Things Fall Apart
by
Chinua Achebe
(Title)
The
title of Achebe’s first novel, Things Fall Apart has been taken from William Butler
Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming”. The epigraph taken as the title occurs in the
first few lines of the visionary poem.
Turning
and turning in the widening gyre
The
falcon cannot hear the falconer.
Things
fall apart; the centre cannot hold,
Mere
anarchy is loosed upon the world …..
Yeat’s
poem which comes from the Irish poet’s 1921 collection of poems, Michael
Robartes and the Dancer, speaks of the breakdown of the “old” order and its
displacement by a “new” order that
rouses mixed feelings of revulsion and fascination. Chinua Achebe’s novel too
is about a forcible break-up of an older and settled order. Focusing on the
life of Okonkwo he has assessed and analysed the various reasons for the breakup
of the older and settled way of life. The protagonist is brave, hardworking and
honest but egoistic and reckless. His own pride and the turn of events both contribute
to the fall of things. An accidental shot from his gun leads to the killing of
a young boy of the clan and as per the norms of the tribe the only course open
to Okonkwo was to flee from the clan. It was a crime against the earth goddess
to kill a clansman and he could return to the clan after seven years only. This
event happens in the last chapter of part one of the novel and marks the
beginning of the things falling apart. Dislocation leads to the subversion of
power and Okonkwo had to begin life anew because of the tragic events in life.
Part two and three of the novel highlight that the things fall apart because of
the discontent, dissent and discord sown amongst the people of Ibo land by the
new Christian religion, which the white missionaries brought with them setting son
against father.
People
start doubting the age-old traditions and customs which they have been
following without question since birth. Obierika while explaining the loss of
faith of the people in the old authority says “The white man is very clever
..... He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen
apart”. Even Okonkwo’s son Nwoye gets attracted by the new dispensation and
leaves his family thus breaking the norm of following the patriarchal customs.
The centre does not succeed in holding and a gradual disintegration begins in
the accepted patterns of the society.
After
the act of suicide Okonkwo is treated as a “Thing” that has ‘Fallen Apart’
rather than as a human being who had brought much credit to his village. As it
is an abomination for a man to take his own life and is an offense against the
Earth, his body cannot even be touched and buried by his clansmen as it becomes
evil. Okonkwo meets a tragic end but the novel is not only a personal but also
a collective tragedy. The title thus is apt and justifies how things fall apart
in Igbo land in the1890’s.
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