Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Book Review

Name Professor Course Date Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart Of all the literally writers from Africa, Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian fiction writer, is among the most celebrated authors. His 1958 novel entitled Things Fall Apart is a clear indication of his mastery in literally writing. In this novel, Achebe tries to bring out the issue of colonization and westernization of African countries by the colonial powers. He achieves this by telling the story from the perspective of an Umuofian resident (Achebe, 1). From this perspective, he narrates the story in such a way that the reader understands the justice, religious and cultural system of the Africans before the coming of the white man. Natural Endowment for Humanities (NEH) (1) posits that Achebe considers several issues in his book. These mainly revolve around culture and religion, bringing in a contrast between the African and the Western definitions of the two. Brians (1) supports this argument by observing that Achebe carefully describes the Ibo culture. However, he notes that the aim in the novel is not to educate the world about the culture of the Ibo community. Rather, he aims at reminding the people of Ibo about their rich cultural heritage. He does this by incorporating quite a lot of cultural values into the novel, such as Ibo proverbs, fables, tales, words and other elements of African oral narrative (NEH, 1). This shows the richness of the African culture, thereby disputing the belief held by the colonizers that Africans were uncivilized. It is only that the definition of civilization between the two groups was different. Talking of civilization, this brings us to the next issue discussed in the novel; religion and justice system. Umuofia was governed in a democratic manner by the council of elders, who deliberated on any issue at hand. They had a justice system that was disrupted by the coming of the whites. As the colonizers worked towards civilizing the Africans, they sought to change their way o...