Things Fall Apart

''Things Fall Apart'' is a 1958 novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. It is Achebe's debut novel and was written when he was working at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. The novel was first published in London by Heinemann on 17 June 1958.

The story, which is set in British Nigeria, centers on Okonkwo, a traditional influential leader of the fictional Igbo clan, Umuofia, who opposes colonialism and early Christianity. The novel's title was taken from a verse of " The Second Coming", a 1919 poem by Irish poet W. B. Yeats. ''Things Fall Apart'' formed the first part of his "African trilogy" with his novels '' No Longer at Ease'' and '' Arrow of God''. The novel explores many themes, especially culture, masculinity, and colonialism.

''Things Fall Apart'' is regarded as a milestone in African literature. It gained critical acclaim and popularity upon publication, and has been translated into over fifty languages. It was listed on Time's "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005". The novel has had several adaptations, including the radio drama, ''Okonkwo'' (1961), by the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation; 1971 film, ''Things Fall Apart'', which starred  Princess Elizabeth of Toro.

Plot

Okonkwo is a famous man in the village of Umuofia. He is a wrestling champion and leader of a clan. He strives to be the opposite of his father Unoka, who was an indolent debtor unable to support his wife or children, preferring flute-playing over struggling for success. Okonkwo works hard from a young age to build fame and wealth all on his own. Obsessed with manly strength and discipline, he often beats his wives and children.

Okonkwo is selected by the elders to be the guardian of Ikemefuna, a boy who was taken as a peace settlement between Umuofia and another clan after Ikemefuna's father killed a woman from Umuofia. The boy looks up to Okonkwo as his second father. The Oracle of Umuofia eventually pronounces that the boy must be killed. Ezeudu, the village elder, warns Okonkwo to stay away from the killing, but he brushes off the warning and carries out the grim task. After killing Ikemefuna, Okonkwo feels haunted by sadness and nightmares. During a gun salute at Ezeudu's funeral, Okonkwo's gun accidentally explodes and kills Ezeudu's son. He and his family are exiled for seven years to his motherland, Mbanta, as required to appease the gods.

While Okonkwo is in Mbanta, he learns that the white men are living in Umuofia with the intent of introducing their religion, Christianity. As the number of converts increases, the foothold of the white people grows and a new government is introduced. The village is forced to accept or oppose the imposition of the white people's nascent society. Okonkwo's son Nwoye becomes curious about the missionaries, and after he is beaten by his father for the last time, he decides to leave his family to live independently. Nwoye is introduced to the new religion by a missionary, Mr. Brown. In the last year of his exile, Okonkwo instructs his best friend Obierika to sell all of his yams and hire two men to build him two huts so he can have a house to go back to with his family. He also holds a great feast for his mother's kinsmen.

Returning from Mbanta, Okonkwo finds his village changed by the presence of the white men. After a convert commits the crime of unmasking an elder as he embodies an ancestral spirit of the clan, the village retaliates by destroying a local Christian church. In response, the District Commissioner representing the colonial government takes Okonkwo and several other native leaders prisoner pending payment of a fine of two hundred bags of cowries. Despite the District Commissioner's instructions to treat the leaders of Umuofia with respect, the native "court messengers" humiliate them, shaving their heads and whipping them. Outraged, the people of Umuofia finally gather for an uprising. Okonkwo, being a warrior by nature and adamant about following Umuofian custom and tradition, despises all cowardice and advocates war.

When messengers of the white government try to stop the meeting, Okonkwo beheads one of them. Because the crowd allows the other messengers to escape and does not fight alongside Okonkwo, he realizes with despair that the people of Umuofia will not fight to protect themselves. The result of this is that when the District Commissioner, Gregory Irwin, comes to Okonkwo's house to take him to court, he finds that Okonkwo killed himself because he saw he was fighting the battle alone and his tribe had given up. Among his own people, Okonkwo's actions have tarnished his reputation and status, as it is strictly against the teachings of the Igbo to commit suicide. Obierika struggles not to break down as he laments Okonkwo's death. As Irwin and his men prepare to bury Okonkwo, Irwin muses that Okonkwo's death will make an interesting chapter for his written book, ''The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger''.

