1. East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.
Rudyard Kipling
Assignment
Post-Colonialism
Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” as a
Specimen of Post-colonial Literature
A Post-
colonial
Interpretation of “Things Fall Apart”
Submitted by: Muhammad Raza
Submittes to: Sir Moonis Azaad

2. Subject: Critical Approaches to Literature
Course No:
Seat No: EP-111527 / Enrollment No: EP-17952
Date: June 8th
, 2015
I
What is Post-Colonialism
Post-colonialism is the study of the devastating effects of colonialism on cultures and
societies in the third world colonized countries.It explores the political, social, and
cultural effects of decolonization, continuing the anti-colonial challenge to western
dominance. Post-colonialism deals with the conflicts between ruler and subordinate,
mainstream and marginalized, oppressors and oppressed and, at the same time, celebrates
the suppressed "other," challenging the dominant culture and questioning concepts of
established authority. It probes into the effects of empire, raises the issues such as racism
and exploitation, assesses the position of colonial and post-colonial subject. It is also
concerned with both how European nations conquered and controlled the "Third World"
countries and how they have since responded to and resisted the culture of the colonized
nations. Post-colonialism also encompasses the political and cultural independence of
peoples formerly subjugated in colonial empires.
Post-colonialists believe that the colonizers (Europeans) imposed their own values onto

3. those colonized so that they were internalized. The colonizers imposed their language
and culture in India and Africa. The Caribbean were given the catholic religion and drew
the boundaries of Africa based on European politics rather than tribal interests. The
dogma established by colonizers that indigenous peoples were uncivilized, irrational,
promiscuous, savages and thus their culture was less important proved to be wrong. The
colonizers regarded the colonized as the “other” which implies the state of being other or
different; the political, cultural, linguistic, or religious other. This is called alterity. The
study of the ways in which one group makes themselves different from others.
However, to find and re-establish their lost national identity, history and literature, and to
define their relationship with the land and their former language was very challenging for
the colonized. The newly autonomous states have to combat with centuries of
maltreatment, complete disrespect and negation of the natives' values. They also have to
cope with the destruction caused by the colonizers’ culture which has alienated the
subjugated peoples from their own lands and created a gap between them (being
colonized)and their identity (before being colonized).
The colonial has left them in such a situation that when the colonizers left, newly
independent countries had to deal, not only with many economic and social issues, such
as poverty, self-esteem and education, but also with the aftermath of colonialism.
Post-colonialism was a political or cultural change which has gone and continues to go
through three broad stages: an awareness of the social, psychological, and cultural
inferiority enforced by being in a colonized state; the struggle for ethnic, cultural, and
political autonomy and a growing awareness of cultural overlap and hybridity. Hybridity
refers to a clash of identity due to multiple cultures. It is often used to refer to a process

4. of transculturation which occurs in colonial contact zones, but also extended to refer to a
variety of cultural exchanges. In a nut shell hybridity is a situation in which people have
multiple identities e.g. A child born to a Pak-Chinese couple in America will identically
be a hybrid child.
Post-colonial thought is a dream; the dream of a new form of humanism. Post-colonial
thinking aims to take the beast's skeleton apart, to flush out its favourite places of habitation. More
radically, it seeks to know what it is to live under the beast's regime, what kind of life it offers, and
what sort of death people die from. It shows that there is, in European colonial humanism, something
that has to be called unconscious self-hatred. Racism in general, and colonial racism in particular,
represent the transference of this self-hatred to the Other.
It is a thought of responsibility, responsibility in terms of the obligation to answer for
oneself, to be the guarantor of one's actions. The ethics underlying this thought of
responsibility is the future of the self in the memory of what one has been in another's
hands, the sufferings one has endured in captivity, when the law and the subject were
divided.
Post-colonialism discusses its importance as an historical condition, and as a means of
changing the way we think about the world. The key concepts and issues are considered,
with reference to particular cultural and historical examples, such as the status of
aboriginal people, cultural nomadism, and the Western feminism. The innovative fiction
and non-ficton of post-colonial writers like Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Chinua Achebe,
Jamaica Kincaid, Garcia Marquez and Salman Rushdie highlight the issues of the
colonized.
Edward Said’s “Orientalism” has been crucial to post-colonial studies and criticism. He

