Things Fall Apart (1958) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

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• Okonkowo: Important man in an Ibo village, for whom things fall apart.
• Amadi: Add a description of this character.
• Ezeani
• Okonkwo: An influential clan leader in Umuofia. Since early childhood, Okonkwo’s embarrassment about his lazy, squandering, and effeminate father, Unoka, has driven him to succeed. Okonkwo’s hard work and prowess in war have earned him a position of high status in his clan, and he attains wealth sufficient to support three wives and their children. Okonkwo’s tragic flaw is that he is terrified of looking weak like his father. As a result, he behaves rashly, bringing a great deal of trouble and sorrow upon himself and his family.
• Mr. Brown: He is the British missionary who promotes Christianity and getting an education. He is a very sensible and understanding person.
• Akunna
• Obierika: Okonkwo’s close friend, whose daughter’s wedding provides cause for festivity early in the novel. Like Nwoye, Obierika questions some of the tribe’s traditional strictures.
• Ukegbu
• Nwayieke
• Okagbue Uyanwa
• Unoka: Okonkwo's father who is plagued by his incipient laziness. He is a debtor who enjoys the pleasures in life, such as playing music, and thus is viewed as an unsuccessful man in the Ibo tribe. He leaves Okonkwo no inheritance and does not receive the first or second burial when he dies, but instead is thrown in the Evil Forest to rot.
• Nwakibie
• Umuofia
• Ogbuefi Idigo
• Ogbuefi Ndulue
• Akueke
• Ikemefuna
• Okoli
• Enoch
• Agbala
• Onwumbiko
• Tortoise
• Ozoemena
• Maduka: Obierika’s son. Maduka wins a wrestling contest in his mid-teens. Okonkwo wishes he had promising, manly sons like Maduka.
• Ofoedu
• Ogbuefi Ezeugo
• Mr. Smith
• Ibe
• Uchendu
• Ogbuefi Ezeudu
• Chielo
• Machi
• Nneka
• Ezeulu
• Mgbafo
• Nwoye: This is Okonkwo's son who is beaten by Okonkwo because he converts to Christianity. He is very sensible and dislikes his father as well because of his uncontrolable anger.
• Odukwe
• Obiageli: The daughter of Okonkwo’s first wife. Although Obiageli is close to Ezinma in age, Ezinma has a great deal of influence over her.
• Mr Kiaga: The native-turned-Christian missionary who arrives in Mbanta and converts Nwoye and many others.
• Okoye
• Reverend James Smith: The missionary who replaces Mr. Brown. Unlike Mr. Brown, Reverend Smith is uncompromising and strict. He demands that his converts reject all of their indigenous beliefs, and he shows no respect for indigenous customs or culture. He is the stereotypical white colonialist, and his behavior epitomizes the problems of colonialism. He intentionally provokes his congregation, inciting it to anger and even indirectly, through Enoch, encouraging some fairly serious transgressions.
• Chukwu
• Ezinma: The only child of Okonkwo’s second wife, Ekwefi. As the only one of Ekwefi’s ten children to survive past infancy, Ezinma is the center of her mother’s world. Their relationship is atypical—Ezinma calls Ekwefi by her name and is treated by her as an equal. Ezinma is also Okonkwo’s favorite child, for she understands him better than any of his other children and reminds him of Ekwefi when Ekwefi was the village beauty. Okonkwo rarely demonstrates his affection, however, because he fears that doing so would make him look weak. Furthermore, he wishes that Ezinma were a boy because she would have been the perfect son.
• Okika
• Uzowulu
• Ogbuefi Udo
• Okeke
• Ojiugo
• Nnadi
• Amikwu
• Ekwefi: Okonkwo’s second wife, once the village beauty. Ekwefi ran away from her first husband to live with Okonkwo. Ezinma is her only surviving child, her other nine having died in infancy, and Ekwefi constantly fears that she will lose Ezinma as well. Ekwefi is good friends with Chielo, the priestess of the goddess Agbala.

Quotes edit see section history

• “The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

• “That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog...”

  Obierika

• “Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

  Achebe uses this opening stanza of William Butler Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming,” from which the title of the novel is taken, as an epigraph to the novel.

• ““Does the white man understand our custom about land?” “How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.””

  This exchange occurs at the end of Chapter 20 during the conversation between Obierika and Okonkwo.

• “He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.”

  This sentence, which concludes the novel, satirizes the entire tradition of western ethnography and imperialism itself as a cultural project, and it suggests that the ethnographer in question, the District Commissioner, knows very little about his subject and projects a great deal of his European colonialist values onto it.

