African Literature

The Critical Reception of Things Fall Apart

                    

   Before Things Fall Apart was published, most novels about Africa had been written by Europeans, and they largely portrayed Africans as savages who needed to be enlightened by Europeans. For example, Joseph Conrad’s classic tale Heart of Darkness (1899), one of the most celebrated novels of the early twentieth century, presents Africa as a wild, “dark,” and uncivilized continent. Chinua Achebe broke apart this dominant model with Things Fall Apart, a novel that portrays Igbo society with specificity and sympathy and examines the effects of European colonialism from an African perspective.

No one could have predicted that this novel, written by an unknown Nigerian, would one day sell nearly 11 million copies. Today Things Fall Apart is one of the most widely read books in Africa; it is typically assigned in schools and universities, and most critics consider it to be black Africa’s most important novel to date. Further, the novel has on syllabi for literature, world history, and African studies courses across the globe. The first African novel to receive such powerful international critical acclaim, Things Fall Apart is considered by many to be the archetypal modern African novel.

To understand the impact that Things Fall Apart had on both the African and international literary worlds, it is useful to briefly examine the novel’s historical context. England took control of Nigeria in the late nineteenth century and imposed upon the country a British-run government and educational system. Achebe, born in 1930 in the village of Ogidi in Eastern Nigeria, grew up under colonial rule. He lived in a Christian household, though his grandparents still followed traditional tribal ways, a tension that, as he once remarked in an interview with Conjunctions, “created sparks in my imagination”. He attended the prestigious University College, Ibadan, on scholarship, first as a medical student then as a literature major, during a time in which more and more Africans were questioning colonial rule and the European justification of it as a way to bring enlightenment to the “dark continent.” Achebe described it as a story about “Europeans wandering among savages,” adding, “In the beginning it wasn’t clear to me that I was one of those savages, but eventually it did become clear”. It was these two novels in particular that convinced Achebe that “the story we [Africans] had to tell could not be told for us by anyone else, no matter how gifted or well-intentioned”

Throughout the 1950s, a decade of hope in which many African countries gained independence, many other authors published works that countered colonialist racist claims and celebrated African culture, history, and society. Things Fall Apart, which the London house Heinemann published in 1958 with a modest print run of two thousand copies, came at the end of an intense nationalist movement and preceded Nigeria’s independence by two years. It also appeared just as a novel stands out from all the other African novels that soon followed it, partly in the effectiveness with which it engages the European literary tradition, and partly because it established a model that so many African novels of the next few years followed, at least in part. For example, simply writing in the European genre of the novel was an important and politically charged strategic decision as was Achebe’s choice to write in English, accented with elements derived from the spoken traditions of the Igbo. As Isidore Okpewho comments, “What marked Achebe’s novel as a pioneering effort was the seriousness of purpose and the depth of vision contained in his reaction to the European novel of Africa”. Things Fall Apart rose as a symbol of the Nigerian and African renaissance, and it served as an inspiration for the next generation of African writers.

The first reviews for Things Fall Apart appeared in Britain, then the United States. Though a few of these early Western reviewers took a condescending or Eurocentric tone, for the most part they were positive and emphasized the novel’s significance as an African’s insight into the lives of Africans at the time of colonization. Three days after the novel’s publication, a Times Literary Supplement review praised own people”. Positive reviews also appeared in The Observer and The Listener. The UK-based journal African Affairs attested: “This powerful first novel breaks new ground in Nigerian fiction” .In the United States, the New York Times called Achebe a “good writer,” and claimed, “His real achievement is his ability to see the strengths and weaknesses of his characters with a true novelist’s compassion”. Many of these early reviews emphasized Achebe’s Nigerian roots, and, while they often praised the subject matter and his description of the African society, they tended to pay less attention to the novel’s literary. Reviewers dwelled on Achebe’s vivid portrayal of the Igbo village and the “insider” quality of the work. The New York Times called it one of the “sensitive books that describe primitive society from the inside” ,and the Times Literary Supplement claimed that “the great interest of this novel is that it genuinely succeeds in presenting tribal life from the inside”. African Affairs chimed in: “In powerfully realistic prose the writer sets out to write a fictional but almost documentary account of the day to day happenings in a small Nigerian village without evasion, sophistry or apology”

