Unit 12

English 203: Literature of the NonWestern World

Explication:
Reading: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, 2995-3030.

A list of Characters, Places, & Terms in Things Fall Apart:

Ch. 14

This is lesson 2/2 on Achebe's novel.  Having inadvertently killed a clan member, Okonkwo goes to his mother's village to live for the 7 years of his exile.  The narrator explains that:
2996     His life had been ruled by a great passion -- to become one of the lords of the
            clan.  . . . he had all but achieved it.  Then everything had been broken.

Okonkwo tries to rebuild his life, but:
Work no longer had for him the pleasure it used to have, & when there was no work
to do he sat in a silent half-sleep.

In Part 1 a marriage was celebrated to suggest the health and promise of continuance of native culture.  Everyone was happy, even in the scene concerning the bride-price negotiation.  The marriage we have now is fraught with suspicion.  Instead of a celebration, there is a trial.  The bride is threatened:
Remember that if you do not answer truthfully you will suffer or even die at childbirth . . .
How many men have lain with you since my brother first expressed the desire to marry you?

Okonkwo's maternal relatives still have hopes for him.  Consequently his uncles counsel him.
2997    Can you tell me, Okonkwo, why it is that one of the commonest names we give our
           children is Nneka, or "Mother is Supreme?"
Okonkwo is reluctant to answer, because his life has been exclusively based on yang or male, aggressive values.  His uncles want him to acknowledge that this outlook and manner have failed.
When a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother's hut [just as Okonkwo has done].
A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good & life is sweet.  But when there is sorrow
& bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland.  Your mother is there to protect you.  . . . that is why
we say that mother is supreme.

There is one more point.  Everyone needs a mother, because everyone has problems some time in his life:
2998    There is no one for whom it is well [all the time].

Ch. 15

In the 2nd year of Okonkwo's exile, white men began to appear.  The native reaction is ominously prophetic:
2999    He was not an albino.  He was quite different.  . . . he was riding an iron horse [bicycle].
           The elders consulted their Oracle & it told them that the strange man would break their clan &
           spread destruction . . .  & so they killed the white man & tied his iron horse to their sacred
           tree because it looked as if it would run away to call the man's friends.

We don't believe that the bicycle called in the English military, but they do come:
3000    The three white men & a very large number of other men surrounded the market.
           They began to shoot.  Everybody was killed.

Okonkwo's clan can hardly believe the story of Abame, the murdered village:
We have heard stories about white men who made the powerful guns & the strong drinks
& took slaves away across the seas, but no one though that stories were true.

Because the colonization theme is so prominent, it is easy to miss what Okonkwo has gained by living in his mother's village.  I don't think he ever jokes or displays a sense of humor in Part 1.  Consider how this chapter ends with multiple jokes:
3001     "Perhaps green men will come to our clan & shoot us."
            [Okonkwo remains serious] "God will not permit it," said Okonkwo.
            "I do not know how to thank you."
            "I can tell you [how to thank me]," said Obierika.  "Kill 1 of your sons for me."
            [Okonkwo finally gets the joke]  "That will not be enough," said Okonkwo.
            "Then kill yourself," said Obierika.
            "Forgive me," said Okonkwo, smiling.  "I shall not talk about thanking you any more."

This may be the only time we see Okonkwo smiling.

Ch. 16

Achebe illustrates the typical pattern of European colonization.  Missionaries barge in, uninvited but full of strange advice about how to live & offering exotic gifts: mirrors, pans, machetes, & trinkets.  There are only 1 or 2 such white people.  Consequently they appear to be crazy but innocuous.  So they are tolerated.  2 things then happen.  The mission culture becomes subversive, attracting those who were marginalized as losers or people of little status & worth in the tribe.  This development is still tolerable.  But then the 2nd thing happens.  Some flash point is identified that brings the 2 communities into open hostility.

The mission community has no power or prestige in the native culture.  How surprised the villagers are to find that the mission community has all-powerfully allies in the English colonial military & judicial systems.  In our novel the flash point will be over the practice of infanticide when twins are born.  They are "thrown away" in the forest under the assumption that they are a kind of birth defect, perhaps a single soul that was divided.  In any case, the assumption is that the soul or souls will have another chance to be properly born.  Obviously the English missionaries, judges, & military don't see things the same way.