• “And at last the locusts did descend. They settled on every tree and on every blade of grass; they settled on the roofs and covered the bare ground. Mighty tree branches broke away under them, and the whole country became the brown-earth color of the vast, hungry swarm.”

  This passage from Chapter 7 represents, in highly allegorical terms, the arrival of the colonizers.

• “Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.”

  This quote, from the narrator’s recounting, in Chapter 1, of how Unoka calmly interacted with someone to whom he owed money, alludes to the highly sophisticated art of rhetoric practiced by the Igbo.

• “He was like the man in the song who had ten and one wives and not enough soup for his foo-foo.”

  Foo-Foo

• “Almost immediately the women came in with a big bowl of foo-foo.”

  Foo-Foo

• “It was only this morning that Okonkwo and I were talking about Abame and Aninta, where titled men climb trees and pound foo-foo for their wives.”

  Foo-Foo

• “The world was silent except for the shrill cry of insects, which was part of the night and the sound of wooden mortar and pestle as Nwayieke pounded her foo-foo.”

  Foo-Foo

• “Young men pounded the foo-foo or split firewood.”

  Foo-Foo

• “There were huge bowls of foo-foo and steaming pots of soup.”

  Foo-Foo

• “That had been his life-spring.”

• “You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. I have none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left. Do you know how many children I have buried--children I begot in my youth and strength? Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still alive. If you think you are the greatest sufferer in the world ask my daughter, Akueni, how many twins she has borne and thrown away. Have you not heard the song they sing when a woman dies?'For whom is it well, for whom is it well? There is no one for whom it is well.' "I have no more to say to you.”

  Uchendu, to Okonkwo in exile at his mother's clan

• “When you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then you know something is after its life.”

• “Como decían los ancianos, si un niño se lavaba las manos podía comer con reyes”

  Narrator

• “Pero toda su vida había estado dominada por el miedo, el miedo al fracaso y a la debilidad”

  Narrator sobre Okonkowo

• “La vida de un hombre desde el nacimiento hasta la muerte era una serie de ritos de paso que le acercaban cada ves más a sus antepasados.”

  Narrator

• “Si hubieras sido pobre en tu ultima existencia, te pediría que fueras rico cuando regreses otra vez. Pero fuiste rico. Si hubieras sido cobarde, te pediría que tuvieras valor. pero fuiste un guerrero valeroso. Si hubieras muerto joven, te pediría vida. pero viviste mucho tiempo. Así que te pido que vuelvas como antes. Si tu muerte fue una muerte natural, ve en paz. pero si la causó un hombre, no le permitas que tenga un momento de reposo.”

  El espíritu

• “La vida de un hombre desde el nacimiento hasta la muerte era una serie de ritos de paso que le acercaban cada vez más a sus antepasados.”

  the narrator

• “Perro fue como reiniciar la vida sin el vigor ni el entusiasmo de la juventud, era como aprender a ser zurdo en la vejez.”

• “¿Es justo que tú, Okonkwo, le pongas una cara triste a tu madre y te niegues a recibir consuelo? Ten cuidado o disgustarás a los difuntos. Tienes la obligación de consolar a tus esposas y a tus hijos y llevarlos a la tierra de tu padre así pasen siete años. pero si dejas que te domine y te mate la pesadumbre, morirán todos ellos en el desierto.”

  Uchendu, to Okonkwo in exile at his mother's clan

• “En vuestra generación ya no es así. Os quedais en casa, tenéis miedo del vecino de al lado”

  Obierika

• “Chielo, la sacerdotisa del clan decía que los conversos eran el excremento del clan y la nueva fe un perro rabioso que había ido a devorarlo”

  Chiel

• “Voy a celebrar un banquete porque tengo con qué. Yo no puedo vivir a la orilla de un río y lavarme las manos con saliva. La gente de mi madre ha sido buena conmigo y tengo que demostrar mi gratitud”

  Okonkwo

• “Cuando nos reunimos en el campo de la aldea a la luz de la luna no lo hacemos por la luna. Todos pueden verla en su propio recinto. Nos reunimos porque es bueno que los parientes se reúnan.”

  Okonkwo

• “Pero temo por vosotros los jóvenes, porque no comprendéis lo fuerte que es el vínculo de parentesco”

  Okonkwo

• “El blanco había llevado realmente una religión de locos pero también había instalado una factoría, y el aceite de palma y el maíz se convirtieron por primera vez en articulos de gran valor y afluyó a Umuofia mucho dinero”

  Narrator

• “Siempre que veas saltar un sapo a plena luz del día puedes estar seguro de que hay algo que pone en peligro su vida”

  Okika´s Father

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• 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.

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• He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

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• Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.

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• Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.

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• And so Okonkwo was ruled by one passion—to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness.