5. makes four major arguments in this book. (1) “accumulating and analyzing present-day
evidence of the cultures and psychologies of the Oriental East rather than emphasizing
past historical Oriental eras.” The assumptions that the West makes about Arabs
considering them irrational, anti-Western, menacing and dishonest. He explores how
these assumptions are constructed in opposition to what the West thinks about
themselves, and therefore defines this projected image of "Arabs" in the mind of
Westerners as the “other.” Said therefore calls for a new treatment of "the Orient" -
allowing for self-representation of authors belonging to the Orient rather than depending
on second hand representation. (2) dispelling the doctrine that Orientals are
sociologically unworthy of scholarly recognition and denouncing reliance on social
science's uninvestigated generalities of cultures and human anthropological
characteristics. (3) rejecting international policy relations that represent the Occidental
West as superior and rational while representing the Oriental East as deviant and inferior;
(4) eradication of binary facilitated domination by the powerful, rational, superior
Occident over the impotent, irrelevant, deviant and inferior Orient.
He objects to half the globe being labelled "the Orient". Orientalism helps us explore the
processes of constructing binary opposites and uncovering the values that cause these
opposites to come into being. The way of construction of binary opposites was civilised /
uncivilised, democracy / despotism, developed / undeveloped, liberated / repressed,
educated / ignorant. By doing so, Said calls for an removal between these boundaries and
lines that we construct and a more rational way of thinking.
East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. — Rudyard Kipling
II

6. Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” as a Specimen of Post-colonial Literature
A Post-colonial Interpretation of “Things Fall Apart”
For a long time the story of Africa was told through the words of European
writers that began to change in nineteen fifties as African countries achieved
independence and African writers began to tell their own stories.
In Things fall Apart, Chinua Achebe tackles the subject of colonialism fairly and
firmly. From the novel, it is visibly clear how colonialism affected people and how it
succeeded in pulling the people in different directions. Colonialism destroyed their
family relationships, friendships and also made tribes fight against themselves.
Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart in response to European novels that depicted
Africans as ill-mannered, inhumane, uncivilized, brutal, illiterate, promiscuous, short-
tempered, irrational, pugnacious cruel and savages who needed to be civilized and
enlightened by the Europeans. He has woven the traditions and language of his tribe, the
Igbo of Nigeria, alongwith their use of bad English in Things Fall Apart. He honestly
presents both the strengths and shortcomings of his people for example, Igbo festivals,
the worship of their gods and the practices in their ritual ceremonies, their rich culture
and other social practices. The colonial era that was both impeding Igbo culture. Things
Fall Apart therefore directs the misleading of European novels that depict Africans as
savages into a whole new light with its portrayal of Igbo society, and examines the effects
of European colonialism on Igbo society from a native African perspective.
Though colonialism can be viewed as a bad influence that has completely
destroyed the traditions and culture of the Igbo tribe, it can also be seen as having some
good effects since it helped remove the cultural violence that was practiced. This

7. included acts like punishment for crimes, and ritual sacrifices that were viewed normal
by the communities but were seen as inhumane by the missionaries. Achebe views the
novel as an exercise in self discovery which is an important topic in post-colonialism. He
holds the view that an African can determine and establish his identity only by exploring
and rediscovering his roots. This self defining nature of the novel is singularly important
to post-colonial writers who are dealing the issue of hybridity due to the destruction of
their traditional values and cultural identity.
In the first part of the novel Achebe discusses various ceremonies of the tribe.
From the very beginning of the first part, Okonkwo's place in the Igbo society is
highlighted. Things Fall Apart describes Okonkwo's rise and fall. It is Okonkwo's will,
determination and boldness which take him to the rank of one of the lords of the clan. He
is a prosperous man, one who is acclaimed by the nine villages (nine villages and even
beyond) as a great warrior. His greatest achievement at the age of eighteen was 'throwing
Amalinze the Cat.' Amalinze, the great Wrestler was called the cat because his back
would never touch the earth. But Okonkwo threw the cat at last. It was said that
Okonkwo never used his words, when he was angry he used his fists instead. His father
Masculinity is one of Okonkwo's obsessions, and he defines masculinity quite narrowly.
For him, any kind of tenderness is a sign of weakness and effeminacy. Male power lies in
authority and brute force. But throughout the novel, we are shown men with more
sophisticated understanding of masculinity. Okonkwo's harshness drives Nwoye
(Okonkwo’s eldest son) away from the family and into the arms of the new religion.
Another reason for Okonkwo’s fall is his lack of regard for ‘feminine’ balance in his
masculinity. Throughout the novel it is seen that Okonkwo disregards feminine qualities,