3001    The missionaries had come to Umuofia.  They had built their church there, won a
           handful of converts.
           None of his converts was a man whose word was heeded in the assembly of the
           people.  None of them was a man of title.  They were . . . worthless, empty men.
           Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, called the converts the excrement of the clan.

Without Okonkwo to stop him, Nwoye joins the mission community & ironically, like his father, becomes a leader in the alien community that Nwoye knows his father will hate because it preaches (although it certainly doesn't practice), nonviolence: turn the other cheek.
When Obierika asks Nwoye how is father is, the young man replies:
3002    I don't know.  He is not my father.

The material lure offered by the missionary is bicycles!  Of course he would promise them nearly anything, since it is simply a means to accomplish his end.
"Where is the white man's horse?"  The Ibo evangelists consulted among themselves
& decided that the man probably meant bicycle.  They told the white man.
"Tell them . . . that I shall bring many iron horses when we have settled down among them.
Some of them will  even ride the iron horse themselves.
Who might ride bicycles?  Obviously those rewarded for exemplary behavior; those approved by the missionary & other colonial officials.

The people are amazed at the white man who announces that he has come to live with them, uninvited.
Obviously he intends to destroy their culture, because almost the first thing he says to the villagers is that their culture is evil:
3003    All the gods you have named are not gods at all.  They are gods of deceit
           [i.e., devils] who tell you to kill your fellows & destroy innocent children.

The innocent children he has in mind are "thrown away" twins.  Killing "your fellows" evidently refers to tribal wars in which Okonkwo has taken 5 heads.
In any case, the missionary talks about things that cannot be understood by the villagers, because they are grounded in European culture & have no counterpart in Nigerian culture. The confusion is evident when someone asks:
If we leave our gods & follow your god . . . who will protect us from the anger of our
neglected gods & ancestors?

Of course the missionary is unconcerned, believing that their gods are fantasies.  What he cannot understand or recognize is that his Christian notions are equally fantastic or meaningless.  For example, a logically inclined villager asks:
You told us with your own mouth that there was only one god.  Now you talk about his son.
He must have a wife, then.
The missionary ignored him & went on to talk about the Holy Trinity.  At the end of it Okonkwo
was fully convinced that the man was mad.

Ch. 17

Cross-cultural confusion continues:
3003    They [the British] asked who the king of the village was.

We have seen Nigerian democratic assemblies in action & consequently recognize how the British  project what they are familar with, believing that everyone inhabits approxiamtely the same culture that they do.  This is both a stupid & arrogant assumption.  Not everyone has a hereditary aristocracy & a monarch, like the British.  Achebe's point is that the British are as mono-culturally isolated & limited as the Nigerians.  Even if they could imagine a different political order, they would have contempt for it as primitive.
What the British want, in this plot incident, is to identify an authority in order to secure property rights, which again illustrates their cultural outlook since Nigerian views on property are not the same as the British.

The mission is given permission to build on a haunted or inauspicious piece of land:
3004    In it were buried all those who died of the really evil diseases . . .
           It was also the dumping ground for the potent fetishes of great medicine
           men when they died.  An "evil forest" was, therefore, alive with sinister
           forces & powers of darkness.
           The inhabitants of Mbanta expected them [the British] all to be dead within four days.

Okonkwo takes out his frustrations on his son, who is not idle or simply of no help.  He leads the mission community that destroys native culture.  Thus Okonkwo:
3005    suddenly overcome with fury, sprang to his feet & gripped him [Nwoye]
           by the neck.
           Answer me . . . before I kill you!
           Nwoye . . . walked away and never returned.

Once again Okonkwo's violence fails to solve the problem & even makes things worse.
Mr. Kiaga's [the missionary] joy was very great. "Blessed is he who forsakes
his father & mother for my sake," he intoned.

Okonkwo's judgment in this war over culture is exactly the opposite:
3006    His son's crime stood out in its stark enormity.  To abandon the gods of
           one's father & go about with a lot of effeminate men clucking like old hens
           was the very depth of abomination.