Background and publication history

''Things Fall Apart'' was Chinua Achebe's first novel. After graduating from the University of Ibadan in 1953, he became a teacher in Oba, Anambra State, before working in the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) the following year. During his stay at NBC, he started writing the manuscript. He wrote in English since he considers the existing standard for written Igbo language as stilted; created by the combination of various dialects, which he revealed in a 1994 interview. In 1957 he removed the second and third parts of the manuscript, leaving only the story of Okonkwo, ultimately the main character of the story. He also restructured it and added new paragraphs and chapters.

After Achebe saw an advertisement in ''The Spectator'', he sent copies of his handwritten manuscript to a typing agency in London by ordinary mail. After he sent the requested fee of £22 by the agency through the British postal order, he heard nothing from the agency for many months. Towards the end of the year, his colleague, Angela Beattie, who was about to relinquish her post as Head of Talks at NBC, was going to London for her annual leave, Achebe asked her to check the status of his manuscript when she reached London. Following Beattie's intervention, the agency retrieved the manuscripts already covered with dust from a corner of the office, and sent only one typed copy to Achebe in Lagos.

Achebe was promoted as the Head of Talks at NBC. He sent his typescript to the literary agent of Gilbert Phelps in 1958. Several publishing houses rejected the typescript, giving the reason that fiction by African writers possessed no financial potential. The typescript was eventually taken to the office of William Heinemann, where it was presented to James Michie and through him, came to the attention of Alan Hill, a publishing advisor. ''Things Fall Apart'' was published in hardback on 17 June 1958 with around 2000 print copies. Although the publishers didn't re-edit or copyedit the manuscript, it achieved instant acclaim in the British national press. ''The Times Literary Supplement'' said that the novel "genuinely succeeds in presenting tribal life from inside while patterns of feeling and attitudes of mind appear clothed in a distinctive African imagery, written neither up nor down."

Themes

Culture

''Things Fall Apart'' depicts the cultural roots of the Igbos and refers them as a universal principle, which revives the lost dignity of the people during the Colonial Nigeria.

Historians focuses on past African Empires in order to improve the status of African history, but Achebe breaks this pattern by portraying Igbo people as isolated with an established tradition. For example, when the missionaries entered Mbanta, they expected there to be a king. Upon being told there was none, they set up their own ruling system. In ''Things Fall Apart'', there is a contradiction between different cultural practices;
for example, the Europeans allow men to fight over religion but the Igbo tradition forbids the killing of one another.

Achebe presents some standard for the Igbo culture while not idealizing the past, like the troubling culture for modern democrats is the law that says Ikemefuna should be killed for the sins of his clans. Although Achebe shows the treachery, ignorance, and intolerance of the British, he doesn't present them as fully evil people. Instead he uses both cultures—British and Igbo—to represent two mixtures of human beings as seen in Okonkwo and Mr. Smith, who both refuse to compromise when their cultures are threatened.

Legacy

Influence

Before the publication of ''Things Fall Apart'', most novels about Africa were written by Europeans and portray Africans as savages in need of Western enlightenment. ''Things Fall Apart'' paved the way for African culture and influenced other African writers to write efficiently about the expression of a particular social, historical, and cultural situation of modern Africa.Booker (2003), p. 7.

Achebe portrays the Igbo society sympathetically, allowing his audience to examine the effects of colonialism from a different perspective. He asserted that the popularity of ''Things Fall Apart'' in Nigeria can be explained simply that "this was the first time we were seeing ourselves, as autonomous individuals, rather than half-people, or as Conrad would say, 'rudimentary souls'".Sickels, Amy. "The Critical Reception of Things Fall Apart", in Booker (2011). Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka called the novel as "the first novel in English which spoke from the interior of the African character, rather than portraying the African as an exotic, as the white man would see him."

The language of the novel has not only intrigued critics but has also been a major factor in the emergence of the modern African novel. Because Achebe wrote in English, portrayed Igbo life from the point of view of an African man, and used the language of his people, he was able to greatly influence African novelists, who viewed him as a mentor.

Achebe's fiction and criticism continue to inspire and influence writers around the world. Hilary Mantel, the Booker Prize-winning novelist in a 7 May 2012 article in ''Newsweek'', "Hilary Mantel's 5 Favorite Historical Fictions", lists ''Things Fall Apart'' as one of her five favourite novels in this genre. A whole new generation of African writers – Caine Prize winners Binyavanga Wainaina (current director of the Chinua Achebe Center at Bard College) and Helon Habila ('' Waiting for an Angel'' 004and ''Measuring Time'' 007, as well as Uzodinma Iweala ('' Beasts of No Nation'' 005, and Professor Okey Ndibe ('' Arrows of Rain'' 000 count Chinua Achebe as a significant influence. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the author of the popular and critically acclaimed novels ''Purple Hibiscus'' (2003) and ''Half of a Yellow Sun'' (2006), commented in a 2006 interview: "Chinua Achebe will always be important to me because his work influenced not so much my style as my writing philosophy: reading him emboldened me, gave me permission to write about the things I knew well."