During the same period that Things Fall Apart was published, African literary criticism was developing, and, though it was not until the 1960s that African critics wrote extensively about the novel, a few African scholars commented on it within a year of its publication. Nigerian Ben Obumselu, one of the founders of African literary criticism, was one of the book’s first African reviewers. His review, which appeared in the journal Ibadan in 1959, provided a more nuanced reading than many of the early British reviews; while overall it is positive, Obumselu also pointed out what he considered to be problematic Obumselu was prescient in two ways: he was one of the first critics to focus on the novel’s language and one of the first to raise the question of whether Achebe’s novel imitates or subverts European models. Both concerns would become major points of debate for latter critics. Obumselu was also one of the first critics to analyze the novel from an African perspective. In their review, the majority of Western critics had tended to celebrate the novel’s “otherness.” For instance, the early British and U.S. reviews tended to take anthropological or sociological viewpoints when discussing Achebe’s descriptions of African culture and the Igbo village. Similarly, the early scholarly responses to Things Fall Apart were informed by anthropology, and this approach dominated the scholarly criticism until the 1980s. In a way, Achebe’s novel invites anthropological interpretation, for one its major strengths is its vivid descriptions of the day-to-day village life of the Igbo. The best of these studies provide a strong contextual background for Achebe’s writing and a close analysis of the text. Yet, as M. Keith Booker explains, these vivid descriptions of Igbo society and culture also make “the book particularly vulnerable to the kind of anthropological readings that have sometimes prevented African novels from receiving serious critical attention as literature rather than simply as documentation of cultural practices”. Thus the more problematic pieces of anthropological criticism tend to generalize or read the text from a biased Eurocentric or Western perspective. Still, many of the anthropological studies published during these early years provided important jumping-off points for later Achebe studies.

As more scholars took interest in the novel, criticism grew deeper and more nuanced. For example, David Carroll’s Chinua Achebe, a significant addition to Achebe studies, provides a detailed introduction to European colonialism, Igbo history, and Igbo culture and dedicates a chapter to a close analysis of Things Fall Apart. Carroll, using both anthropological and literary approaches, examines Achebe’s writing in relation to Nigeria’s history of colonialism, independence, and political conflict and argues that Achebe resists European exoticism and stereotypes to raise questions about African identity and representation. Emmanuel Obiechina, too, largely takes an anthropological approach to the novel, though from an African perspective, in Culture, Tradition, and Society in the West African Novel. Examining the traditional beliefs and practices represented in Things Fall Apart and other West African novels, he seeks to show how African society and culture “gave rise to the novel there, and in far-reaching and crucial ways conditioned the West African novel’s content, themes, and texture”. Another important work from this period is Robert M. Wren’s Achebe’s World, a valuable guide to Igbo history, politics, religion, and society.

The best of the anthropological articles give a strong portrait of Igbo culture in relation to the novel and examine the historical context of the writing; however, a drawback to anthropological readings is their neglect of the literary qualities of the novel. Although a few critical works of the 1960s and 1970s examined the structural and narrative aspects of Things Falls Apart—such as Eldred D. Jones’s “Language and Theme in Things Fall Apart”. a groundbreaking work for its time that focuses on craft while also examining how African writers represented their world in literature—formalist New approaches, which focused on the literary qualities of the work, were much more popular in the 1980s. Such approaches analyze the formal qualities of a text—such as narrative, characterization, and structure—while bracketing off any historical, biographical, or sociological factors that may have influenced it. As this critical focus became more popular throughout the 1980s and 1990s, it undoubtedly brought more attention to Achebe’s literary achievement in Things Fall Apart. Among the many standout pieces of formalist criticism are B. Eugene McCarthy’s “Rhythm and Narrative Method in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart”. The Role of the Narrator and Reader in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart” ,and Emmanuel Ngara’s Stylistic Criticism and the African Novel. The collection of essays Critical Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, edited by C. L. Innes and Bernth Lindfors, presents diverse essays that both contextualize Achebe’s work and assess his literary achievement. Two40 Critical Insights important books that also broke with anthropological criticism were Innes’s Chinua Achebe and Simon Gikandi’s Reading Chinua Achebe.

