Monday, February 16, 2009
Ended to soon?
Chinua Achebe's "When Things Fall Apart," is a great depiction of Africa during colonialism, but one thing that I don't get is why he spent so little time on it. It's really only Part three of the book that truly looks into colonialism. Achebe said, "At the university i read some appalling novels about Africa (including Joyce Cary's much praised Mister Johnson) and decided that the story we had to tell could not be told for us by anyone else no matter how gifted or well intentioned." If all I read of Achebe was this I would think his book would be filled with trials and tribulations of Africa, but the book is all about one man's life journey. Don't get me wrong this is defiantly a great book, and it's my second time reading it and I see things I missed before but I feel it's more of a life story than a story of Africa as a whole. The first two sections are all about Okonkwo's life, and than we finally get to part three and I felt it was sort of rushed. I just thought that Achebe could have spent a lot more time on writing about colonialism. One aspect that really interested me when reading the last chapter was when the District Commissioner was speaking about the book he plans to write, "One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate." I found this quote very interesting because Achebe wanted to show that Okonkwo's life my not have looked important to someone on the outside looking into Africa, but to those who experienced what Okonkwo went through it makes a world of difference. Okonkwo was a leader in his community, and yet he was still able to break. While I don't think that one chapter is sufficient in telling the story of Okonkwo, I also don't think his whole life was really necessary either. I thought he should have focused in more on colonialism, or at least just added more chapters. I was starting to really feel what the people of Africa were going through and what was being taken from them, when all a sudden the book came to an abrupt end.
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Indeed, the novel spends many chapters discussing Okonkwo’s life, however in my opinion, it is very much needed. After reading about Okonkwo’s early life in the beginning of the novel, it was easier to understand why Okonkwo tried extremely hard to achieve, and provide for his family. His efforts were a result of him not having a positive father role model in his life, and the pressures society placed on male responsibly. Okonkwo was determined not to be like his father; lazy and irresponsible, a weakling that played music. In the following chapters Okonkwo’s life continues to be discussed, but this allows one to imagine the hardships an individual had to experience, and overcome to obtain leadership for their clan during that time. Okonkwo’s internal conflicts, such as his true feelings he had when he killed Ikemefuma. Okonkwo was scared, he did not want to kill, yet he did so because he did not want to be seen as week. Okonkwo’s external conflicts, such as his efforts towards trying to keep his clan together, before the Christians took the remaining people. These were only a few obstacles that he faced. Okonkwo’s life events are what contributed to the novels anticipation. The book the District Commissioner planned to write about Okonkwo motivated me as well. The fact that the District Commissioner will write a book, implies that although Okonkwo has passed, he will be remembered through a novel. After reading this novel, I have realized that no matter what rank, position, or role, one has to fulfill, they should not be constantly pressured, put down, or criticized, because at the end, there is a time when one may descend.
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ReplyDeleteIn writing "Things Fall Apart," Achebe set out to respond to novels such as "Heart of Darkness" which depicted Africa and it's people as savage and inhumane. With the majority of the novel being based on Okonkwo's personal life and his relationships both with his family and the village members, Achebe is able to show readers a side of Africa that had previously not been discussed by presenting Okonkwo to the reader on a personal level. At the time, this must have been ground breaking, as the texts before this novel represented Africans as less than human. Personally as a reader, I found Okonkwo's own personal life and his struggle to find masculinity rather interesting.
ReplyDeleteAlso, had the majority of the novel been based on colonialism and it's destructive effects on Okonkwo and his people, Achebe would be writing about the same topics that authors such as Conrad already had, thus being counterintuitive to his own goal of showing that Africans are human and have the same emotions and lives as Westerners. Therefore, by writing about Okonkwo's personal life for the majority of the book, Achebe is able to counteract the dehumanizing effect "Heart of Darkness" and other texts had on Africa and it's people.
I agree with you when you say that Okonkwo's life is needed to write the book. I get the fact that Achebe was trying to show a different side of Africa that was never seen before , but I wish he could've went more in detail about colonalism. I don't necessarly think that he should take anything out of the book, I just think he should have added more to i. He spent so much time showing whats happening throughout Okonkwo's life, which was very intresting, and it did open my eyes to a lot of different aspects that I didn't know before about Africa. So in that sense I do feel that Achebe achieved his goal, but I just feel that the end was sort of rushed. Colonalism was a huge part of African history and I think it deserved a bigger part in the book. I just feel that he went too much into the personal aspect rather than Africa as a whole. But I do love this book and it is one of my favorites I guess I just which I could've read more.
ReplyDeleteWhile I would also have loved more from this book--I found it incredibly intriguing and it would have been very interesting to learn more about colonialism especially from the African point of view--I think the book ended at the perfect time. First of all, while we meet many characters in Okonkwo's life, and many different stories come up, I think we can all agree that this is a book about Okonkwo, and all of the anecdotes in the book come back to him. That being said, I think it's fitting that the book ended when he died. You said that the book ended very abruptly--well, Okonkwo died pretty abruptly, hanging himself just when I personally thought he was going to continue fighting.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the story of colonialism in Africa goes much farther than the pages of this book, but I liked that this book focuses on what happened BEFORE colonialism. I have read only one other book that gave a glimpse of African life before it was taken over and "reformed." But this book gives the reader a real sense of what Africa was like before its culture was forcibly transformed, and I think that by we get a better picture of this because Achebe stayed away from colonialism, and the aftermath. We can see the aftermath of colonialism by reading books like Heart of Darkness or even reading a newspaper and seeing Africa today! But really getting a taste of African culture pre-colonialism--the religious customs, the marriage ritual, the foods they ate, and how they prepared them ,the relationship between men and women, the judicial process and punishments. I have never gotten such a whole picture of African culture, and I think that had Achebe wanted to write about that chapter of African history, it should have been in a different book. I like that this book was entirely, from start to finish, about Okonkwo and his life and the world he lived in. I like that Okonkwo died before his world was COMPLETELY flipped over, and I like that the book ended there also.