Historical Context
Things
Fall Apart is Chinua Achebe’s first novel and was published in 1958, a
time often called the Nigerian Renaissance because in that period a large number
of very strong Nigerian writers began to create a powerful new literature that
drew on the traditional oral literature, European literature, and the changing
times in Nigeria and in Africa at large. Writers
as varied as Ben Okri and Wole Soyinka developed in the context of the ideas and
energy of the Nigerian Renaissance, but Achebe is considered one of the earliest
and best novelists to have come out of modern Nigeria, in fact one of the top
English-speaking novelists of his time anywhere.
In
1958 much of Africa was still under the colonialist yoke, although a few
countries (most notably Ghana) had already achieved independence.
Set in a time of great change for Africans, Achebe’s novels illuminate
two painful features of modern African life: the humiliations visited on
Africans by colonialism, and the corruption and inefficiency of what replaced
colonial rule. Things Fall Apart in particular focuses on the early experience of
colonialism as it occurred in Nigeria in the late 1800’s, from the first days
of contact with the British to widespread British administration.
Achebe is interested in showing Ibo society in the period of transition
when rooted, traditional values are put in conflict with an alien and more
powerful culture that will tear them apart.
Achebe paints a vivid picture of Ibo society both before and after the
arrival of white men, and avoids the temptation to idealize either culture.
In this context, he believes that the novelist must have a social
commitment: “The writer cannot be excused from the task of re-education and
regeneration that must be done…I for one would not wish to be excused. I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones
I set in the past) did no more than just teach my readers [Africans] that their
past—with all its imperfections—was not one long night of savagery from
which the Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.”
