"Things Fall Apart" - Part 1

In Part One of Things Fall Apart, Achebe seems to have created Okonkwo as a tragic hero. He is one of the most titled men in his community, and is revered as one of the strongest men. However, he is quick to anger and violence, which often gets him in trouble with both the community and the gods. He was warned by Ezeudu, one of the oldest men in the village, not to take part in the sacrifice of Ikenfuna, but Okonkwo was the one who killed Ikenfuna in the woods. This action seemed to have marked Okonkwo in the eyes of the gods, with the nearly fatal illness of Ezinma, her later summoning by Agbala, and then his fatal mistake of accidentally killing Ezeudu's son at his funeral. This mistake (described as something that had never happened before) results from his flaw of insecurity covered by excessive pride/desire to demonstrate his strength/manliness (pride is the most common flaw in tragic heroes). Okonkwo's punishment comes in the form of exile for seven years in order to save the community from the god's wrath. The other men burn his compound, the symbol of his wealth and status that he built himself. It will be interesting to see if Okonkwo's story continues to follow the path of a tragic hero, or if Okonkwo will realize his flaw and try to change himself for the better to rebuild the life that has seemingly fallen apart.

"Things Fall Apart" - Chapters 1-5

Okonkwo is a very powerful man in his tribe. One way he demonstrates this is through polygamy. He has three wives, and there is clearly a hierarchy between them. The first wife always gets preference, and her son is Okonkwo's eldest child, giving her a lot of clout among the family. Okonkwo always eats her food first, and then moves along to the second wife. The second wife, Ekwefi, seems to always be in trouble. She fell in love with Okonkwo when she was 15 when Okonkwo defeated the Cat in the wrestling match. She even ran away from her first husband to be with him. She was once the prettiest girl in the town, which is why Okonkwo fell in love with her. However, now that she is 45 she often is the only wife who dares to speak against her husband's actions, and thus often results in her being at the receiving end of Okonkwo's violent anger. Her endurance of Oknokwo's abuse confuses me, because if she left her husband once, why does she not leave Oknokwo for someone kinder towards her. Oknokwo's "tough love" and constant demonstrations of his dominance/strength leave his family in a state of almost constant fear that confuses me as a female living in a twenty-first century Western nation as to why any of his wives would endure this torturous lifestyle. Her daughter, Ezinna, is often ridiculed by her father, but she is also one of his favorite children. She is more of a tomboy than her sisters, but her father tries to squash these tendencies by reminding her to act like a lady and telling her that certain things are only for boys. The third wife is rarely mentioned in the first five chapters, but it is clear that she is at the bottom of the hierarchy. Her children are the youngest, thus the least helpful (and consequently less "loved" by their father), and Okonkwo always eats her meals last (so he probably doesn't eat much of them after already eating two meals).

In many other works of literature that I have read that involve polygamous families, all of the wives share one house and there is intense competition between the wives for the affection of their husband. In Things Fall Apart, Oknokwo is rich enough to let each wife have their own hut in his compound. There doesn't seem to be much competition between the wives, but rather a sense of cooperation to make sure that everything is just so in order to stay Oknokwo's wrath, as well as to produce a good harvest to feed the family throughout the year. Oknokwo forces his wives into submission through abuse in order to make himself feel strong and to cover up any inkling of weakness -- emotion that he might have for any of his wives or his children who just long for one kind word from their father, but only receive a stream of criticisms and incessant work. He sees weakness as the epitome of his failure father; someone who Oknokwo is determined to never resemble in any way.

"Image of Africa"

Achebe's essay, "Image of Africa," is a criticism of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. However, it has a much more profound effect on readers as a commentary on the underlying racism in Western cultures. This commentary runs throughout the essay. Before jumping into his criticism of Heart of Darkness, Achebe recounts a conversation with a fellow professor at the University of Massachusetts. His colleague at first didn't know he was a professor, and then said that "he never had thought of having that kind of stuff..." This comment reveals the point that Achebe tries to prove throughout his criticism: the underlying racism in Western culture drives the ignorance and open racism that plague modern society. Achebe uses several passages from Heart of Darkness to demonstrate Conrad's racist portrayal of the African people. Achebe discusses how Conrad uses many comparison between things and their antithesis, just as historically Europeans viewed the people of African nations as the antithesis of themselves (whom they saw as an almost Aryan race). Achebe attributes this unjust comparison (the only thing different about them was the color of their skin) to a Western inferiority complex, and a desire to see that they are "beating" someone. This inferiority complex is difficult to explain, but its putting down of Africans and African culture was the impetus of the underlying racism in Western culture. Achebe also comments on how Conrad loves things to be in their proper place. In American society when Conrad was born in 1857, people of color were at best free, but second-class citizens; at worst they were slaves. Achebe attributes this to some of Conrad's racist views, but he doesn't think that ignorance and cultural upbringing accounts for all of his racist views. Towards the end of his essay, Achebe addresses how the public views both Conrad and Heart of Darkness. Achebe mentions that a book written by Dr. Bernard C. Meyer to explain Conrad. He mentions nearly everything, including his antisemitism, but leaves out his racist ideology. Achebe takes this and the fact that Heart of Darkness on a list of the six "'greatest short novels in the English language'" and is "the most commonly prescribed novel in twentieth-century literature courses in English departments of American universities" to mean that Conrad's racism is accepted in Western/American culture.

Achebe's commentary on the underlying racism is supported by two more examples in his essay as well as current events. Achebe references an article in The Christian Science Monitor, a newspaper renown for being "more enlightened than most." This article uses the term "dialects" to refer to African tribal languages. Achebe attributes this to the idea that they tribes were not civilized to have true languages, another manifestation of the underlying racism of Western culture. Achebe mentions letters he receives from students who have read Things Fall Apart, saying that they enjoyed learning about African culture, something that is not widely taught in schools. On the last day of the semester, Severn had an assembly for Martin Luther King Day. We did a silent, stand up-sit down exercise with anonymous surveys that students had completed earlier in the week. For the statement, "I do not study the culture of my ancestors in school," a startling number of students stood. This was a prime example of how Western culture's underlying racism against all non-white people has defined how we learn about history: almost always from the white, predominately male, European perspective. This racism is carried into all aspects of our culture, including the entertainment industry. Many famous actors and actresses are boycotting the Academy Awards because of a lack of diversity among nominees. This is a reflection of the racism in the film industry as a whole, which makes it incredibly harder for non-white actors to be cast in films. This, along with many other current events, proves that Chinua Achebe's commentary the underlying racism in Western/American culture is very accurate and poignant even almost sixty years later.