In this chapter Nwoye rejects his father & abandons his native culture. Okonkwo is defeated.  He has nothing to work for, because he has no heir, no one to respect his accomplishments & revere his life.  He will have no grandchildren that he can initiate.  Okonkwo thinks about his Christian grandchildren & about wiping "them off the face of the earth."  The truth is that they will wipe away every memory of Okonkwo & his culture.  At the end of this chapter we already know that Okonkwo will erupt in violence & that such violence will only speed the destruction of Umuofia & Mbanta.

Ch. 18

We know that Okonkwo is prone to violence & that his violence is celebrated in war & in wrestling.  We also know that Okonkwo's violence causes problems for his family & his community.  Hopefully you are practiced at assessing the lesson offered by individual fiction characters.  Most of us are slower to recognize when fiction illustrates institutional or cultural flaws.  Consider that Okonkwo simply loses his temper over issues that he perceives as just.  In contrast, the British are both cold blooded in their colonial policy of violence & perpetrate violence on a scale that is unknown to Nigerians.  They are also adept at hiding their violence with the show of religion & education.

The Christians provoke violence:
3006    3 converts had gone into the village & boasted openly that all the gods
           were dead & impotent & that they were prepared to defy them by burning
           all their shrines.

The blasphemous provocateurs are beaten.  The people of Mbanta then learn that:
3007    the white man had not only brought a religion but also a government.

Much of this chapter repeats the steps of the colonial process:

• stories of senseless white violence seem like fairy tales instead of serious

warning;
• outcasts are welcomed by the missionaries & become provocative leaders

against the traditional culture;
• converts are incited to attack the native culture so that when leaders of the

traditional culture attempt to defend their beliefs, they can be eradicated
by the law;

The village of Mbanta is split:
It was decided to ostracize the Christians.  Okonkwo ground his teeth in
disgust [because the action seems too timid].

The tactic of "shunning" does cause deprivation, since the Christians are not allowed to shop in the native market.

Ch. 19

There are 2 or 3 central statements in which Achebe attempts to explain the power & sanctity of traditional Nigerian culture.  Such statements could be voiced by many traditional, tribal cultures, such as various Native American Indian tribes.  One of the statements we have already read:
2993    The land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the
           ancestors.  There was coming & going between them, especially
           at festivals . . . .  A man's life from birth to death was a series of
           transition rites which brought him nearer & nearer to his ancestors.

This view is explained again at the end of Part 2.  This speech stands as something of a eulogy for the dying native culture:
3012    I fear for you young people because you do not understand how
           strong is the bond of kinship.  You do not know what it is to speak
           with one voice.  & what is the result?  An abominable religion has
           settled among you.  A man can now leave his father & his brothers.
           He can curse the gods of his fathers & his ancestors, like a hunter's
           dog that suddenly goes mad & turns on his master.

Ch. 20

In Part 3 Okonkwo returns to his father's village.  7 years have past & his village has changed under the onslaught of European colonization.  Okonkwo feels that if he had been there, he might have been able to lead resistance against the British:
3013    He had lost the chance to lead his warlike clan against the new religion.

Of course we know that he would not have been successful, since no country or almost no country was historically able to fend off European imperialism.  Japan tried to evade colonization first by isolation & then by imitation.  In the 20th c. it tried to become a colonial power with disastrous results.
3014    Umuofia had indeed changed during the 7 years Okonkwo had been
           in exile.  The church had come & lead many astray.

The judiciary & military stand behind the church:
They had built a court where the District Commissioner judged cases in ignorance
[of Nigerian tradition & institutions].

The flash point continues to be the response to the birth of twins:
Some of these prisoners had thrown away their twins & some had molested the
Christians.
Some of these prisoners were men of title who should be above such mean
occupation [& treatment meant to humiliate & dishonor them].

Obierika sadly informs Okonkwo that nothing can be done:
3015    It is already too late.
           Our own men & our sons have joined the ranks of the stranger.
           They have joined his religion & they help to uphold his government.
           If we should try to drive out the white men in Umuofia we should find it
           easy.  there are only 2 of them.  But what of our own people who are
           following their way & have been given power?  They would go to
           Umuru & bring the soldiers & we would be like Abame [the village
           where everyone was murdered by the British].

