Things Fall Apart #5: We have fallen apart

Footnotes & Tangents for chapters 20–25 of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

‘The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.’

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Hello and welcome to Week 5 of our slow read of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

The fifth week covers chapters 20-25, from Okonkwo’s return to Umuofia to his fateful end. I recommend reading this section of the book first, and then returning to this post to join in the discussion.

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George Thomas Basden, Archdeacon of the Niger (1926–1936), was a mentor to Chinua Achebe’s father. Source.

1. Mr Brown, Isaac and Enoch

Whenever Mr Brown went to that village he spent long hours with Akunna in his obi talking through an interpreter about religion. Neither of them succeeded in converting the other but they learnt more about their different beliefs.

The character of Mr Brown introduces nuance to the representation of Europeans in Things Fall Apart. Achebe said this patient, a mild-minded missionary, may have been unconsciously inspired by his father’s mentor, George Thomas Basden, Archdeacon of the Niger.

Nwoye has changed his name to Isaac. His new name recalls the story of Abraham being commanded by God to kill his son, Isaac, in the Book of Genesis. Okonkwo killed his adopted son Ikemefuna, and Obierika suggested he “kill one of your sons for me” in payment for looking after his land and crops in Umuofia. In the end, Okonkwo disowns Isaac, calling him a “great abomination.”

Enoch is another biblical patriarch, known for his devotion to God, and according to some traditions, he entered heaven alive at the age of 365.

An Ikenga figure in the Brooklyn Museum. Source.

2. Chukwu and Ikenga

‘There are no other gods,’ said Mr Brown. ‘Chukwu is the only God and all others are false. You carve a piece of wood – like that one’ (he pointed at the rafters from which Akunna’s carved Ikenga hung), ‘and you call it a god. But it is still a piece of wood.’

I enjoyed this little theological discussion between Mr Brown and Akunna.

Chukwu is the supreme being and creator of the universe. My understanding is that Christians and Muslims use the same Igbo word Chukwu (spiritual being “chi” and great “ukwu”) to refer to their god. In the traditional Odinani religion, no shrines or sacrifices are made directly to Chukwu, as Akunna explains in this chapter.

• Footnote: Igbo mythology: A beginner’s guide

Ikenga (“place of strength”) is a personal meditative icon of power and strength that combines a man’s relationship to his chi and ancestors. Women do not have an Ikenga. Men refer to them as their “right hand”, and it is regarded as important to their personal success.

• Watch: Ikenga | Symbol, Significance and Powers

The Sacrifice of Elijah Before the Priests of Baal, Domenico Fetti, c. 1621-22. Source.

3. The world as a battlefield

Mr Brown’s successor was the Reverend James Smith, and he was a different kind of man. He condemned only Mr Brown’s policy of compromise and accommodation. He saw things as black and white. And black was evil. He saw the world as a battlefield in which the children of light were locked in mortal conflict with the sons of darkness. He spoke of his sermons about sheep and goats and about wheat and tares. He believed in slaying the prophets of Baal.

This feels pivotal. The arrival of a fire-and-brimstone preacher to Umuofia is a decisive moment. It seems to end all hope of a peaceful resolution for Okonkwo’s story. Here again is the imagery of darkness, and now the binary thinking of black and white.

Reverend Smith preaches the parables of the sheep and goats and wheat and tares from the Gospel of Matthew. As the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats in his flock and the harvester weeds out the tares from the wheat, so God will divide the good from the wicked.

Baal appears in the Old Testament as a false god. In the Book of Kings, the prophet Elijah defeats the priests of Baal in a contest of competing sacrifices to their respective gods. Elijah then commands his followers to kill the prophets of Baal.

Bullroarers in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. Source.

4. Bullroarers

For the first time in living memory the sacred bull-roarer was heard in broad daylight.

Bullroarers are interesting. They are a simple musical instrument that consists of a piece of wood attached to a string. When swung in a large circle, they produce a loud roaring sound like a helicopter blade. The low-frequency sound can be heard from miles away, making it a useful form of communication.

Bullroarers are one of the oldest musical instruments and have been used in many different societies, including the indigenous peoples of Australasia, Polynesia and North America. It is frequently used in rituals and ceremonies.

• More: The Bullroarer: An Instrument That Whirls Through Cultures and Time

• Watch: The bullroarer in action

Igbo mask in the Brooklyn Museum.

5. The unmasking

It seemed as if the very soul of the tribe wept for a great evil that was coming – its own death.

Encouraged by Reverend Smith’s apocalyptic rhetoric, Enoch starts a “holy war” within Umuofia that breaks the community apart, and ultimately destroys Okonkwo. I think Achebe does a brilliant job drawing us into the growing unease and terror felt on both sides.

At the centre of this story was the egwugwu, ancestor spirits inhabiting the bodies of village elders – or village elders masquerading as ancestor spirits. Both remain true even as Enoch unmasks an egwugwu. The masquerade is as fundamental to Igbo spiritual life as the church is to the Christian congregation. Had Okonkwo not been exiled, he would still be one of the egwugwu and play his part in the masquerade. As it is, he is pushed to the margins.

• Tangent: Things Fall Apart at the Seattle Art Museum

Unlike in Abame, there are at first no fatalities. But both sides strike at the symbolic heart of the other’s beliefs: unmaking an egwugwu and destroying a church. And both interpret these actions as violent: killing an ancestor and burning down a place of worship.

• Tangent: “Crime and Christianity are killing off our religious traditions.”