''Things Fall Apart'' was listed by ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' as one of "12 Novels Considered the 'Greatest Book Ever Written.

The 60th anniversary of the first publication of ''Things Fall Apart'' was celebrated at the South Bank Centre in London, UK, on 15 April 2018 with live readings from the book by Femi Elufowoju Jr, Adesua Etomi, Yomi Sode, Lucian Msamati, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Chibundu Onuzo, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Ben Okri, and Margaret Busby.

On 5 November 2019 BBC News listed ''Things Fall Apart'' on its list of the 100 most influential novels.

Reception

''Things Fall Apart'' is regarded as a milestone in Anglophone African literature, and for the perception of African literature in the West. It is studied widely in Africa, Europe,and North America, where it has been the subject of secondary and tertiary analytical works. It has been translated to over 50 languages. ''Time'' listed the novel in its ''TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005''.

Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka described ''Things Fall Apart'' as "the first novel in English which spoke from the interior of the African character, rather than portraying the African as an exotic, as the white man would see him." During the 60th anniversary of the novel, it was read at the South Bank Centre in London on 15 April 2018 by Femi Elufowoju Jr, Adesua Etomi, Lucian Msamati, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Chibundu Onuzo, Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, Ben Okri, and Margaret Busby.

On 5 November 2019 BBC News listed ''Things Fall Apart'' on its list of the 100 most influential novels.

Adaptations

''Things Fall Apart'' was adapted into a radio drama, ''Okonkwo'', by the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in April 1961. It featured Nigerian playwright and poet Wole Soyinka in a supporting role.

In 1970, the novel was turned into a film of the same name - also known as ''Bullfrog In The Sun'' - directed by the award-winning German filmmaker and producer and starred Princess Elizabeth of Toro, Johnny Sekka and Orlando Martins. In 1965, Nigerian co-producer Francis Oladele founded Calpenny Nigeria Limited, the first film production company in Nigeria after independence. The American-German-Nigerian production ''Things Fall Apart'' was his second film after ''Kongi's Harvest''. ''Things Fall Apart'' was considered lost for decades until more than 2,000 stills by Stephen Goldblatt, production documents, correspondence, contemporary newspaper clippings a film print and more were found in a satellite storage of the Deutsche Kinemathek Berlin in 2019. This led to the development of an extensive research and digitisation project on Nigerian film heritage, with exhibitions and screenings in Lagos, Kampala, Abidjan, Accra and Atlanta, among other places. In Germany, the film premiered at the Africa Days in Bonn under the patronage of the then German Foreign Minister Walter Scheel. In the United States, the premiere took place in Atlanta in 1974, with the then Mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson, as patron. In his essay ''When The Bullfrog Jumps In The Sun'' ''- Why Things Fall Apart is still a very relevant Black film till this day,'' Lagos-based contemporary artist Mallam Mudi Yahaya describes the complex background of the production.

In 1987, The novel was adapted by director, David Orere, into television miniseries broadcast by the Nigerian Television Authority. It starred Pete Edochie as Okonkwo and Justus Esiri as Obierika. Others included Nkem Owoh and Sam Loco Efe in supporting roles.

In 1999, the American hip-hop band the Roots released their fourth studio album ''Things Fall Apart'' in reference to Achebe's novel. Also, a theatrical production of ''Things Fall Apart'' adapted by Biyi Bandele was performed at the Kennedy Center. In September 2024, a television adaptation was announced to be in development at A24 with Idris Elba and David Oyelowo as the producers.

References

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1958 debut novels
1958 British novels
1958 Nigerian novels
British historical novels
Nigerian historical novels
Postcolonial novels
Nigerian English-language novels
Novels set in the British Empire
Novels set in colonial Africa
Novels set in Nigeria
Novels about suicide
British novels adapted into films
Nigerian novels adapted into films
British novels adapted into television shows
British novels adapted for radio
Novels by Chinua Achebe
Heinemann (publisher) books
African Writers Series