The Nigerians now understand how colonization destroyed them:
The white man is very clever.  He came quietly & peaceably with his religion.
We were amused at his foolishness & allowed him to stay.  Now he has won
our brothers, & our clan can no longer act like one.  . . . We have fallen apart.

Ch. 21

There are more dimensions to colonization.  Religion seemed amusing when it was not simply inexplicable.  The courts & the military intimidated & punished.  Colonization also brought exotic imported goods & a new prosperity:
3016    The white man had indeed brought a lunatic religion, but he had also built
           a trading store & for the 1st time palm-oil & kernel became things of great price,
           & much money flowed into Umuofia.

Another new dimension of life is offered by Mr. Brown's school that taught some of the mysteries of the white man; enough to become employed in the enterprise dedicated to destroying the native way of life -- but it paid cash to those who increasingly knew no other way of life.  Mr. Brown repeats the pattern of the mission, promising:
3017    that the leaders of the land in the future would be men & women who had
           learned to read & write [English].
3018    Mr. Brown's school produced quick results.  A few months in it were enough
           to make one a court messenger or even a court clerk.
           From the very beginning religion & education went hand in hand.

Change has been so profound & rapid that the positions of Okonkwo & his son Nwoye have reversed.  Nwoye is a leader & Okonkwo is increasingly marginalized or ignored.
Nwoye, who was now called Isaac, [was sent] to the new training college for teachers in Umuru.
The clan had undergone such profound change during his exile that it was barely recognizable.  The new religion & government & the trading stores were very much in the people's eyes

Ch. 22

The pace of change accelerates when Mr. Brown is succeeded in the mission school by Rev. James Smith.  who:
3018    Saw things as black & white.  & black was evil.  He saw the world as a battlefield.
           He believed in slaying the prophets of Baal.

If the English are incensed by the practice of "throwing away" twins, the Umuofia culture is at least as incensed by the blasphemy of unmasking an egwugwu to prove that it is not an ancestor but simply a villager masquerading as one:
3019    One of the greatest crimes a man could commit was to unmask an egwugwu in public,
           or to say or do anything which might reduce its immortal prestige in the eyes of the
           uninitiated.  & this was what Enoch did.

Enoch feels that his side has won:
3020    Enoch boasted aloud that they would not dare to touch a Christian.
           Enoch fell on him [an egwugwu] & tore off his mask.
           Enoch had killed an ancestral spirit, & Umuofia was thrown into confusion.
           It seemed as if the very soul of the tribe wept for a great evil that was
           coming -- its own death.

Enoch hopes for a "holy war."  The first skirmish in the last stand of the native culture occurs when the huts in Enoch's compound are destroyed.  The egwugwu then burn the mission church, but are respectful to Mr. Smith, the missionary.  As always, the Nigerians are more polite, respectful, controlled, & mature than the English.  They tell Smith that he can continue to live with them, if he wishes, but his shrine must be destroyed:
3022    It has bred untold abominations & we have come to put an end to it.
           He [Smith] does not understand our customs, just as we do not understand his.
           We say he is foolish because he does not know our ways, & perhaps he says
           we are foolish because we do not know his.

The point is -- or should be -- where are we?  Who is in control?  We are in Nigeria.  Whose land & culture is it?  The British are clearly interlopers.  Worse they are the same breed of conquistadors & imperialists that began to sail out of the Mediterranean in the 15th c. to conquer the world.  Nigeria is simply another place to raise the flag on an empire where the sun never sets, because it rings the world from Jamaica to Hong Kong to Bombay to Kenya to Egypt.

Interestingly, burning the mission church turns out to be far more provocative then "throwing away" twins.  Wouldn't you think that the murder of children would be far worse than destroying a rudely constructed mission church that is worth almost nothing in cash?  What does this tell you about British values?  How committed to the sanctity of life are they when the lives in question are African?  & how much do they over-react in defense of the idol of their power -- the church?

