Impact of Chinua Achiabe’s Things Fall Apart on African Colonialism

The Impact of Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” on African Colonialism

The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe was written at a time when the British colonialists had sought Africa as one of their colonial empires. The novel however was first published in 1958 and it shows the precolonial and post -colonial times of the Igbo society. In the book, Achebe has described the Igbo culture, Igbo festivals, the ritual ceremonies carried out in the Igbo society, worship of gods and other social practices that were now being eroded by the whites who considered Africans to be savages that needed to be westernized by the Europeans. Through this writing, Chinua Achebe came out strongly to oppose the European novels that were misleading Africans by depicting them as uncivilized and that needed to see light by the help of the Europeans. One of the themes that strongly comes up in the novel is that colonialism and the effects it could have on the Igbo society. In this paper, we shall look at the book Things Fall Apart and how it affected African colonialism by the whites.

Introduction

The late Chinua Achebe was one of the greatest writers in Africa that comes from Nigeria. He wrote the book Things Fall Apart which was first publishes in 1958 when colonialists had conquered most of the countries in Africa except Liberia and Ethiopia. The novel’s setting is in a small village called Umuofia that is in the outskirts of Nigeria. The village people were greatly affected by the arrival of the white man and did not know how exactly to react to cultural changes that came way too sudden due to arrival of the missionaries. They set up churches and were quickly changing the Igbo culture and the political structure in that even the way of handling cases and dealing with criminals had to change. The whites fully imposed their culture and religion on Umuofia people which threatened to change the Igbo culture. The main aim of writing this novel was to educate the readers and especially the Igbo people on the value of culture. He insists that the missionaries were there to change the African culture and every other aspect like religion, political structure, education structure, trade, gender roles and relations. He blames the missionaries for invading the land of the Igbo people and this brought light to the entire of Africa as it was the very first novel about colonialism that was written by an African. All other novels written before were written by the whites who described Africans as uneducated and uncivilized and therefore needed to be brought to light by the whites who thought of themselves to be more advanced than the blacks. The novel had serious impact on African colonialism as we shall discuss further.

Impact on African Colonialism

Some of the novels written before Things Fall Apart include Joseph Conrad’s ’Heart of Darkness’ in 1899 that described Africans as being a wild, dark and uncivilized continent. Another most read novel was that of Joyce Cary ’mister Johnson’ which describes Mr Johnson who is the main protagonist as being childish and semi-educated African. It’s no doubt that these two novels have a misrepresentation of what Africa is and are a real humiliation to its people and its due to this that African writers such as Chinua Achebe came out to tell the real story of Africa, its culture and its people. Through Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the world began knowing the truths about Africa and other stereotypical ideas and therefore other persons in the world began appreciating Africa and its people.

One of the main impacts of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is that it enabled the African people especially the Igbo society to lead better lives. In the novel, Achebe encourages the people to take advantage of the positive effects of colonialism to make themselves better. He especially tells his people to get the white man’s education through the missionaries that will finally help to improve the African Literature genre and to prove to whites that Africans value their culture. Through this white man’s education, the people could also become literate as not to accept everything that the white man puts at their disposal so that they could protect their culture, values and land that was being grabbed by the white man for their own benefit. This could mean that the Igbo society could not be entirely colonize or carried away by wind as to give in to the demands of the white man who could finally corrode their morals and other resources. This at some point brought about tension because the whites were not willing to abandon their culture, and neither were the Nigerians ready to abandon theirs. They both strongly held to their beliefs and valued which slowed down the process of colonization.

Achebe has also talked of preservation of the Igbo language. To the Igbo people, language was so essential that it gave them a sense of belonging and they could use it as a means of defense in preserving their heritage and their culture. Chinua talks about how language is important and because the Igbo people are very preservative and skeptical about change, they refuse to take their children to the white men’s schools to learn English which is the white man’s language. They are very reluctant because they do not understand what will become of their children when they finally learn the white man’s language. Due to difference in languages that brought about language barrier, colonization in Africa was slowed down as people held onto their language and despised that of the white man. Otherwise if they had fully accepted to learn the language then it could have been a great avenue for the colonialists to reach people and corrode their beliefs, practices, their culture and fully introduce their language and culture which was not the case for Africa. As much as the white man thought he was superior in every aspect like having nice language, good culture, civilized and western education, the African people were clever enough to know what to accept and what not to. Chinua Achebe played a very important role in giving light to Africans as to know about the colonialists and how to go about it to avoid losing everything to the white man.

Chinua Achebe through Things fall apart has helped to regenerate the society and restore Africa’s pride, confidence and the dignity it lost to colonialists. He helped in shedding light to the society to help them understand their present and future. He has shown the world what Africa is and what its people believe in a very precise manner something that made other cultures appreciate the African culture. The whites had assumed that their colonial rule was to be an enlightenment to Africans that were primitive and uncivilized and people that are governed by fear and superstition rather than by reason. Through the novel ’Things Fall Apart’, the whites and British colonies got a better understanding of Africa and realized that Africa just like them had a system of governance, had a culture and had a set of beliefs and practices that they held onto. This was necessary because it gave a clear picture of Africans from someone that understood Africa well unlike other writers that had written on Africa before, yet they had no idea what Africa is like. Through Chinua Achebe, the whites well understood the Africans so that they could have their own limits while colonizing Africa. To some extent, this served to help the white colonialists to understand Africans better hence could know how to approach them to win them and colonize them well. Nevertheless, the novel has its positive and negative impacts to both the natives and the colonialists just like colonialism had its positive and negative effects. To Achebe, the African story could not be told by anyone else no matter how talented they were. He felt no one else understood the African history, its culture and traditions except the Africans themselves.

Achebe’s Things fall apart as well served to reconstruct the African identity. The Europeans had misrepresented, misinterpreted and degraded Africans as mindless people. Achebe demonstrated that Africans were not living in primitism and darkness like they were portrayed. He seriously scrutinizes the western representations of Africans and strongly projects the Igbo culture. At the same time, Achebe unmasks and challenges the racist ideology of the white man. He exposes how rich Africa is as well as its dignity. All this had an impact on colonialism because Europeans got to know better what Africa was like unlike before when they thought it as a dark continent without any value. Though the novel they realized that Africa glories its culture together with its myths, customs, religion, rituals, beliefs, superstitions and other traditions that they ’whites’ had to learn or understand for them to conquer Africa. It therefore created a totally different picture of Africans than that which had been created by earlier writers that did not understand Africa. Because of Chinua Achebe, Africans became aware of the colonialists and leant how to avoid the white man so that he does not fully control them that would result to lose of culture and other resources like minerals among others that were being targeted by the colonialists.

Conclusion

In summary, Achebe had a very great impact on Africa and colonialism through the novel ’Things Fall Apart’. He presented to readers the imperfections and strengths of the African culture especially that of the Igbo culture. Achebe portrays the real picture of what Africa is that changes the minds of the Europeans and other white colonialists who had earlier thought that Africa was a dark and uncivilized continent. He cautions the Africans of the whites who had come to put apart what they ’Africans’ had believed in and encouraged them to be form and stand for what they believed in. at the same time, Achebe helped the white man understand the culture, beliefs, traditions and values of Africans that he needed to learn and understand if he were to be successful in his mission of colonizing Africa. Colonialism had both positive and negative effects and, in his book, ’Things Fall Apart’, Achebe advices the African to choose what is good and embrace it such as the white man’s education and religion and discard the values and beliefs of the white man that could erode the African culture. He therefore impacted much the African colonialism by the Europeans.