HISTORY 1C

Study Questions on Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

NOTE:

The Ibo inhabit what is now Southeastern Nigeria. They are one of Africa's stateless peoples, having no chiefs or kings. Social life is organized in terms of clans, defined in terms of descent from a common male ancestor. For real-life Ibos, events like those described in the novel occurred about the turn of the century.

In the novel, we see the Ibo making their living from slash-and-burn agriculture, which means clearing new land, burning off the brush, and then planting. This method exhausts the soil very quickly and requires frequent shifts to new fields. When population densities become as high as they are now, this method becomes environmentally destructive and unsustainable. With the low densities of earlier times, depleted fields could be left to go back forest, restoring natural nutrients. One illustration of Okonkwo's father's laziness was that he would plant fields abandoned by others, rather than take the time to clear more fertile land for himself.

In reading the novel, be sure to make full use of the glossary of Ibo terms at the back of the book.

Study Questions:

1. When the confrontation between Western civilization and that of the Nigerian Ibo came for people of Okonkwo's generation, how did they perceive it? What seemed likely to happen to Ibo culture when the novel ends?

2. The novel gives many wonderful insights into one of the oldest religions, perhaps the oldest, found in many variations around the world. Scholars call it "animism" because it identifies the world of the spirit (Latin, anima) with the world of nature, identifying the gods in terms of natural forces and phenomena. What examples of animism can you find in the novel?

3. We can say about social organization what we said about religion: The novel gives many wonderful insights into what is probably the oldest approach to social organization found in many variations around the world. Scholars call this a "kinship society." Characteristics of kinship society include the extended family (rather than the individual or the nuclear family) as the meaningful unit of social organization. Moreover, a strongly defined division of labor in terms of sex has been normal in kinship societies. There is also likely to be division in terms of age or other criteria. Can you think of why this might be so under conditions that existed before recent times? Certainly in many kinship societies it is common to speak of male dominance. What evidence of this do you find in the book? Is it the whole story? Does life in the kinship society give the individual more freedom of choice, or less than we are used to? Would the answer be different for Okonkwo? For his son, Nwoye? Okonkwo's wives? For the priestess?

4. Compare the impact of white missionaries on Umofia with that of the political and military officers. How were they different? Which was worse? What do you think Achebe is trying to tell us in the presentation of the two missionaries, Mr. Brown (pp. 163, 166) and Mr. Smith (p. 169)?

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The novel includes a number of troublesome practices: the murder of newborn twins, the murder of the hostage Ikemefuna. Many, if not all, societies have what appear to outsiders to be harmful or unacceptable practices. Cultural conservatism tends to perpetuate such practices, like sati\suttee in India. That many societies preserved such practices is partly why Europeans used to make free use of terms like "savages" or "barbarians". Were turn-of-the-century Europeans justified in judging and condemning the other societies? Are we today?