Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe

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Book Reviews of Things Fall Apart

Book Review: "... things fall apart; the centre cannot hold ..."
Summary: 5 Stars

".. and have you heard? In certain cultures, the family's children belong to the wife and not the husband!" ... And then they all laugh as one of them answers:".. you might as well say that, in those cultures, the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the children!.." [Laughter]

The book is full of ibo parables, idiomatic sayings and African fables of spirits and the power of magic and wizardry. There is a fable about one "Nnandi", alone in the forest who was always "cooking and eating", with rain falling and the sun shining.

Okonkwo is a big, strong and powerful man. He is also a wrestler and about the only one who ever floored the renowned "Amalinze The Cat". Okonkwo is an interesting personality who loathes anything to do with weakness and cowardice; for that is why he has no kind memories of his own father, a lazy ne'ver-do-well as he sees him. He is a successful and rich man with 3 wives, whose fields are always ploughed, his barns full and is very respected in the village of Umuofia and "abroad" as a courageous warrior in war. He was the first many times to bring back chopped-off heads of enemies from war! He is one giant of a man and rules his household with a heavy iron hand. His own kids are afraid of him. His wives are afraid of him. He is a domestic dictator who can growl like a lazy lion about anything anytime he chooses, though not always without reason! He actually lives in fear of failure and losing honour and place in his society, that is why he is so hard and really scared. He lives in fear of resembling his weak father.

Okonkwo's tragedy begins with his own eldest son, Nwoye, in whom he sees a mirror-image of his lazy father. Perhaps to fill in for this vacuum, he takes a particular liking for Ikemefuna, his "adoptive" son. The tragedy intensifies when the "Oracle Of The Hills And Caves" -- a spirit medium -- decrees that Okonkwo slaughter his son for sacrifice in a religious, tribal ritual. Because he doesn't want to be branded or seen by others as a coward, he does it, though with a heavy heart. Ikemefuna is killed. The consequences of this ritual killing make him banned for, I think, "seven rains and seven harvests" - something like seven years.

When Okonkwo returns to Umuofia, he finds that things have drastically changed and that there are white men manning things and attempting to run everything. There are missionaries on the scene proclaiming a new religion, saying there is only one one God, who once sent His son to die for everyone's sins. At this, I remember one in a gathered audience answering back very seriously at the translator and his preaching white man:

" Wait a moment! You say God has a son, who is his wife then?"

Okonkwo finds many Umuofians - including his own eldest son -- converting to Christianity and this burns him with anger. Nevertheless, he remains "distant" in his approach to these alien influences -- or to those driving them -- until the day of confrontation comes, when a forbidden meeting takes place and all the men of Umuofia meet to discuss the strange culture "invading" their village. A non-Umuofian black messenger of the white man -- sent by the white man to inform the gathered armed men of Umuofia to disperse -- answers Okonkwo, who had jumped forward and asked him with contempt what he wanted there,:

" This meeting is illegal. The white man, whose power you know too well, has ordered it to stop!"

At that moment, Okonkwo, burning with anger and hatred, drew his machete in a flash and used it and slew the white man's messenger, cut off the messenger's head from its uniformed body. But then Okonkwo -- fearful of the powerful white man's vengeance and revenge -- disappears and soon hangs himself with a rope. As a suicide case, cutting his body down was a traditional taboo, for whoever did it without performing a medicineman's ritual was surely bound to face the wrath of the vengeful tribal spirits. Who was gonna cut him down from that rope now? The other elders and his friends gathered and discussed ...

And yet the author sympathetically portrays Okonkwo as a strong and prototypical African tribesman with his own manly problems and excesses of that age -- a heroic warrior who has no war to fight and is more at war with himself.

Professor Achebe's books are all very good and I think I've read most of them. They are historical [even a little prophetic, like "A Man Of The People" published just before Nigerian's first military coup -- I think -- in January 1966]. His books chronicle the different stages of change in his Ibo society -- but also in Nigeria and Africa, as a whole -- through the last 100 and more years. In this regard, this story of Okonkwo's tragedy at the time of the European partition of Africa is continued in Professor Achebe's second book, "No Longer At Ease", which tells the modern-day "good life" and easy survival of Obi Okonkwo, Okonkwo's intelligent, principled, "bourgeois" and well-educated grandson living at the brink of Nigeria's independence as a middle-class, well-paid civil servant. There were very, very few of his kind: black, well-educated, "been-to", owning a car, etc. But then the sad fall! An intellectual young man's tragedy! It would be helpful to read this book, too.

Thumbs up to all of Prof. Achebe's books[!] I have been reading them from the time I was 13 [and that's more than a decade ago now]! Interesting! This is real "African" literature!! I guarantee you!!!

Summary of Things Fall Apart

Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.

Achebe does not introduce the theme of colonialism until the last 50 pages or so. By then, Okonkwo has lost everything and been driven into exile. And yet, within the traditions of his culture, he still has hope of redemption. The arrival of missionaries in Umuofia, however, followed by representatives of the colonial government, completely disrupts Ibo culture, and in the chasm between old ways and new, Okonkwo is lost forever. Deceptively simple in its prose, Things Fall Apart packs a powerful punch as Achebe holds up the ruin of one proud man to stand for the destruction of an entire culture. --Alix Wilber

African Books

• Subjects > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > African
• Literary