As more and more critics began analyzing the text itself, a strain of criticism developed around the relations between Things Fall Apart and Aristotelian or Greek tragedy. While investigating the novel’s structure, plot, and characters, critics began debating whether Okonkwo can be called a classical tragic hero. In Greek tragedy, the tragic hero is a noble character who tries to achieve some much-desired goal but encounters obstacles. He often possesses some kind of tragic flaw, and his downfall is usually brought about through some combination of hubris, fate, and the will of the gods. One of the earliest articles on this theme is Abiola Irele’s “The Tragic Conflict in the Novels of Chinua Achebe”, in which Irele asserts, “Things Fall Apart turns out to present the whole tragic drama of a society vividly and concretely enacted in the tragic destiny of a representative individual”. This idea grew popular during the 1970s and 1980s and has endured as a typical way of defining Okonkwo’s character—even the back cover of the 1994 Anchor edition of the novel claims that it “is often compared to the great Greek tragedies.” G. D. Killam also wrote about the tragic elements of the novel, asserting that Okonkwo’s story “is presented in terms which resemble those of Aristotelian tragedy” and that Okonkwo’s death is the result of “an insistent fatality . . . which transcends his ability to fully understand or resist a fore-ordained sequence of events”. David Cook, in African Literature: A Critical View, which contains an important early formalist study of Things Fall Apart, provides a close reading of Okonkwo, claiming, “If Things Fall Apart is to be regarded as epic, then Okonkwo is essentially heroic. Both propositions are ten- able”. He closely examines Okonkwo’s actions, and, although Cook believes Okonkwo is similar, he concludes: “Okonkwo is unlike the prototype epic heroes of Homer andVirgil in one very important respect which has to do with circumstances rather than character. He is not a founding figure in the fabled history of his people, but the very reverse”. Harold Bloom does not consider the novel a traditional Greek tragedy, but he does compare Okonkwo to Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, concluding in his introduction to his Modern Critical Interpretations volume on Things Fall Apart, “If Coriolanus is a tragedy, then so is Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo, like the Roman hero, is essentially a solitary, and at heart a perpetual child. His tragedy stands apart from the condition of his people, even though it is generated by their pragmatic refusal of heroic death”.

This critical shift from anthropological readings to formalist ones helped solidify Achebe’s literary reputation. However, like the anthropological approaches, formalist readings also present drawbacks.

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. That Achebe wrote in English, portrayed Igbo life from the point of view of an African man, and used the language of his people in the text were innovations that greatly influenced the African writers who published soon after Achebe. Novelists such as Flora Nwapa, John Munonye, and Nkem Nwankwo, who broke into print in the late 1960s, all looked to Achebe as a guide, and even some more established or older Nigerian novelists were influenced by Achebe’s use of the Igbo language. For example, Onuora Nzekwu, whose first novel was written in a stiff, formal English, wrote his third novel in an African vernacular style. Today Achebe’s fiction and criticism continue to inspire and influence African writers. African authors born in the late 1950s and in the 1960s and 1970s—including Helon Habila, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie—have been particularly inspired or influenced by Achebe. Adichie, for instance, the author of the popular and critically acclaimed books Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun, commented in a 2005 interview, “Chinua Achebe 46 Critical Insights 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”. Over the years, Things Fall Apart has been examined by a wide variety of critical schools.

