novel; the colonizers are the ones who recorded the history, so, as the saying goes, "…Until the lions produce their own historian, the story of the hunt will glorify only the hunter" "Achebe has made it clear that his principle purpose in the book was to give African readers a realistic depiction of their precolonial past, free of the distortions and stereotypes imposed in European accounts."

Quotes

1. "A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness" 

2. "Eneke the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without missing, he has learned to fly without perching". 

3. "I began to fend for myself at an age when most people still suck at their mothers' breasts. If you give me some yam seeds I shall not fail you." 

4. "A proud heart can survive a general failure because such failure does not prick its pride". 

5. "It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone". 

6. "A chick that will grow into a cock can be spotted the very day it hatches" 

7. 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." 

8. "It is not bravery when a man fights with a woman." 

9. "There is no one for whom it is well." 

10. "There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts." 

11. “His whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness”

12. “Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly, unless it was the emotion of anger”

13. “Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offense he has committed inadvertently?”