Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas
explored in a literary work.
The Struggle Between Change and Tradition
As a story about a culture on the verge of change, Things
Fall Apart deals with how the prospect and reality of change
affect various characters. The tension about whether change should
be privileged over tradition often involves questions of personal
status. Okonkwo, for example, resists the new political and religious orders
because he feels that they are not manly and that he himself will
not be manly if he consents to join or even tolerate them. To some
extent, Okonkwo’s resistance of cultural change is also due to his
fear of losing societal status. His sense of self-worth is dependent upon
the traditional standards by which society judges him. This system
of evaluating the self inspires many of the clan’s outcasts to embrace
Christianity. Long scorned, these outcasts find in the Christian
value system a refuge from the Igbo cultural values that place them
below everyone else. In their new community, these converts enjoy
a more elevated status.
The villagers in general are caught between resisting
and embracing change and they face the dilemma of trying to determine
how best to adapt to the reality of change. Many of the villagers
are excited about the new opportunities and techniques that the
missionaries bring. This European influence, however, threatens
to extinguish the need for the mastery of traditional methods of
farming, harvesting, building, and cooking. These traditional methods, once
crucial for survival, are now, to varying degrees, dispensable. Throughout
the novel, Achebe shows how dependent such traditions are upon storytelling
and language and thus how quickly the abandonment of the Igbo language
for English could lead to the eradication of these traditions.
Varying Interpretations of Masculinity
Okonkwo’s relationship with his late father shapes much
of his violent and ambitious demeanor. He wants to rise above his
father’s legacy of spendthrift, indolent behavior, which he views
as weak and therefore effeminate. This association is inherent in
the clan’s language—the narrator mentions that the word for a man
who has not taken any of the expensive, prestige-indicating titles
is agbala, which also means “woman.” But, for the
most part, Okonkwo’s idea of manliness is not the clan’s. He associates
masculinity with aggression and feels that anger is the only emotion
that he should display. For this reason, he frequently beats his
wives, even threatening to kill them from time to time. We are told
that he does not think about things, and we see him act rashly
and impetuously. Yet others who are in no way effeminate do not
behave in this way. Obierika, unlike Okonkwo, “was a man who thought
about things.” Whereas Obierika refuses to accompany the men on
the trip to kill Ikemefuna, Okonkwo not only volunteers to join
the party that will execute his surrogate son but also violently
stabs him with his machete simply because he is afraid of appearing
weak.
Okonkwo’s seven-year exile from his village only reinforces
his notion that men are stronger than women. While in exile, he
lives among the kinsmen of his motherland but resents the period
in its entirety. The exile is his opportunity to get in
touch with his feminine side and to acknowledge his maternal ancestors,
but he keeps reminding himself that his maternal kinsmen are not
as warlike and fierce as he remembers the villagers of Umuofia to
be. He faults them for their preference of negotiation, compliance,
and avoidance over anger and bloodshed. In Okonkwo’s understanding,
his uncle Uchendu exemplifies this pacifist (and therefore somewhat
effeminate) mode.
Language as a Sign of Cultural Difference
Language is an important theme in Things Fall
Apart on several levels. In demonstrating the imaginative,
often formal language of the Igbo, Achebe emphasizes that Africa
is not the silent or incomprehensible continent that books such as Heart
of Darkness made it out to be. Rather, by peppering the
novel with Igbo words, Achebe shows that the Igbo language is too
complex for direct translation into English. Similarly, Igbo culture
cannot be understood within the framework of European colonialist
values. Achebe also points out that Africa has many different languages:
the villagers of Umuofia, for example, make fun of Mr. Brown’s translator
because his language is slightly different from their own.
On a macroscopic level, it is extremely significant that
Achebe chose to write Things Fall Apart in English—he
clearly intended it to be read by the West at least as much, if
not more, than by his fellow Nigerians. His goal was to critique
and emend the portrait of Africa that was painted by so many writers
of the colonial period. Doing so required the use of English, the
language of those colonial writers. Through his inclusion of proverbs,
folktales, and songs translated from the Igbo language, Achebe managed
to capture and convey the rhythms, structures, cadences, and beauty
of the Igbo language.
