L'histoire d'Achebe #TFA

Prompt: The personal history of an author can have a significant influence on the way meaning is constructed in his/her writing. Comment on specific instances of such influence in Things Fall Apart.

Thesis:

In the novel, Things Fall Apart, Achebe effectually implements his literary prowess to construct a riveting account of pre and post-colonial Nigerian society, with his personal confrontations underpinning the prominence of the characterization of the protagonist, the portrayal of the arrival of the Christian Missionaries, and the deliberate depiction of Igbo Umuofia. 

Topic Sentence #1: 

Through the gradual unraveling of Okonkwo's character, Achebe strategically parallels his own personal attempts to extricate himself from the identity crisis that he dwelt in— growing up in a pious Christian family amongst members of an ostensibly 'savage' Igbo Clan.

Topic Sentence #2: 

In the novel, Achebe seamlessly weaves in a detailed portrayal of the Christian Missionaries in Umuofia, as his upbringing as a devout Christian contributes immensely to the augmentation of the authenticity of the literary illustrations in regards to the incipient infiltration of the Europeans in Nigeria. 

Topic Sentence #3: 

Achebe sets straight, through his novel, the misconceptions that cloud the Igbo people as he utilizes the opportunity of penning a novel to revisit his distorted cultural identity and promulgate to other Africans the intricacies of the traditional Nigerian clan. 

Gender Thesis Statement and Outline #TFA

With reference to Things Fall Apart, discuss how an understanding of gender influences how the text may be understood.

Thesis:

In the novel, Things Fall Apart, a thorough understanding of the gender influences contributes remarkably to the readers conception of the community's social stratification, an elevated significance of central themes and conflicts, and the overall appreciation of authentic Igbo intricacies. 

Topic Sentence #1: 

An overarching awareness of the gender dynamics prevalent in an Umuofian context would propel the reader's fundamental comprehension of the hierarchical scaffold that Igbo society is founded upon.

Topic Sentence #2: 

An in-depth understanding of the central themes and conflicts that dominate the novel can be bolstered by the readers comprehension of gender influences in Umuofia during the early 19th century.

Topic Sentence #3: 

The authenticity of Igbo culture is retained in the articulation of vivid accounts of Umuofian societal affairs, which oft can be fortified by a rudimentary consciousness of gender values in the society at the time. 

Thesis #TFA

Prompt: With reference to Things Fall Apart, show how sub-plots or secondary characters contribute to the reader’s understanding and appreciation of the work as a whole. 

In the novel, Things Fall Apart, Achebe strategically assimilates subordinate plots and pronounced secondary characters in order to augment the reader's understanding of the complexities of the Igbo culture, accent the protagonist's central attributes, and propel the development of conflicts and themes that enhance the progression of the novel.  

Character Questions: Okonkwo #TFA

1. What is the significance of Okonkwo’s character? What does he represent or what is he symbolic of? 

Okonkwo's character, as the protagonist of the riveting piece of literature, is significant in the primary essence that the plot of the novel revolves around the character and develops accordingly, as well. Okonkwo, depicted as an extreme product of the Igbo world, illuminates an exemplary archetype of a tragic hero as his incipient success and recognition is eventually tainted and demolished by his self-destructive hamartia: the unwillingness to accept change in societal conventions and adapt to the life entailed by the European infiltration into Igboland. Nevertheless, Okonkwo stands out in stark contrast to the remainder of his clan as he is not portrayed as the ideal Igbo man, but instead an extremity in his very own world. His hyper-masculinity and excessive hubris are not characteristics so intrinsic to the Igbo clan that they trump all other values and dominate one's character. However for Okonkwo this seems to be a given as his actions repeatedly seem to be centred around not deviating from his central ideals of masculinity and pride.

Moreover, Okonkwo's character is symbolic of the paragon of a flawed fanatic in a world that is undergoing revolution; it symbolizes the downfall of inflexibility in a dynamic realm undergoing transformation that demands just the same. In fact, Okonkwo seems to personify a conflict within the novel as his internal beliefs and personal thoughts contradict his mannerisms and hence provoke the reader to discern the drift in whom Okonkwo truly is and what he symbolizes as a protagonist in the novel.


2. What is the purpose of Okonkwo’s character within the text? 

As the central figure of the text, Okonkwo's character indubitably serves the purpose of propelling the progression of the novel. The events that materialize in the novel are all centred around Okonkwo and develop the audience's perception of Okonkwo in conjunction with the Igbo culture and customs. At the onset of the novel, and perhaps for the large part, the audience may be under the illusion that Okonkwo exemplified the ideal Igbo man. Nevertheless, as the novel's scope widens, the audience gets a gist of how Okonkwo perhaps was symbolic of anything but the ideal Igbo man. Okonkwo and his intrinsic flaws coalesced in a grave display of misfortune as his ultimate downfall was an incredibly unexpected one and rendered the audience utterly flabbergasted.

The element regarding Okonwko's character that seems even more perplexing would be the contradicting nature that laces his actions in contrast to his internal thoughts. We can take for instance, Okonkwo's worrisome pursuit of Ekwefi as his daughter Ezinma was being carried away into the darkness, or perhaps his agonizingly anguished state once he had killed Ikemefuna. The sentiments and gist of humanity reflected in these contradictions of Okonkwo's character moulds him to be a relatively complex character that is entrapped in and subjugated by his own fatal flaws.


