After reading the great work of Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, I found that there were great contextual details that we should look at in order to fully appreciate and understand his work. Things Fall Apart was published in 1959 as a response novel that addressed various works that portrayed Africa as cultureless and primitive to Europe. Many white men wrote about their accounts in Africa, literally writing the narrative and stating how languageless it was. This was clearly not the case but, up to this point, there was nothing else depicting the reality. Achebe took it upon himself because he was tired of the falsehood and wanted to demonstrate how complex, advanced and artistic the people really were, breaking away from the stereotypes that the Europeans created.
Things Fall Apart portrayed the culture of the indigenous Igbo people in the 1890s. We see their traditions and how it becomes threatened by the white colonial government. Achebe carefully crafted this novel in order to capture the African perspective as well as the European. Achebe made sure to address race, religion, colonial expansion, and the difference in cultures. Achebe was born in a large village in Nigeria and was raised in a multicultural environment that practiced many of the Igbo traditions. His father was a protestant missionary and he received an early education in English although he always felt a deeper connection to his indigenous roots. Being able to have two perspectives enabled him to give a voice to a misunderstood and underrepresented culture.
Achebe became known as the father of modern African literature. He was able to change the narrative and give the world a better look at the reality in Africa. I believe it is important to not only recognize his achievement but understand the sentiment behind that achievement. This novel was what made many people open their eyes and understand that what they had seen or read in the past was wrong. It is interesting to think about how our own perspectives have been shaped and how ignorant we can be. This novel truly makes you think and reflect on what we do not know.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Chinua Achebe”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 10 Dec. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chinua-Achebe. Accessed 13 February 2021.
I agree that Achebe successfully repainted the picture of African culture in literature. His characters proved that Nigerians were not the savages that Europeans of the time described. They are intellectual, creative, and diverse. This novel truly did create a whole new narrative around African literature and reclaimed voices that had been silenced.
I definitely think it was very important for Achebe to accurately depict his culture and correct the stereotypical view that white authors gave it. Before starting this class, I had never learned about the One vs Other relationship. Now that I am aware of it, however, I can see it in everything we have discussed. This is no exception. European countries and the rest of the Western world see themselves as the One and think of their culture as the ideal standard. Because of this, African culture has historically been ignored and looked down upon. That’s why it is important to read literature from authors all over the world, not just Western authors. To learn about different cultures, we must read from authors who have experienced it first-hand.
I think that Achebe did a fantastic job through his writing of changing the narrative of African literature. Like you had said, white European men had been controlling the narrative around the literature for so long and did not let the writers and artists of the cultures stand for themselves. Through his deep and driven storytelling, Achebe changed the perception of being primitive in relation to its counterparts across the globe. After all, who better to tell the story of Africa, than the people who have lived that story themselves.
I loved how you emphasized how we should appreciate Achebes work and why it is so important. What he did was courageous and showed how much he loved where he was from. He showed the truth of what African Culture really is and opened up everyones eyes . You also make a good point when you said Achebe got both the African and European perspective, I believe he did a good job of this and that it was important to incorporate into his work to give it more depth.
Hi! I really liked how you made the focus of this post on the aspect and influence of the book. I think it’s really hopeful how Achebe was able to use this story to talk about the two perspectives. This book really was eyeopening and I agree that this is important that the reader now understands what they previously may know might not be correct. Hopefully this encourages people to have a more open mind and possibly look into the story more.
I think your comment about how white men would write about their experience with Africa connects to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Single Story. Without having the cultural exposer, people have the ability to create the one thought of what a they believe a specific culture and or location is like. But because of the efforts of Chinua Achebe and others, more individuals become aware of what the culture actually is. I think once people become more open to learning about other cultures and changing their ways of one way thinking.
Hello! I think you did a great job describing the cultural struggles and the dynamics in Africa. You did a great job describing Adichie’s work and the duality of the stories. You also did a great job describing how the western society has been controlling the narratives of society. The novel does do a great job describing how ignorant we are as a society as you said. It does encourage us as readers to be more open minded. I think this encourages us as the reader to be more globally open minded. The novel also did a great job giving a voice to an underserved community.
Achebe’s story is powerful and I think you did a great job of explaining the importance of his perspective on the world. The way he portrays the European and African cultures and the way they differ and align remind me of the Ted Talk we listened to in the beginning of the semester. The woman spoke of the the power of a “story.” I think the Europeans and the Africans in “Things Fall Apart” had very different stories, and especially the Europeans tried to force their story on the Africans. They did not care to learn their culture and just viewed it as abnormal and wished to help the Africans learn their ways. However, the Africans had their own unique culture and “story.” The Europeans treated the Africans as the “Other” in this context. They felt superior and literally overtook the Africans land and culture.
I thought this context presentation was formatted very well. I agree that Achebe was able to restructure how Africans are viewed in literature. As you stated, Africans were viewed as being very primitive in nature. Achebe’s work allowed people to see that Africans, Nigerians in particular were very well cultured, and very complex as well. The false narrative that Africans were animals and savages that was created by Europeans was able to be dispelled by his work, and I feel like this is very important. We’ve talked about the power of a single story in this class, and I feel that it’s important to have a way of eliminating those single stories, and ensuring that the whole truth gets told. I feel that you did an excellent job of explaining this in your presentation.
I appreciate how you remind us how important this book would have been in 1959 in addressing the uncivilized portrayal European writers had of the African continent. As you say, the culture discussed in this work is advanced, complex, and artistic. Thank you for providing more background in Chinua Achebe. It is interesting to see that Achebe’s father was a missionary, which would give him insights into, as you point out, to capture African and European perspectives. Over sixty years later, this books continues to enlighten us.
I think Chinua Acheba did an amazing job of bring a voice and correcting what the Europeans tried to make Africa and the people were like. He brought light to his culture so people can know the actual truth from the view point of a person who was a native. I believe he was just doing it so that the voiceless had a voice. Great work