Igbo culture

                              Assignment

          The African Literature

Name : Virani Dhara R.

Course : M. A. English

Semester : 4

Roll No : 4

Submitted to: Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English

Subject: The African Literature

Topic: Positive and Negative side of Igbo Culture

PARALLEL PRESENTATION OF POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SIDES OF IGBO CULTURE IN THINGS FALL APART

# Introduction

       Chinua Achebe’s magnum opus Things Fall Apart reflects authentic presentation of the Igbo society. Various social, political, economic, religious, psychological and personal issues of the Igbo people have been put forward by the author in this ethnographic novel. Achebe has depicted these issues from the perspective of both an observer and a critic. The ethnographic depiction of the Igbo life indicates that Chinua Achebe has tried to maintain his objective stance in the novel. He is not biased at all. It is evident in his contrastive presentation of the culture and beliefs of the Igbo; in one hand, he presents the constructive and rational side of the Igbo, on the other hand, he highlights their follies and irrational beliefs too. Achebe as an original Igbo expectedly presents the riches and potentialities of the Igbo society. But at the same time he is not uncritical of the limitations of his society where he belongs to. The present study has dealt with Achebe’s audacious attempt to present the limitations and follies of Igbo life in Things Fall Apart. 

# Chinua Achebe and Igbo culture

Chinua Achebe ( 1930-2013) is a Nigerian novelist, poet, short-story writer, critical thinker and essayist, and one of the leading intellectual figures in the contemporary pan-African region, as well as the whole world. He is one of the most original literary artists writing in English. Achebe is well known all over the world for having played a germinal role in the founding and developing of African literature. Things Fall Apart is his first novel which “shatters the stereotypical European portraits about the native Africans” (Alam 105). Since the publication of Things Fall Apartin 1958, Chinua Achebe has been credited with being the key progenitor of an African literary tradition.                                                                                                                                                                                 Though Achebe belongs to Igbo culture and tradition, he has not exaggerated the pictures of Igboland in Things Fall Apart. He describes both positive and negative aspects of the Igbo people and provides the pictures of society, religion, politics, economy etc. without any attempt to romanticize or sentimentalize them (Nnoromele 147). Whittaker and Msiska rightly observe that the novel ends with an elegiac tone but Achebe is not uncritical of Igbo culture that he both celebrates and mourns (15). This attitudehelps make the credibility of his being objective in the novel. 

# DIFFERENT FACTS OF SHOWING OPPOSITION IN THINGS FALL APART

Things Fall Apart Achebe shows that good in the Igbo is not their exclusive identity, rather, bad is not alien to them. There are people who are wicked and try to do harm to others. In the market of Umuike there are thieves who “can steal your cloth from off your waist”. Obierika warns Nwankwo against those thieves while selling a goat for the feast in his daughter’s marriage. He tells a story that there was once a man who went to sell a goat at the market. He led it on a thick rope which he tied round his wrist. But after a while he looked back and saw that what he led at the end of the tether was not a goat but a heavy log of wood. (80). This simple story tells us a lot. It signifies that Achebe does not partially show us that the Igbo are free from all kinds of vices. Rather, his project is to expose the reality that as human beings the Igbo have merits as well as shortcomings. Kortenaar asserts that the Igbo’s belief in iba, a spiritual disorder, is made doubtable by Achebe when we see a reference to a mosquito buzzing in the ear of Oknokwo in the same chapter which, “by making mosquito and ibacontiguous” may make Achebe and his reader know that Ezinma’s fever (iba) would be diagnosed as malaria. The Igbo strongly believe in the spiritual significance of iba. But ironically Achebe uses the mosquito as the collocation of iba, and intentionally attempts to weaken the Igbo’s belief that iba is linked with the world beyond our day to day experience. It is because Achebe knows, as Sengupta says, that African societies have their own contradictions and spiritual crises before the colonial advent. While rewriting African history he does not idealize it. His stance contrasts to the Negritude writers such as Senghor, Laye and others, whose artistic works idealize Africa. (16) Even Okonkwo, the protagonist, is not without flaws. He may represent Umuofia but he is inflicted with his own follies. He commits suicide and the seeds of his self-destruction are buried “in his desire to be the anti-thesis of his feminine father”.

Things Fall Apart consists of “oppositional structures” . The Igbo try to lead a life which contains parallel structures in every sector of life, whether the life is material or spiritual. By showing two opposite structure Achebe intends to show that the real structure in Igbo life does not consist of anything absolute, rather, it has contradictions too. For instance, Ezinma takes after her mother, Ekwefi. She grows up in her father’s exile and becomes one of the most beautiful girls in Mbanta and is called Crystal of Beauty, as her mother was called in her youth (122). That means the mother and the daughter share parallel relationship- the daughter is equal to the mother. But between Okonkwo and his son Nwoye there is no such parallel relationship. Nwoye is opposite to Okonkwo and similar to his grandfather, Unoka. The Igbo social standard expects that a daughter will follow her mother, and a son will follow his father. In the novel the daughter follows her mother but the son does not follow his father. Another contrast in the novel is Okonkwo’s authoritative relationship with his wives vs. Nwakibie’s sound relationship with his wives. Okonkwo controls his wives with heavy hands, and there is no friendship in it. But the case of Nwakibie’s family is quite opposite. He maintains a sound relationship with his wives. By using the technique of showing contrasts Achebe tries to expose that he is not partial in presenting the facts of Igbo culture, including family relationship, in Things Fall Apart. Igbo thoughts do not possess constant parallel or liner patterns. This fact is successfully manifested by Achebe in the novel. 

