Things Fall Apart: An Atonement of the Past

THINGS FALL APART: AN ATONEMENT OF THE PAST As one of the many Africans who had been Europeanized, Chinua Acehebe’s faith had been at crossroads with his knowledge of the Igbos. In his essay, Named for Victoria, Queen of England, he recounted how his family would sing praises to the Lord and read the Bible all day long and how the next day, his relatives would come over and offered food to idols. According to Achebe, he didn’t feel any undue distress or experience spiritual agonies for such heathen festivals that his parents took part in; instead, the beauty of the African rituals had captivated him. Moreover, inspired by this apparent clash between two cultures, he wrote his first book, Things Fall Apart, as an “act of atonement of his past, the actual return and homage of the prodigal son,” to show not only to the West but also most importantly, to his fellow Africans that their culture is not that of savagery, as viewed by the former. Things Fall Apart is Achebe’s attempt to make other Africans, particularly the ones who received Western education, realize that they may have misperceived their own native culture, mainly due to Europe’s depiction of Africa as primitive and uncivilized, as evidently seen in Joseph Conrad’s, Heart of Darkness. From listening to sermons in Sunday masses and reading the Bible in Sunday school, it is inevitable for the Europeanized African to perceive his own native culture to be that which is blinded by heathenism, idolatry and is nevertheless primitive. However, from the first few chapters of the novel, one can already perceive the complexity of the Igbo. Contrary to Eurocentric accounts of Africans as nothing more than just lawless and barbaric savages, the justice codes and trial processes, legends and traditions, symbols of honorific titles, marriage customs (multiple wives), religious beliefs and practices (polytheism), measures of wealth (yam, number of wives, cowries) social rituals and activities (kola nuts), telling of time (markets), music, entertainment, food production and processes, drinks, the shared leadership in the Igbo society, and the opportunities of every man to climb the clan’s social ladder through his own efforts and hard work, say otherwise. In the first chapter of the novel, we can see their unique system of titles, which cannot be bestowed by higher authorities but can be bought by any man, who can afford to pay for them. As man becomes richer, he may gain additional prestige by “taking a title.” In this process, the man who wanted to have extra recognition has to pay a particular initiation fee for the man who already holds the title. An Umuofeian man can have four titles at the maximum. As mentioned, it is easy to get the first title or the common title but any man can go beyond that. Nevertheless, by showing Okonkwo’s achievements that set his significant position in Igbo society, with his father’s faults and tribal failures as his driving force, in an attempt to bury such shame, we can see how titles and position are important to them and how these are used in reference to from one man to another. Next, the social rituals and activities of the Igbo are among the threads that hold the clan together. Social activities promote harmonious living within the community for they are all bounded together by reasons of natural origin. For example, in chapter 4, the amount of detail included about the Feast of the New Yam does not only imply how closely the life of the community is based on the production of food but also show tell us how coming together can build a strong sense of brotherhood and kinship within the clan and how it can remind them that they are all one big family. Furthermore, feasts such as this one illustrate the role of women and daughters to keep the household running smoothly. Throughout the novel, despite the crucial role of women in childbearing to perpetuate the clan, the Igbo have low regards and respect to them. One, weakness and failure are seen as female attributes. Men who did not go up the Igbo society’s ladder of success are perceived as “women.” Okonkwo sees his father as nonetheless, a woman, for instead of showing manliness and strength, he was more inclined to playing music. He is also cruel to men who do not hold that much of prestige and honor. Because of the fear of being called a woman, Okonkwo was conscious about keeping a manly disposition and displaying no emotions in the eyes of the people. Second, the Igbo have no respect to the rights of the women. In the incident of the wife beating, the verdict of the egwuwu, which has similarities to a jury led by a judge, depict their widespread disregard to women rights. The embarrassment of begging for his wife’s forgiveness is the only punishment that Uzowulu receives. This tells the reader of how women in the Umoefian culture are considered as her husband’s property but excessive violence towards her is inappropriate. Consequently, they reminded him how effeminate it is to beat up a woman. Lastly, it is also important to take note that one of the spectators asked why such a “trifle [as wife beating] should come before the egwuwu. Apart from the Igbo’s belief of a Supernatural Being or the Creator, Chukwu, they also pray to lesser deities, whom they consider to be more responsive to their needs. They can be either male or female and their sex indicates the gender of their messenger. They are created by God to perform specific