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• Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

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• “Do not despair. I know you will not despair. You have a manly and a proud heart. A proud heart can survive a general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone.”

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• “When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk.”

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• He had a slight stammer and whenever he was angry and could not get his words out quickly enough, he would use his fists. He had no patience with unsuccessful men. He had had no patience with his father.

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• Unoka was never happy when it came to wars. He was in fact a coward and could not bear the sight of blood.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• West Africa
• Nigeria
• Umuofia
• Unoka
• Australia
• Garden City
• Abame
• Umuru
• Irele
• Enugu
• Mbaino
• Uzowulu
• Usa
• Mbanta

First Sentence edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• agadi-nwayi:: old Woman
• agbala:: woman; also used of a man who has taken no title.
• chi:: personal god.
• efulefu:: worthless man.
• egwugwu:: a masquerader who impersonates one of the ancestral spirits of the village.
• ekwe:: a musical instrument; a type of drum made from wood.
• eneke-ni-oba:: a kind of bird.
• eze-agadi-nwayi:: the teth of an old woman.
• ilo:: the village green, where assemblies for sports, discussions, etc., take place.
• inyanga:: showing off, bragging.
• isa-ifi:: a ceremony. If a wife had been separated from her husband for some time and were then to be re-united with him, this ceremony would be held to ascertain that she had not been unfaithful to him during the time of their separation.
• iyi-uwa:: a special kind of stone which forms the link between an ogbanje and the spirit world. Only if the iyi-uwa were discovered and destroyed would the child not die.
• jigida:: a string of waist beads.
• kotma:: court messenger. The word is not of Ibo orgin but is a coreuption of "court Messenger."
• kwenu:: a shout of approval and greeting.
• ndichie:: elders
• nna ayi:: our father.
• nno:: welcome.
• nso-ani:: a religious offence of a kind abhorred by everyone, literally earth's taboo.
• nza:: a very small bird.
• obi:: the large living quarters of the head of the family.
• obodo dike:: the land of the brave.
• ochu:: murder or manslaughter.
• ogbanje:: a changeling; a child who repeatedly dies and returns to its mother to be reborn. It is almost impossible to bring up an ogbanje child without it dying, unless its iyi-uwa is first found and destroyed.
• ogene:: a musical instrument; a kind of gong.
• oji odu achu-ijiji-o: ( cow i.e., the one that uses its tail to drive flies away).
• osu:: outcast. Having been dedicated to a god, the osu was taboo and was not allowed to mix with the freeborn in any way.
• Oye:: the name of one of the four market days.
• ozo:: the name of one of the titles or ranks.
• tufia:: a curse of oath.
• udu:: a musical instrument; a type of drum made from pottery.
• uli:: a dye used by women for drawing patterns on the skin.
• umuada:: a family gathering of daughters, for which the female kins-folk return to their village of origin.
• umunna:: a wide group of kinsmen (the masculine form of the word umuada).
• Uri:: part of the betrothal ceremony when the dowry is paid.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Language as a Sign of Cultural Difference: Language is an important theme in Things Fall Apart on several levels. In demonstrating the imaginative, often formal language of the Igbo, Achebe emphasizes that Africa is not the silent or incomprehensible country that books such as Heart of Darkness made it out to be. Rather, by peppering the novel with Igbo words, Achebe shows that the Igbo language is too complex for direct translation into English. Similarly, Igbo culture cannot be understood within the framework of European colonialist values. Achebe also points out that Africa has many different languages: the villagers of Umuofia, for example, make fun of Mr. Brown’s translator because his language is slightly different from their own.On a macroscopic level, it is extremely significant that Achebe chose to write Things Fall Apart in English; not only does it give a voice to those silenced by colonialism (who would not have a voice otherwise), but it is a testament of a colonized being in that English is not Achebe's native tongue. Furthermore, the book is casting a wider net to catch readers as English is a dominant language, instead of limiting it's reception to just a Western audience. Achebe is conveying that the themes and message of the book are universal.Yet, his goal was to critique and emend the portrait of Africa that was painted by so many writers of the colonial period. Doing so required the use of English, the language of those colonial writers. Through his inclusion of proverbs, folktales, and songs translated from the Igbo language, Achebe managed to capture and convey the rhythms, structures, cadences, and beauty of the Igbo language.