I suppose we appreciate the trickery of the British District Commissioner who avoids violence even though he thereby increases disrespect & humiliation.  Officials from Umuofia try to tell their side of the story:
3023    how Enoch murdered an egwugwu.
But of course the District Commissioner, who is an amateur anthropologist, thinks that native religion is gibberish when it is not simply childish fantasy.  He is there to conquer by whatever means necessary.  Such transparent & self-serving lies would cause men much more docile than Okonkwo to erupt in violence:
"We shall not do you any harm [just destroy your way of life]," said the District
Commissioner . . . "if only you agree to cooperate with us [in your total culturally
dispossession].  We have brought a peaceful administration to you & your people
so that you may be happy.

Do you believe that the only motive of the British in coming to Nigeria is to make the natives happy; natives who are obviously seen as dependents & children?  The DC continues to lecture:
If any man ill-treats you we shall come to your rescue.
We have a court of law where we judge cases & administer justice
just as it is done in my own country under a great queen.

When the DC leaves, who is in charge of the prisoners?  People like Nwoye who have cause to hate the leaders of Umuofia who held them in contempt as outcasts & failures.  Now the tables are turned & the outcasts -- proving that the intitial judgment was correct; that they are worthless & mean spirited -- do everything they can to humiliate the tribal leaders, beginning with shaving their heads & proceeding through gratuitous beatings.

Ever rapacious -- wealth after all was the whole purpose of colonialism -- the British hold the tribal leaders for ransom.

Ch. 24

Knowing now without any doubt that the English are dedicated to their cultural destruction, Umuofia leaders consider how to wage war.  Okika, a leader speaks:
3027    I knew that something was after our life.
           All our gods are weeping.
           Our dead fathers are weeping because of the shameful sacrilege they
           are suffering & the abomination we have all seen with our eyes.

The problem is that:
3028    If we fight the stranger we shall hit our brothers & perhaps shed the blood of  a clansman.

As the council continues one of the turncoats barges in -- a man who previously would never have dared to interrupt the tribal leaders.  Now full of self-importance he demands:
The white man whose power you know too well has ordered this meeting to stop.
In a flash Okonkwo drew his machete . . .
& decapitates the traitor.

Ch. 25

The DC descends on Umuofia to arrest Okonkwo.  At first he believes that the village or town is harboring him.  He then discovers that Okonkwo has hanged himself, knowing that war against the British is futile, knowing that his son has joined the enemy & is helping destroy everything Okonkwo was dedicated to, & knowing that the clan is too divided to put up any kind of unified front against the British.  It is all as hopeless as Native American Indian resistance was against the policy of Manifest Destiny.

The DC is . . . what?  Amused at the turn of events?  Perhaps he is a bit disappointed not to be able to play general or policeman:
3029    In the many years in which he had toiled to bring civilization to different parts of Africa . . .
The DC has learned that the most important policy is to appear confident, sure, & dignified.  He conjectures whether Okonkwo's life & heroic sacrifice will provide "a reasonable paragraph" for his proposed book, titled:
3030   The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.

If Achebe has been successful, you know that the joke is that it is the DC & the British who are the primitives, savages who know nothing of true civility but plenty about scheming & conniving & bluster.

Which is the true story of European colonization?  The usual elementary school story we learn about the explorers & pioneers & settlers who made heroic sacrifices for the progress of civilization or the story that Achebe tells or Black Elk tells about the demise of the Lakota nation?  The point is that there is no objective or neutral account.  History & fiction are the result of judgment & are inescapably biased.  They are committed to a point of view, an interpretation.  Did the British missionaries & foreign service personnel believe that they were doing good things?  We suspect that most did.  Were they, nonetheless, the kind of heartless & stupid killers that Achebe portrays.  Absolutely.  It all depends on one's belief.

Although stories & novels about the European colonial enterprise, like Achebe's novel, have been popular in the last 20-30 years, the judgment on colonialism is far from settled.  You cannot even always predict points of view.  For example, you would expect the ethnic Indian writer, V.S. Naipaul, who grew up in Trinidad to be critical of Britain.  Naipaul is equivocal.  He complains about experiences in Trinidad but incredibly defends British imperialism in India!  In any case, there is an entire academic industry or graduate major these days in colonial & post-colonial studies.  Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart, is a classic document for these studies.

Go to the top & click on the next section: Questions.