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I warmly welcome you on my blog. In this blog I'm sharing my views on the book Things Fall Apart.
Here this blog is upon Things Fall Apart.This is African literature and genre is novel. This work is written by Salman Chinua Achebe. He is a great African write and he is famously for this And Things Fall apart.
Question :- 1
What is Historical context of Things Fall Apart?
Answer:- 1
Things Fall Apart is set in the 1890s and portrays the clash between Nigeria’s white colonial government and the traditional culture of the indigenous Igbo people. Achebe’s novel shatters the stereotypical European portraits of native Africans. He is careful to portray the complex, advanced social institutions and artistic traditions of Igbo culture prior to its contact with Europeans. Yet he is just as careful not to stereotype the Europeans; he offers varying depictions of the white man, such as the mostly benevolent Mr. Brown, the zealous Reverend Smith, and the ruthlessly calculating District Commissioner.
British expansion had just gained relevance in the African interior.
• Many of the missionaries, explorers and traders thought that the interior of Africa was a wild and dangerous place that was inhabited by primitive people.
:- There was a scramble for territorial control of Africa between 1870 and 1900 for two reasons:
:- Africa was an untapped source for raw materials that could fuel the Industrial Revolution in Europe. 2. Trade could be enhanced by using Africa as a stop off port on the way to the Middle East. • This scramble opened the door to the missionary’s need to ‘civilize’ and ‘enlighten’ the population of this new colony/continent.
The title Things Fall Apart was adopted from William Butler Yeats’ poem “‘The Second Coming’” (1921). The poem foresees the end of the present age and the world’s approach to another phase that is completely different:
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,
The blood-dimmed the tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Unlike some later African authors who chose to revitalize native languages as a form of resistance to colonial culture, Achebe wanted to achieve cultural revitalization within and through English. Nevertheless, he manages to capture the rhythm of the Igbo language and he integrates Igbo vocabulary into the narrative.Achebe has become renowned throughout the world as a father of modern African literature, essayist, and professor of English literature at Bard College in New York. But Achebe’s achievements are most concretely reflected by his prominence in Nigeria’s academic culture and in its literary and political institutions. He worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company for over a decade and later became an English professor at the University of Nigeria.
He has also been quite influential in the publication of new Nigerian writers. In 1967, he co-founded a publishing company with a Nigerian poet named Christopher Okigbo and in 1971, he began editing Okike, a respected journal of Nigerian writing. In 1984, he founded Uwa ndi Igbo, a bilingual magazine containing a great deal of information about Igbo culture. He has been active in Nigerian politics since the 1960s, and many of his novels address the post-colonial social and political problems that Nigeria still faces.