3. How does Okonkwo’s character contribute to themes or meaning?

Okonkwo's character plays a critical role in moulding the audience's perception of Igboland as the only glimpse that the audience has into the enigmatic realm is from the perspective of events encountered by or significant to Okonkwo. At the same time, his character is a great contributing factor to the theme of duality that manifests in the novel and is the driving force on the central conflict of the plot. The duality in this sense is connotative of the ability of members of the Igbo clan to succumb to the European essentializing of Umuofia, whilst Okonkwo on the contrary seemed to be rigidly bent on holding on to the fabric of the traditional Igbo era, which accents how his inflexibility ultimately brought up about the denouement of "Things Fall Apart" as Okonkwo's ruination parallels the demise of authentic Igbo lives in Lower Niger in the 19th century as European colonization had taken the country by storm.

The Tragic Hero #TFA

"There is no one way to anything"

"Where one thing stands, another stands beside it"

— Chinua Achebe

Primarily comprehending Achebe's choice of crafting Okonkwo as a tragic hero would necessitate a rudimentary grasp on the requisites of the archetype: according to Aristotle, a tragic hero can be defined as "a main character, who confronts his downfall due to fate, his mistake, or any other social reason."

Now, taking into consideration Achebe's construction of Okonkwo's character, the protagonist has been projected as a mighty man of a superior socio-political status amongst his clan members in the village of Umuofia, and ultimately experiences his downfall in the form of hanging himself in despair of the situation begotten by the intrusion of European essentializing in his village. While it is unequivocally cemented, through an amalgamation of indicative factors, that Okonkwo reflects a tragic hero archetype, the central intrigue lies in the reason Achebe chose to cast the character under such a light.

The most compelling reason would be Achebe's desire to create a distinct dichotomy between the authentic Igbo culture and the misconceptions that permeated the same. For instance, the Igbo people are portrayed as a group that understands the duality in the nature of life and appreciates that every facet of life has multiple surfaces. The Igbo people refrain from a stringent orthodox perspective or fanaticism of any kind, which mirrors how the notion of a balance of ideas is well ingrained in the Igbo realm.

Okonkwo, however, does not parallel with the quintessential Igbo man's archetype; Achebe purposefully scaffolded Okonkwo's fatally flawed depiction in order to draw a distinction between Okonkwo's characteristics and how he was not reflective of true Igbo values and intricacies. Although incipiently materialized as a revered figure in the Igbo realm, Okonkwo progressively evolves as a character that seems ostracized from both the worlds of the Igbo and the Missionaries as his hamartia, comprising of elements of hypermasculinity, hubris and his insatiable lust for authority, lead him to being a misfit for either of the realms that he was forcefully immersed in.

Moreover, Okonkwo's tragic demise was metaphorically reflective of the downfall of the Igbo world in Lower Niger as the force of the White missionaries had overrun the clan and imposed on them brutalities that commenced the fragmentation of the culture.

Thus, all in all, Achebe's characterization of Okonkwo in pertinence to the archetype of a tragic hero served purposes manifold and elevated the central progression of the novel in the entirety. 

The Igbo Emancipation Proposal #TFA

The speech of Mr. Harry Brown,

The Christian Missionary to Umuofia, 

At the annual dinner of the Royal Colonial Institute on March 31st, 1895

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen. It is with much honour and felicity that I stand before you today, marking the occasion of having served my dutiful term as a Missionary in the enigmatic, yet charismatic, Lower Niger village of Umuofia. 

On this ostensibly celebratory evening, I stand before you with great vacillation, and I know not how to manoeuver nor articulate the conflicted sentiments surging through me. On one hand I wish to congratulate the collective British efforts of triumphing in the 'Scramble for Africa' and institutionalizing in the native populaces the bounties of British living and civilization. But, on the other hand a tinge of resentment and guilt infuses and taints the congratulations, for in our victory lies the noticeable demise of hundreds of intrinsic Nigerian tribes.

When we first commenced our expansionism into Africa, our fundamental aspirations rested on the unified subjugation of the native people under British authority, for, of course, their own well-being.  However, what we had not anticipated was the enormity of the internal fragmentation of societies within the nation and the accompanying tumults. Let me provide you with a more concrete exemplification of the obscure ideas I have been assembling:

The people of Umuofia for instance are constituent of what is called the Igboland—a congregation of self-contained towns and villages separated by tacit boundaries. The Igbo people form one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa with nearly fifteen million of the natives residing in Nigeria and nearly an additional million dispersed in and around the remainder of Africa.

Despite sharing the same basic culture and sociopolitical organization, the Igbo people are composed of up to an astounding two hundred distinct groups! Two hundred distinct groups that we cannot begin to fathom how to comprehend. The Igbo have their own complex sets of transcendent beliefs and ideologies that from the British lens appear absolutely preposterous: the prevailing notions of a preternatural force Chukwu, lack of a centralized political structure, transparency in communal living, and a patrilineal emphasis. And what do we do to compensate for our lack of understanding of the pre prevalent norms of Igboland? We make it our mission to assault the Igbo people and eradicate the customs at the heart of their living, to simply impose on them our supreme ideologies.

In the past we have discharged our ideals of conquest and imperialism with the bestowal of a finer life for those fortunate enough to be on the receiving end; however, what were to happen if an alien species were to emerge and declare their mannerisms as superior to those of the British. Would we succumb to a potent agent of change “for the better”? Would we abandon our inherent dogmas and willingly adopt those of an alien race? Would we revere those who establish authority in our nation and annex it as their own?

No, we would not.

The same goes for the Igbos of Nigeria. The social and political stratification of Nigerian lives should not be in our hands but in their own and thus I appeal to you that an aggressive expansionist policy at the cost of annihilating a nation’s individuality should be a tenet we reconsider before proceeding with our initiatives in not only Nigeria, but all of our African colonies.