functions. They are regarded with respect when they fulfill their obligations and are despised when they fail to do so1. And this is probably the reason that they fear and revere a major deity, Ani, despite the Igbo’s patriarchal society. When Okonkwo did not adhere to the laws of the Week of Peace, his fellow tribesmen warned him of the punishment of Ani. Hence, it can be said that they respect a female deity for the fear of her punishment, which may lead to unfortunate events. Aside from their belief in various gods and goddesses, Achebe included folktales in the novel to show to the Europeans that they use animal anecdotes and metaphors to naturalize their rituals and beliefs, and not that because they are barbarians. The inclusion of animals in their folklore portrays the kind of environment, which they live in. Even though the Europeans view the Igbo culture as primitive and rudimentary, the Igbo clearly perceived these stories, such as how the tortoise shells became bumpy, as the most logical way to explain natural occurrences. In addition, the imagery of the python and how Enoch, the osu had killed it, epitomizes the clash of cultures between the Europeans and Africans. His lack of respect of the python does not only show the incompatibility between Western and native African values but also show the transition of a new religious order, which is Christianity. Another aspect of the Igbo society is that there is no quantified yes or no to the question whether religion free or trap the Igbo. On one hand, as introduced by Achebe in Chapter 3, the Igbo’s belief of a personal god or chi, which parallels to the Western idea of soul, tells us that it all depend on how the individual interpret his Chi. It can be said that the reason behind Okonkwo’s tragic death can be explained in chapter 14, in which the narrator narrates that the clan believe that “man cannot rise beyond the destiny of his chi.” However, taken from the proverb in chapter 4, “when a man says yes, his chi says yes also,” it can be inferred that man has the power to will his own destines and his chi guides him to reach his goals. On the other hand, the religious constraints of the Igbo can be noticed in how tribal matters or personal matters cannot be settled without consulting Agbala, the Oracle, through his priestess, Chielo. There is no separation between the political affairs of the community from religion. For instance, although the clan followed the laws of the land and the will of the Oracle, the killing of Ikemefuna suggests that despite his fate being in accordance with Agbala and the village decisions, it is still nonetheless not a customary one, for everybody knew about how the poor lad regarded Okonkwo as his own father. This only implies that not all the laws make sense among the tribesmen and that religion limits them, especially with regards to tribal decisions. This can be seen as one of the greatest shortcoming of this religion and tradition, as portrayed by Achebe in the novel, primarily because of their failure to provide security and safety to the wellbeing of all its members. The death of Ikemefuna, which had been “decreed by the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves,” is a turning point-we did not only see how Okonkwo disregarded his love for Ikemefuna for the sake of exhibiting manliness and following the fate that has been decided upon him, but we also see a somewhat rebellious Nwoye, who is starting to question the customs and traditions of his clan. In addition, the discrimination against the osu and mothers of twins, have made certain tribesmen like Enoch (osu) and Nneka (mother of twins) and their sympathizers such as Nwoye, embrace Christianity where everyone is considered as brothers and sisters, regardless of social status, and fathers don’t kill their own sons while babies are not left to die in the forest. This can be a critique of the weakness of the traditional order inherent in the Igbo society that had made their brothers covert. Overall, it is interesting to point out that despite the novel’s efforts to educate his readers about the Igbo culture and the way that Europeans disrupted the already established social order of the community, Achebe neither explicitly nor implicitly allow us to see the course of events in the novel in clear cut terms of good (black) and bad (white). As a matter of fact, the characters of Mr. Brown, the understanding white man who did not impose his own beliefs upon the Igbo and treated their customs and traditions with respect and Reverend James Smith, who had completely treated the Igbo with contempt, show how Achebe is both critical of the lapses of the Igbo’s existing societal order and the need for realignment of the Western belief of the Aficans. He also criticized of some of the clan members’ responses to colonialism, in spite of his quotations display of the utmost disrespect of Europeans to the Igbo culture. In the end, the novel did not only attempt to show to his Western and Europeanized readers that the African culture is not barbaric but also illustrate the Igbo’s lack of unity and leadership as well as their discrimination against their own people, which had cause their downfall. But nonetheless, Achebe, through his historical account of pre-colonial and postcolonial Igbo society, is successful in portraying the social order that the Igbo had, which only proves that they are not savages and that they had their own systems of justice and customs.