Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, and Home and Exile (Part 2)

In this entry, I will focus on Things Fall Apart, the novel that we will be reading from after we finish Heart of Darkness. 

By the way, here is an advertisement for the 1987 TV miniseries version of the novel.  I found the image at www.africanmoviesdirect.com.  Here is a link to the You Tube channel where you may watch scenes from this miniseries.  It looks like the screenwriters have made changes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7FS95IcRNU

Hmmm ....the "irrepressible" Okonkwo. 

As you read Things Fall Apart, how would you describe Okonkwo?  In your opinion, how does the third-person narrator seem to feel about him?

If you've read Ed Pilkington's Guardian article (see part 1), you may know that Achebe originally conceived of Things Fall Apart as a multigenerational novel.  Instead, in his final version, the novel focuses on Okonkwo, a seemingly prosperous and powerful Igbo farmer.  He is not at odds with his society....or is he?  His violent temper concerns the other men in his village, and the novel takes place at the end of the 19th century as the British consolidate their rule over what is now known as Nigeria and Protestant missionaries convert the villagers to Christianity.

Here is a current map of Africa to give you an idea of where Nigeria is.

Below is a close-up map of Nigeria, fyi.

Here is a link to the BBC's profile of Nigeria:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/country_profiles/1064557.stm

This timeline from the BBC will come in handy as well.  As we can see, Things Fall Apart takes place as the British are consolidating their rule.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1067695.stm

This Wikipedia page contains specific information about the ethnic makeup of Nigeria:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Nigeria

Because of the tensions that I mention below, the information is specific but not necessarily accurate.

Here is an article about the tribal tensions that still exist in Nigeria:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/census-stirs-old-rivalries-between-nigerias-tribes-470671.html

In fact, in the 1960s, shortly after the country became independent, members of the Igbo seceded and formed the nation of Biafra.  Civil war broke out, and by 1970, Biafra was rejoined to Nigeria.

I would also like to post information about the Igbo, the ethnicity to which Achebe and the African characters in his novel belong:

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/africa/igbo.html

http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/people/Igbo.html

http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/3629/igbo.html

http://www.umunne.org/

And here is a link to a page on food in Nigeria!

http://www.foodbycountry.com/Kazakhstan-to-South-Africa/Nigeria.html

This site is by someone from the Yoruba group:

http://motherlandnigeria.com/food.html

I'd also like to post a link to the "virtual village" of Umuofia that I mentioned in part 1:

http://homepages.wmich.edu/~acareywe/umuofia/umuofiateachers.html

Finally, I will close with a few pictures.  First is a picture from Maine!  The curator of an African museum in Portland, Oscar Mokeme is teaching his son how to perform a song from the Igbo tradition.  (My husband and I have been to Mr. Mokeme's museum.)

Below is a picture that tells us what the egwugwu in Things Fall Apart may have looked like.  The picture is from a class site at Augusta State University.

Here is a reconstruction of an Igbo family compound.  It is part of an exhibit at Liverpool's International Slavery Museum.

I wanted to post this picture from www.everyculture.com as well to give you a picture of someone living in the huts. 

 

However, most Nigerians live in the city, so I thought I would end with this picture of a market in Lagos, the former capital.