Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe - Essay Example

due: Midterm exam: Question The setting of the book ‘Things Fall Apart’ is quite fascinating, and it makes the novel an interesting read. The book is set in the late 1800s and early 1900s, in a small village by the name Umuofia situated in the southeast part of Nigeria. The time is relevant to the history of Nigeria as that was the time that the British Colonial governments were expanding their territory in Africa economically, culturally, religiously and politically. Umuofia is a well known and respected village/ community as it is powerful, rich and prosperous among all other villages in the area. People live in huts known as obis which are built at the center of the compound. Polygamy is also accepted in this community; as one man can marry as many women as he likes because having multiple wives and children is considered to be a source of wealth or that one was rich. Men and women had different roles in the community; men were responsible for growing yams as it was the most important crop in the community while women grew the less important crops like cocoa- yams, beans, cassava e.t.c. The setting also enables us to follow and understand the Igbo way of life. The people of Umuofia have some significant ceremonies like the week of peace that was greatly observed by everyone, and nobody caused any trouble during the celebration as seen (Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart. Page 23) Okonkwo is fined for beating his wife during the festival. This was followed by the planting of yams then the new yam feast. Other celebrated activities also include dance, rites of passage and above all proverbs. The people of Umuofia loved their proverbs, and they never missed to us them in all occasions. They even have a proverb that says “words are the palm-oil with which word are eaten”. Religion is very valuable to the people of Umuofia as the egwugwu are deeply respected and are believed to keep the peace in the land and administer justice. A lot of people was talented in Arts e.g. Okonkwo’s father they were good in music and poetry, thing that according to Okonkwo were not manly, and he hated hearted Arts and those who did them. Everyone in the community had something to add to the progression of the community including women and children. Laziness was discouraged and rebuked as in many other African communities. A lot has changed since the time of the setting of this great book; for example, today in my community we do not celebrate agricultural patterns or dance among others. Polygamy is also not practiced in my community, unlike Umuofia. However, we have wedding, dance celebrations, and we also do farming as the main economic activity. The setting of a book is what builds it. It is through setting that we are able to discover the economic activities of the community, its social activities, culture, and location among other factors that build the body of the book. A rural setting is always attractive and very informative compared to other kinds of settings. Question 2 Achebe wrote the novel “Things Fall Apart” to educate people, and to combat demeaning stereotypes about Africa. However, he does not present the Igbo society as ideal. He criticizes some aspects of the community through his characters. Achebe seems to challenge some traditional beliefs and practices. For example, the killing of Ikemefuna, Okonkwo’s adopted son. He does this through the character Obierika (Okonkwo’s best friend) who refused to join the rest of the village men in the walk to the forest were the boy was to be killed by say that he has better things to do(Chinua Achebe, Things fall Apart, page 32). Obierika also told Okonkwo that his deeds would not please the earth because of the men’s actions. This turns out to be true later, although Okonkwo disagrees with him, but he is later faced with a great misfortune and is exiled from his home for seven years. This shows that Achebe does not agree with the murder of the young boy for he had committed no crime to be killed in that manner. Achebe also questions the appearance of the egwugwu in the trial conference. He does this by exposing the character Okonkwo to his wife; who notices that one of the Egwugwu walked with a springy walking style just like Okonkwo who was also conveniently absent at the place where the elders sat at the trail hearing. The Egwugwu was believed to bring justice, but Achebe criticizes their actual presence at the conference. Achebe also criticizes the efficiency of the traditional medicine men. He shows their lack of medical skill, which lead to the death of many who believed in them but never got better. This is clearly demonstrated when Okonkwo’s daughter was sick, and the medicine man was called. He found the girl’s iyi-uwu, which he disposed off, and said that she would get better; only for her to get ill again. Okonkwo being fond of the girl, tool some roots, grass, leaves and barks of medicinal trees, boiled them and used them to cure the girl’s illness. This was also meant to show the healing power of African traditional herbal medicine. Achebe also uses Nwoye who is Okonkwo’s son from his first wife. Nwoye is a sensitive boy how does not like violence or rude harsh behavior that is considered manly by his father. He was lucky to have a companion when growing up, and his father Okonkwo was also pleased that Ikemefuna was showing Nwoye his son how to behave like a man. Nwoye had his own mind. He enjoyed his father’s stories, but loved his mother’s stories even more because they did not entail violence and vivid description war victims. He still went to his father’s hut at night for the stories just to please him. After Ikemefuna’s death, Nwoye is terribly upset, and he feels the same way he felt when he was walking in the forest and heard a faint wail of an infant that had been thrown in the forest as twins were thrown away and not raised. Nwoye is the opposite of his father and this show that Achebe does not despise men who are compassionate and sensitive. Nwoye later converts to Christianity more to his father’s dismay as he was against the white man’s invasion. Achebe is critical of the African’s rebellion against change that is good as not all traditional beliefs and practices were safe, and they lead to the end of life instead of its preservation. In this case, he demonstrated his view on this topic mainly through Okonkwo the main character. Question 3 Africa, mainly the West Africa, was home to several Africa’s oldest kingdoms. These kingdoms and empires played a great role in the making and growth of trade and economic activities in their regions. The empires and kingdoms were governed by prominent persons, who develop their territories through conquests and warfare; were the smaller kingdoms were taken over by the bigger more powerful kingdoms. The wealth gained form trade was used to stabilize the nation by making armies protect the nation from enemies, and develop trade by making more tools from the mined iron. The tools were used in agriculture and war as weapons. Agriculture developed from the use