8. with this it can be said that this suppression of feminine qualities lead to Okonkwo’s
destruction. He has the intense fear of becoming like his father Unoka, who was lazy and
idle.
Okonkwo was not happy in Mbanta when he was exiled for killing a clansman
which was a crime against the earth goddess. Okonkwo gathered his most valuable
belongings and took his family to his mother's native village, Mbanta. He regretted
everyday of his exile. He wanted to give a feast to his mother's kinsmen. The reason for
giving the feast was explained by him : "My mother's people have been good to me and I
must show my gratitude."
In the third part of the novel Okonkwo returned to his fatherland Umuofia after
seven years of exile. Umuofia had changed during this time. There were churches now.
Okonkwo's return to Umuofia was not as memorable as he had wished. The village was
completely changed. He was deeply hurt to see the clan breaking up and falling apart.
Okonkwo was very angry to see his village changing. Okonkwo killed one of the District
Commissioner's Court messengers who came to stop the meeting. Okonkwo knew that
Umuofia would not go to war. Okonkwo came to know that he was alone, indeed, things
fall apart for Okonkwo and he committed suicide.
The novel depicts the rise and fall of Okonkwo. At the beginning of the novel he
rises to the great height, but at the end of the novel he prefers to die than to accept the
attack on his own Igbo tradition. At the end of the novel Obierika blamed the District
Commissioner : ‘That man was one of the greatest man in Umuofia. You drove him to
kill himself; And now he will be buried like a dog.’ What matters most about Things Fall
Apart in particular, is the fact that they provide a fruitful context for the creation of the

9. postcolonial trends emerging at the centre of the twenty first century.
From a post-colonial perspective, Things Fall Apart uses the English language in a
rich and complex way to give authentic voice and cultural value to what would have
traditionally been seen from a European perspective as a primitive culture. This can be
seen during the District Commissioners response to Okonkwo’s death; “The story of this
man who killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading—the
title of the book: The pacification of the primitive tribes of lower Niger.” One would say
that Okonkwo’s fall is partly due to colonisation along with his own lack of balance in
his personality.
CONCLUSION
Towards the end of the novel, we witness the events by which Igbo society
begins to fall apart. Religion is threatened, Umuofia loses its self-determination, and the
very centers of tribal life are threatened. These events are all the more painful for the
reader because so much time has been spent in sympathetic description of Igbo life; In
terms of religion, culture and traditional practices, colonialism completely changed the
people’s practices, which in turn led to other people rebelling. It is, nevertheless,
important not to lose one’s sense of identity in the process of change and still maintain
the culture and traditions while embracing modernity.
Words Counted: 2344
The End!

10. postcolonial trends emerging at the centre of the twenty first century.
From a post-colonial perspective, Things Fall Apart uses the English language in a
rich and complex way to give authentic voice and cultural value to what would have
traditionally been seen from a European perspective as a primitive culture. This can be
seen during the District Commissioners response to Okonkwo’s death; “The story of this
man who killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading—the
title of the book: The pacification of the primitive tribes of lower Niger.” One would say
that Okonkwo’s fall is partly due to colonisation along with his own lack of balance in
his personality.
CONCLUSION
Towards the end of the novel, we witness the events by which Igbo society
begins to fall apart. Religion is threatened, Umuofia loses its self-determination, and the
very centers of tribal life are threatened. These events are all the more painful for the
reader because so much time has been spent in sympathetic description of Igbo life; In
terms of religion, culture and traditional practices, colonialism completely changed the
people’s practices, which in turn led to other people rebelling. It is, nevertheless,
important not to lose one’s sense of identity in the process of change and still maintain
the culture and traditions while embracing modernity.
Words Counted: 2344
The End!