supports it. But Igbo society is not a classless society; there are underprivileged or subaltern classes in that society. There is the Osu class which is a dehumanized group in Igboland. The Osu are denied their social and cultural rights. Osucaste system is an impediment to social progress. It has become a culture in Igboland. Culture is the important factor in social progress. If discrimination continues no social progress is possible. Gradually the society collapses.Ezeala  expresses the same view that the Osu caste system is “a cancer of bone marrow, an Igbo endemic disease…” In Things Fall Apart Achebe shows the osu caste system as one of the obstacles to social unity and advance. Through the osusystem Achebe exposes both social unity and fragmentation in Igboland. He is not misleading in this respect. He does not hesitate to unearth the social hole, the osucaste, that is a silent curse for the Igbo. 

The novel suggests that the discriminatory osu caste system is obviously a social hole where the Igbo themselves fall into. It is the osu who are the first to be converted to Christianity. This makes the missionaries Confident. Achebe wants to tell us that since the osu have long been remained underprivileged, deprived of basic human rights and value, and since they now see an opportunity of their fullest human recognition by the missionaries, they avail themselves of the opportunity. They are not responsible for their transformation that brings about disaster in Igboland; it is the eye of social inequality and blindness that is responsible. The osu find an outlet of their long repressed emotions in Christianity. E. Palmer accurately holds up this view and says, “The secret of the new faith’s success is precisely that it offers a refuge to all those whom the clan… regard as outcasts”. In Things Fall Apart Achebe considers that negative elements of Igbo culture are equally responsible for the destruction of the Igbo world. “The seeds of the decay are inbuilt. The colonizers just fastened the action.” Achebe opines that the concept of duality occupies the central place in Igbo thinking. There is an Igbo proverb that whenever something stands, something else will stand beside it. Nothing is absolute. “I am the truth, the way, and the life” would be considered blasphemous or simply absurd. Being an indisputably Igbo proverb it carries within it the content that there is no fixed point in Igbo ethics. There is always duality

     Duality is a very significant issue in Things Fall Apart. The text produces multiple voices. Achebe employs a variety of devices, such as proverbs, folktales, rituals and the juxtaposition of characters and episode to provide a double view of the Igbo society of Umuofia and the central character Okonkwo. “Double view of the Igbo society of Umuofia” as presented in the novel is noteworthy here. 

We will explain another example taken from the novel. In Obirieka’s daughter’s marriage there occurs a discussion about settling bride-  price in various clans. The discussion goes-                                                      : But what is good in one place is bad in another place. In Umunso they do not  bargain at all, not even with broomsticks. The suitor just goes on bringing bags  of cowries until his in-laws tell him to stop. It is a bad custom because it always leads to a quarrel. (Obirieka’s brother)                                                                 :  All their customs are upside-down. They do not decide bride- price as we do, with sticks. They haggle and bargain as if they were buying a goat or a cow in the market. (Obirieka, about the custom of Abame and Aninta.)                                                                                                                                                                      : The world is large. I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family. (Okonkwo)                                                                                                                                          The discussion tells us that there is no fixed standard of good or bad, it fluctuates. It has manifold scopes in multiple contexts. No custom is absolute and complete in itself.    Therefore, we can come to the conclusion that Things Fall Apart echoes the Igbo concept of duality as consisted in the proverb mentioned above. In the words of Nichols, “‘Things fall apart’ and ‘the centre cannot hold’ not because the centre no longer exists, but because there are now many centers, numerous perspectives…”  

# Conclusion : 

Things Fall Apart Achebe has championed the diverse facets, both affirmative and off-putting, of the Igbo psychology in respects of the multiple but collective responses to their socio- cultural life. In his act of championing the pre- modern Igbo society he is free from romantic illusions. He leans towards the Igbo side, but with the eye of inspection and scrutiny. With the microscopic eyes he goes through the ins and out Of the day life of Igbo. 

# Reference :

Achebe, Chinua. “Chi in Igbo Cosmology.” Morning Yet on Creation Day. New York: Doubleday. Open Library Book., 1976. Online. Retrieved from- <https://archive.org/stream/morningyetoncre a00ache#page/n17/mode/2up> 

Aggarwal, Ruchee. “Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’; colonialism versus tradition.” Indian Journal of Applied Research, 3 (4): 221- 222, 2013. Online. Retrieved from- <http://www.theglobaljournals.com 

/ijar/file.php?val=MTI5Ng== > 

Okonkwo, Chidi. “Chinua Achebe: The Wrestler and the Challenge of Chaos”. Postcolonial Literatures Ed. Michael Parker and Roger Starkey. Macmillan: London. 83- 100. 13.