Although certain types of criticism have dominated discussions of the novel during different periods, they have also been interlaced with studies from a variety of other critical perspectives— such as Marxist, reader-response, psychoanalytic, historical, feminist, and cultural-studies approaches. Still, throughout the 1990s the dominant trend was post colonialism, which at times also draws on Marxist and poststructuralist theories. Post colonialist criticism focuses its critiques on the literature of countries that were once colonies of other countries. It arose during the 1980s, as many African countries were in political and economic crisis and theorists reexamined ideas about progress and development. As Simon Gikandi explains, “Instead of seeing colonialism as the imposition of cultural practices by the colonizer over the colonized, postcolonial theorists argued that the colonized had themselves been active agents in the making and remaking of the idea of culture itself”. In Post-colonial Literatures in English: History, Language, Theory, DennisWalder defines postcolonial literary criticism: “On the one hand, it carries with it the intention to promote, even celebrate the ‘new literatures’ which have emerged over this century from the former colonial territories; and on the other, it asserts the need to analyze and resist continuing colonial attitudes”. He explains that Things Fall Apart is a postcolonial text, as it rejects the assumption that the colonized can only be the subjects of someone else’s story; it seeks to “by telling the story of the colonized . . . retrieve their history. And more than that: by retrieving their history to regain an identity”. In Reading Chinua Achebe, Gikandi argues that, although Things Fall Apart cannot be regarded as representative of a “real Igbo culture,” it is an example of strategic resistance, as Achebe writes back or takes back his story and culture from colonial representations. Earlier debates about authentic- ity and representation—and the complications inherent to writing in a colonizer’s language—were early jumping-off points for later postcolonial approaches.

Okonkwo:protagonist

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. That Achebe wrote in English, portrayed Igbo life from the point ofview of an African man, and used the language of his people in the text were innovations that greatly influenced the African writers who publish edsoon after Achebe. Novelists such as Flora Nwapa, John Munonye, and Nkem Nwankwo, who broke into print in the late 1960s, all looked to Achebe as a guide, and even some more established or older Nigerian novelists were influenced by Achebe’s use of the Igbo language.

Feminist criticism of Things Fall Apart did not begin appearing until the 1990s, but, when it arrived, it made a strong impact and opened the novel up to new interpretations. One of the more groundbreaking arguments is that of Canadian feminist critic Florence Stratton, who argues in Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender (1994) that Achebe gives men cultural roles that were actually occupied by women in traditional Igbo culture. Biodun Jeyifo’s “Okonkwo and His Mother” is an analysis of the gender politics of Things Fall Apart, and Rhonda Cobham, in “Problems of Gender and History in the Teaching of Things Fall Apart” (1990), argues that Things Fall Apart reinforces dominant male Christian views of traditional Igbo society.

For more than fifty years, Things Fall Apart has offered critics rich material for thought and reflection. Readers seeking in-depth overviews and samplings of criticism may wish to turn to several important essay collections about and guides to Achebe’s work. Solomon O. Iyasere’s Understanding “Things Fall Apart”: Selected Essays and Criticism and Chinua Achebe: A Celebration, edited by Kirsten Holst Petersen and Anna Rutherford, are both key collections. Isidore Okpewho’s Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”: A Casebook contains essays exploring the diverse issues raised by critics of the novel. Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe is a two-volume set, edited by Ernest N. Emenyonu, that grew out of the twenty-fourth annual conference of the African Literature Association; it is quite comprehensive and covers all of Achebe’s works to date, with essays by scholars from Africa, Europe, and Canada. The Chinua Achebe Encyclopedia, edited by M. Keith Booker, is a comprehensive guide to Achebe’s life and writings and includes descriptions of major characters, historical places, and critical responses to Achebe’s work. David Whittaker and Mpalive-Hangson Msiska’s Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”  provides a detailed chap- 48 Critical Insights ter on the history of criticism of the novel, as does Ode Ogede’s Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”: A Reader’s Guide. Booker’s The African Novel in English provides substantial historical and contextual background on African literature and contains a chapter dedicated to Things Fall Apart. The most comprehensive biography on Achebe to date is Ezenwa-Ohaeto’s Chinua Achebe: A Biography.

Over the span of his long and productive career, Achebe helped create what is now known as the modern African novel and contributed to the development of African literary criticism. His influence on other African writers cannot be stressed enough. In addition to providing African writers with a new model, Achebe also helped promote African literature. In 1962 Achebe became the first series editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series, which has been one of the most important publishing venues for African literature. According to Achebe, the series’ launch “was like the umpires’ signal for which African writers had been waiting on the starting line”.

Just as Things Fall Apart made a large impact on Africans, it has also proven to be popular among international audiences. It is one of those rare novels that can be read and reread from many different perspectives and continues to generate many diverse interpretations. It continues to endure as an international classic.