of tools which increased trade and also the population which increased the size of the kingdoms. Long distance trade also contributed to the growth and prosperity of the kingdoms as this increased international trade, and more commodities were collected. The introduction of the slave trade was also a benefit at first for most empires and kingdoms. This was because the slaves were used as laborers in the farms to cultivate, in trade to carry heavy goods for long distances and also as soldiers to protect the empires. However, this prosperity was not to last after the coming of the Portuguese who came to Africa in search of new trading opportunities. This happened in the 15th century and the trading networks changed from then on which lead to the fall of the empires and the kingdoms. First the slave trade and gold trade changed the plan and were now crossing the Atlantic Ocean. This increased the power of some small West African kingdoms like the Asante nation because the slaves and gold were to go through their kingdoms. High empires like the Songhai Empire fell because the two precious communities would no longer pass through their empires en route the Sahara; where they had previously collected tributes and taxes from traders benefiting considerably from them. The other development that contributed to the fall of the kingdoms and empires was the rise of the slave trade. More and more slaves were needed as workers in the industries and factories, in the developed countries. More countries also began trading slaves; these countries include the Americas, Spain, France and Britain. Stronger, energetic individuals were captured to become slaves leaving their kingdoms and empires unattended. Very few sound men were left behind majority were children and old people who could not do much for their kingdoms. The change in trade led to the famous Triangle Trade System which involved three areas. The first period was of course Africa where the ships were loaded with slaves. The second period was the Americas where the ships were offloaded and loaded with agricultural goods such as cotton, tobacco among others. The final point was Europe was the ships were offloaded and loaded with manufactured goods such as cloth, iron, rum and guns. The trading of slave from Africa mainly successes, because the African kings, merchants and other prominent persons co-operated with the west. In return, they were given various trade goods such as beads, cowry shells; which were then used as money, brandy, textiles among other expensive goods. This was the greatest contributor to the fall of empires and kingdoms in Africa because the Portuguese, and the rest were free to do slave trade without any opposition, leading to the draining of energy and youth from Africa and the abandoning of rich fertile land which was later grabbed by the colonizers. Question 4 Myths and stereotypes about Africa have long been an issue to us. We often wonder about how they came to be and why they are so demeaning to other individuals. We have even once or twice failed to recognize them and have taken them to be the truth about African until we came to learn differently. Most of these come from people who are ignorant about Africa or they already have an unfounded thought about Africa and they do not bother to study. Keim, in his book “How we learn” claims that though extensive stories on Africa can be located in the upper print media publications, which can be trusted to give correct information. Most of their business is only titles like “Trouble in Africa” are “curiosity from Africa”; which he calls “shallow reporting” because most of the writers do not speak the native languages of the places they are writing about they also do not have good reliable local contacts that can be uses for efficient study. These reports come to Africa only when there is drama i.e. new in Africa is nonexistent until there is trouble (Keim, How we Learn, page 19) It is obvious that these stereotypes and myths on Africa are brought about by articles written about Africans by people who are not Africans. Keim believes “these views of Africa not only evoke stereotypes we already hold but reinforce them as well” (Keim, How we Learn, page 21) this point is further emphasized by Binyavanga in his article “How to write about Africa”. He talks about how the western writers go on and on about how poor, starved and doomed Africa is. He also claims that they have been biased in their writing about Africa where he says “note that ‘people’ means Africans who are not black while ‘The people’ means black Africans”. He also condemns the idea presented that Africa is to be pitied, and cannot survive unless someone from the west comes to help the poor dying Africans because they care. In his article, Binyavanga provides in a very satirical way all the general headings, subheadings and thematic areas that they like to write about Africa and also new ways to write. Binyavanga also provides examples of some of myth and stereotypes about Africa. These include things like Africa is one country, that Africa is all dusty with rolling grasslands that people in Africa are tall, thin and starving that food is bad beyond human consumption that people are always suffering from diseases, and the most common one is poverty. Documentaries make about the life of the African people especially those languishing in poverty or those faced with disasters like famine, floods, civil war e.t.c and articles written on the same are huge contributors on the formation of these stereotypes. Like Keim said, they only write about Africa when something wrong happens this is a contributing factor that most western readers are ignorant about Africa and the rest of the globe and, so they accept what is reported to them and what they see on their televisions. This is proven when a western writer wrote, “It is general to view African lives in statistical terms, so we’ve become inured to theses enormous numbers of deaths (Ben, Affleck, Times Magazine, vol. 173, no. 7). To dispel these myths and stereotypes will take a long time. Despite the young generation, Africa should take it upon themselves to try and fix the misinformation by putting the right information out there through articles, journals, books, and websites among other Medias. They should also speak out when such stereotypic articles are written; about their continents or countries so that the writers can be more careful when writing about Africa. We ought to define ourselves as in the right way to avoid being defined by people who hardly know us. We also ought to defend ourselves by being firm contrary general views about various cultures. We need to take down the picture put up for us by other people, and show an image, painted by us. References Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 2010. Internet Resource. Kahora, Billy and Binyaranga Wainaina. Kwani? Nairobi: Kwani Trust, 2007. Print. Keim, Curtis A. Mistaking Africa: Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2009. Internet resource. Wainaiana, Binyavanga. How to Write About Africa. Nairobi, Kenya: Kwani Trust, 2008. Read More