• Tangent: The Nigerian priest saving Igbo deities from the bonfires

6. Moon-play

It was the time of the full moon. But that night the voice of children was not heard. The village ilo where they always gathered for a moon-play was empty.

The moonlit night has followed us throughout this story. We were told early on that the people of Umuofia feared the darkness, except when the moon shone bright. At the end of Part Two, we were told:

When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.

The full moon gathering is called egwu onwa, the moon-play. In an age before electric lighting, it must have been a glorious escape from the heat of the day and the dangers of the night. The egwu onwa was an opportunity for children to gather, play and dance. But now, “Umuofia was like a startled animal with ears erect, sniffing the silent, ominous air and now knowing which way to run.”

• Footnote: Egwu Onwa, the Moonlight Activity in Ibusa

• Footnote: Egwu Onwa: The Igbo Culture of Playing Under Moonlight

7. A bad death

‘It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offence against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it.’

• Was Okonkwo’s death inevitable?

Okonkwo lived his life, “possessed by the fear of his father’s contemptible life and shameful death.” When he saw that Umuofia would not join him in fighting the white men, he knew he had no choice.

Uchendu had once told him that despite all his terrible losses, “I did not hang myself, and I am still alive.” But Okonkwo never learned how to fail. When his exile put him in Obierika’s debt, he couldn’t find a way to thank his friend:

   'I can tell you,' said Obierika. 'Kill one of your sons for me.'
   'That will not be enough,' said Okonkwo.
   'Then kill yourself,' said Obierika.

• Footnote: Suicide in African Cultures – The Igbo People of Nigeria

This is the worst end for Okonkwo. Throughout the book, his decisions have pushed him further and further from the centre of communal life. Now, his death cuts him away from the cycle of reincarnation and his link to his ancestors. It is a physical and spiritual death.

• Footnote: A cultural note on Okonkwo’s suicide

And yet his suicide leaves more questions than answers. Why did he commit suicide? Was it to avoid arrest or out of shame or despair for his community? Is this the death we expected from a courageous warrior who feared a “shameful death”?

• What do you think?

The lower Niger and its tribes by Major Arthur Glyn Leonard, 1906. A real-world analogue of Achebe’s imagined text “The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger” written by the District Commissioner.

8. A reasonable paragraph

The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter, but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate.

• How do you think the District Commissioner would write Okonkwo’s story in this paragraph?

In the final chapter, we abruptly change point of view to see the world through the eyes of the District Commissioner. From subject to object, all the rich life of Umuofia becomes dead and dry words in a colonial ethnography. Okonkwo is a footnote, a paragraph if he’s lucky.

• Read: “The Lower Niger and Its Tribes” by Major Arthur Glyn Leonard

• Read: “Among the Ibos of Nigeria, an account of the curious & interesting habits, customs, & beliefs of a little known African people by one who has for many years lived amongst them on close & intimate terms” by George Thomas Basden

In one interview, Achebe said:

There is that great proverb—that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. That did not come to me until much later. Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian. It’s not one man’s job. It’s not one person’s job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail—the bravery, even, of the lions.

After Okonkwo’s spiritual annihilation comes Umuofia’s death as a living culture that tells its own story. Umuofia is a fictional place, but Igboland was and is real. Achebe has used the historical novel to “reflect the agony, the travail—the bravery” of those who lived at a moment of great change, where everything had fallen apart.

9. Further discussion and analysis

Here are some recommendations for further discussion and analysis of Things Fall Apart. John Green’s two videos on Crash Course give a great overview of the book:

• Part One: If One Finger Brought Oil

• Part Two

Masood Raja provides a much more detailed discussion from a postcolonial perspective:

• Understanding Things Fall Apart with Masood Raja

And finally, there is also some excellent discussion over on Close Reads with David Kern et al:

• Things Fall Apart: Part One

• Things Fall Apart: Part Two & Three

10. Sequels

Things Fall Apart is the first novel in Achebe’s “African Trilogy”. No Longer At Ease follows the story of Okonkwo’s grandson, Obi Okonkwo, who is educated in the UK and finds himself culturally conflicted as he pursues a civil service career in colonial Nigeria. Like Things Fall Apart, the title alludes to a poem, T. S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi”:

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Arrow of God is set in the 1920s and tells the story of Ezeulu, a chief priest, resisting Christian missionaries and the colonial government.

• Has anyone read all three? What are your thoughts?

• And would you like us to do slow reads of the whole trilogy?

If you would like to know more about Chinua Achebe’s thinking in writing this trilogy, I recommend his essay “An Image of Africa” which you can read here.

11. Glossary

ozo A title and society held by some men within the community
ogene A gong
Akakanma An age group
chi A personal deity, destiny or fate
obi The main hut within a compound
ogwu Medicine, magic
kotma Pidgin English derived from the words court and messenger
Chukwu The supreme deity and creator
ikenga a carved wooden figure kept by every man in his shrine to symbolise his strength
ogbanje a child possessed by an evil spirit

Thank you

And thank you for reading and joining me on this slow read of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I hope you have enjoyed our journey and will join us for more slow reads in the future!

This slow read and book guide is free. If you have enjoyed it and found it helpful, please consider a paid subscription or a one-off donation to support Footnotes & Tangents. Thank you!

In the comments, let us know what caught your eye and ask the group any questions you may have. And if you’ve tumbled down a rabbit hole or taken your reading off on a tangent, please share where you have been and what you have found.

Until next time, I wish everyone happy and adventurous reading.

Simon