• Varying Interpretations of Masculinity: Okonkwo’s relationship with his late father shapes much of his violent and ambitious demeanor. He wants to rise above his father’s legacy of spendthrift, indolent behavior, which he views as weak and therefore effeminate. This association is inherent in the clan’s language—the narrator mentions that the word for a man who has not taken any of the expensive, prestige-indicating titles is agbala, which also means “woman.” But, for the most part, Okonkwo’s idea of manliness is not the clan’s. He associates masculinity with aggression and feels that anger is the only emotion that he should display. For this reason, he frequently beats his wives, even threatening to kill them from time to time. We are told that he does not think about things, and we see him act rashly and impetuously. Yet others who are in no way effeminate do not behave in this way. Obierika, unlike Okonkwo, “was a man who thought about things.” Whereas Obierika refuses to accompany the men on the trip to kill Ikemefuna, Okonkwo not only volunteers to join the party that will execute his surrogate son but also violently stabs him with his machete simply because he is afraid of appearing weak.Okonkwo’s seven-year exile from his village only reinforces his notion that men are stronger than women. While in exile, he lives among the kinsmen of his motherland but resents the period in its entirety. The exile is his opportunity to get in touch with his feminine side and to acknowledge his maternal ancestors, but he keeps reminding himself that his maternal kinsmen are not as warlike and fierce as he remembers the villagers of Umuofia to be. He faults them for their preference of negotiation, compliance, and avoidance over anger and bloodshed. In Okonkwo’s understanding, his uncle Uchendu exemplifies this pacifist (and therefore somewhat effeminate) mode.
• The Struggle Between Change and Tradition: As a story about a culture on the verge of change, Things Fall Apart deals with how the prospect and reality of change affect various characters. The tension about whether change should be privileged over tradition often involves questions of personal status. Okonkwo, for example, resists the new political and religious orders because he feels that they are not manly and that he himself will not be manly if he consents to join or even tolerate them. To some extent, Okonkwo’s resistance of cultural change is also due to his fear of losing societal status. His sense of self-worth is dependent upon the traditional standards by which society judges him. This system of evaluating the self inspires many of the clan’s outcasts to embrace Christianity. Long scorned, these outcasts find in the Christian value system a refuge from the Igbo cultural values that place them below everyone else. In their new community, these converts enjoy a more elevated status.The villagers in general are caught between resisting and embracing change and they face the dilemma of trying to determine how best to adapt to the reality of change. Many of the villagers are excited about the new opportunities and techniques that the missionaries bring. This European influence, however, threatens to extinguish the need for the mastery of traditional methods of farming, harvesting, building, and cooking. These traditional methods, once crucial for survival, are now, to varying degrees, dispensable. Throughout the novel, Achebe shows how dependent such traditions are upon storytelling and language and thus how quickly the abandonment of the Igbo language for English could lead to the eradication of these traditions.
• Animal Imagery: In their descriptions, categorizations, and explanations of human behavior and wisdom, the Igbo often use animal anecdotes to naturalize their rituals and beliefs. The presence of animals in their folklore reflects the environment in which they live—not yet “modernized” by European influence. Though the colonizers, for the most part, view the Igbo’s understanding of the world as rudimentary, the Igbo perceive these animal stories, such as the account of how the tortoise’s shell came to be bumpy, as logical explanations of natural phenomena. Another important animal image is the figure of the sacred python. Enoch’s alleged killing and eating of the python symbolizes the transition to a new form of spirituality and a new religious order. Enoch’s disrespect of the python clashes with the Igbo’s reverence for it, epitomizing the incompatibility of colonialist and indigenous values.
• Locusts: Achebe depicts the locusts that descend upon the village in highly allegorical terms that prefigure the arrival of the white settlers, who will feast on and exploit the resources of the Igbo. The fact that the Igbo eat these locusts highlights how innocuous they take them to be. Similarly, those who convert to Christianity fail to realize the damage that the culture of the colonizer does to the culture of the colonized.The language that Achebe uses to describe the locusts indicates their symbolic status. The repetition of words like “settled” and “every” emphasizes the suddenly ubiquitous presence of these insects and hints at the way in which the arrival of the white settlers takes the Igbo off guard. Furthermore, the locusts are so heavy they break the tree branches, which symbolizes the fracturing of Igbo traditions and culture under the onslaught of colonialism and white settlement. Perhaps the most explicit clue that the locusts symbolize the colonists is Obierika’s comment in Chapter 15: “the Oracle . . . said that other white men were on their way. They were locusts. . . .”
• Fire: It is a symbol for Okonkwo. Achebe associates him with fire; which consumes and never begets power.
• Chauvinism: Feminity equals to weakness. Masculanity equals to power, strength
• Birds: In the tortoise story, they represent native people
• Tortoise: In the tortoise story, they represent white men
• Art: In the tortoise story, it represent Okonkwo

Series & Lists edit see section history

Followed by No Longer at Ease.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Chinua Achebe (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PR 9387.9.A3 T5 1994
• Dewey: 828'.914

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › African › West African
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( A ) › Achebe, Chinua
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history