Achebe Things Fall Apart part 2&3
The second part of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is a sad
conclusion to the novel but it is also a very good example of the destructive
influence a literary society can have on a strictly oral society. There are
multiple examples through part two and three where the missionary’s ways of
life and means of communication directly clash with the ways of Okonkwo’s
people. The troubles began when the word spread (orally) that the Abame clan
was wiped out by “the white men.” This was the first instance that the reader
sees of a more modern culture trying to “civilize” the people of Nigeria and it
does not have a peaceful end.
We also see a bit of disruption in the tribes when Okonkwo’s
son decides to leave and get an education with the church. “He went back to the
church and told Mr. Kiaga that he had decided to go to Umuofia where the white
missionary had set up a school to teach young Christians to read and write.”
Okonkwo disowned his son after this and it’s the last the reader hears of
Nwoye.
When Okonkwo holds a feast for his mother’s tribe to thank
them for welcoming him for his seven years of exile, there are a few important speeches
that the tribesman make. The first is when they break the kola nut and prayed. “We
do not ask for wealth because he that has health and children will also have
wealth. We do not pray to have more money but to have more kinsmen. We are
better than animals because we have kinsmen. An animal rubs its itching flank
against a tree, a man asks his kinsmen to scratch him.” I believe that this was
said at this feast because at this time the missionaries were moving in and
making quite a presences amongst the tribes and the people were trying to keep
together and hold a stance. It was breaking tribes apart when some would leave their
old gods to worship this new ‘true’ god.
A second thing to note at Okonkwo’s feast was where the
Achebe wrote, “Yam pottage was served first because it was lighter than foo-foo
and because yam always came first.” I read this as a reiteration of how important
ritual and routine is to orality society.
The last thing I would like to look at from Okonkwo’s feast
is that I think it’s important to note when one of the elders makes a speech
and mentions the foreboding times, “I fear for you young people because you do
not understand how strong is the bond of kinship. You do not know what it is to
speak with one voice. And what is the result? An abominable religion has
settled among you. A man can now leave his father and his brothers. He can
curse the gods of his fathers and his ancestors, like a hunter’s god that
suddenly goes mad and turns on his master. I fear for you; I fear for the clan.”
This speech shows how fearful the people are of new ways and of this new means
of believing and worship and what it will do to their people. I find it
interesting that some elder people in our world today say the same about
advancing technology. I’ve heard some say that no one knows how to socialize in
person anymore. That young kids just sit on their phones all day and can’t talk
to an actual person. These have some similarities to what the elder was saying.
Finally I would like to note an interesting conversation
that Obierika had with Okonkwo when the white men came to Umuofia and Okonkwo
asks does the white man understand our custom about land? Obierika replied “How
can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are
bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs
are bad.” Obierika brings up a good point about the inability to fulling understand
ones customs when you are not fully immersed in that culture. This is the vital
gap that ends up ruining the community. This inability for the literate society
to ever really comprehend the ideas of an orality society.
I would like to conclude on one final note from the book. The
thing that I found most interesting was in the last chapter of the book where
it is narrated from the missionary’s point of view as the Umuofia people bring
him to Okonkwo’s body and he thinks, “One of the most infuriating habits of
these people was their love of superfluous words,” What he found infuriating
and superfluous to him, was essential to the survival of orality. This simply
proves the previously stated gap between orality and literacy. It is hard to
fully comprehend one when you are brought up in the other.
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