A Man’s World: A Response to Things Fall Apart

A Man’s World:

A Response to Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart and “The Second Coming”

William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” is an appropriate parallel to Chinua Achebe’s book Things Fall Apart.  The speaker of the poem represents a member of the conquered tribe (a tribesman much like Okonkwo). The title of the poem alludes to the Biblical prophecy of the end of the world. Achebe’s book describes the end of the world as Nigeria knew it.  The line “turning and turning in the widening gyre” (line 1) can be interpreted as a description of the process of globalization in Nigeria. A gyre’s thin point denotes the tribes, isolate in their own world before the conquest, but as the world turns with its natural cycles, that world is widened, as the imagery of a gyre demonstrates; because of this turning, “things fall apart. The centre cannot hold” (3).  The world that Okonkwo’s tribe knows cannot remain the same. His world is inevitably shattered by colonialism.  “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” (4) because the tribespeople must break their own values (of peace, for example) in order to maintain them. The poem’s lines, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst/ are full of passionate intensity” (7-8) accurately describe the reaction of the tribe during their conquest.  The “best lack all conviction” (7) was the way Okonkwo felt the powerful tribesmen were reacting to the Christian influence. He thought they were being passive and had no strength to defend

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their tribe.   “The worst/ are full of passionate intensity” (7-8) describes the way the outcasts of the tribe defended and loved Christianity because, unlike before, they were now accepted and embraced.  These “worsts” were the ones with most Christian zeal.  The second section of the poem gets more intense as the damage of this conquest becomes more apparent.  “A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun” (15) describes the tribe’s confusion and fear of what they do not know. It voices the feelings of Okonkwo as he senses upon his return to his fatherland that something is about to happen. The line “the darkness drops again; but now I know” (18) shows that the speaker now understands just how gone his world is. “Twenty centuries of stony sleep”  (19), meaning all the generations of Okonkwo’s peaceful world are turned into a “nightmare by a rocking cradle” (20). The “rocking cradle” is the Christianity that challenges, not only Okonkwo’s tribal cultures and traditions, but also “rock” the internal issues he personally struggles with, like his ideas of manhood and self-worth. The lines “And what rough beast…/ slouches toward Bethlehem to be born” (21-22) are ironic because as the “beast,” symbolic of the conquest, is born, Okonkwo dies, first figuratively, then literally.

Challenges to Okonkwo’s Belief System

There are many events that illustrate challenges to Okonkwo’s personal belief system.  Throughout the book, many events challenge his beliefs about the inferiority of womanhood and his definition of manhood. When an oracle decides that Okonkwo’s adopted son, Ikemefuna, should die to restore justice, a wise man, Ezedue, advises Okonkwo to have nothing to do with the death of the boy who calls him father. Okonkwo was never asked to be the one to kill him, but because of his fear to be seen as weak, he kills

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his adopted son himself.  The belief that Okonkwo holds is that a man should not be afraid to kill, as violence, aggression, and lack of affection defines masculinity. He is challenged with the idea that manhood can also be defined by loyalty and love.  Okonkwo reacts to this idea by rejecting it and going into a deep depression.  His actions caused the death of his adopted son as well as the death of the relationship between him and his other son, Obierika (who grew to love Ikemefuna deeply), which speeds the dissolution of their relationship. The same challenge is presented when Chielo takes Okonkwo’s favorite child to be offered to the goddess.  His belief that affection and love are a womanly weakness is at odds with his feelings and his reaction to the threat of losing his daughter and seeing his wife in pain.   Instead of feeling indifferent, as Okonkwo might think is the proper reaction for a man, he feels deep concern and follows his wife in her pursuit of her daughter.  This event offers a special opportunity of bonding between him and his wife, as he finds great comfort in that affection.  The challenge presented again is that even the strongest of men can feel love. He also experiences and enjoys the warmth and goodness of his wife as well as her determination, strength, and protection, suggesting that women are not as worthless as he might believe. He is presented with this idea again when he returns to his motherland after being exiled from his tribe because of his accidental killing of Ezedue’s son. He reacts to this struggle once more with a deep depression and disappointment. He shows contempt to the land of her mother. A return to his motherland would symbolize the return to the safety found in a woman, but Okonkwo never embraces that return.  Okonkwo’s uncle tells him:

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It is true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet.  But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you (Achebe 138-139).

 Okwonko is encouraged to find that comfort in his motherland (in womanhood) and enjoy the good that femininity can offer. His reaction is to ignore this wisdom and continue with his contempt toward his motherland and toward women.  He is never able to embrace these ideas about manhood and the value of women and dies in despair and discontentment, with a sense of powerlessness that leads him to his grave.   

Another important belief that Okonkwo holds is challenged throughout the book. He believes that his high position in his tribe is what gives him value as a person, and that as long as he maintains it, he feels in control of his own life and his family, but when he accidentally kills Ezedue’s son, a member of the tribe, he is driven out for seven years to his motherland.  Everything he has worked for is lost in the blink of an eye.  He reacts by falling into depression because he does not have the energy to begin from scratch as he had done in his youth. He is encouraged by life’s circumstances to embrace his worth for being a human being, not by his accomplishments and titles.  His need to feel in control over his life comes from his belief that that control gives a man worth. This is challenged when his son, Nwoye, rejects the traditions of his people and converts to Christianity, abandoning his upbringing completely. Okonkwo had believed that, despite his past disappointments, his son could still become a great clansmen. When Nwoye rejects this, Okonkwo denies his son

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and diminishes his manhood, hence his worth. Upon his return to the fatherland, he feels the same way toward the men who, according to him, are passively accepting the Christian conquer. Their peaceful reactions make them seem weak and his belief that the Umofia tribesmen should do anything, even if it takes violence, to avoid being conquered is tested.  Should the Umofia people go against their values in order to preserve them? He reacts to that challenge by breaking those peaceful values. He begins to foster a hatred and defensiveness toward the Christians.  It is because of his personal belief system that a man's value comes from his high positions and accomplishments that he rejects the Christians with a special passion. If Christianity is accepted, not only does he lose any justification he held for killing his adopted son, he also loses the high position amongst the tribe.  If all men are valuable, as the church seems to believe when they accept and embrace the tribe’s “undesirables” and men with no titles, then he is nothing special. His worth as a man is gone. An analysis of the book summarizes this dynamic: 

Moreover, men of high status like Okonkwo view the church as a threat because it undermines the cultural value of their accomplishments. Their titles and their positions as religious authorities and clan leaders lose force and prestige if men of lower status are not there—the great cannot be measured against the worthless if the worthless have disappeared (Sparknotes).

If Okonkwo thinks that his personal value comes from his high position, then the church’s idea that all humans have value simply by being human poses a big threat to his belief system.  This threat is apparent when Okonkwo’s return did not ignite the excitement he expected. He thought his return would be celebrated and exalted and that he might even

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take the highest title, but as the Christian leader, Mr. Brown, fosters a message of equality, the rejection of titles and the acceptance of the undesirables, his view of power is challenged by a feeling of impotence. The church is a threat for him, not only because of the loss of the tribe’s values, but because he feels it is robbing him of the glory he is due. The final blow for him is the humiliation of Reverend Smith to all the respected elders of the clan. He reacts by rejecting the notion that humans have inherent value regardless of accomplishments by killing himself. It is this feeling of impotence and powerlessness that never leaves him that ultimately drives him to commit suicide.

Progress in Things Fall Apart

A prominent theme in Things Fall Apart is the idea of progress.  This book fosters an ideal for progress in many areas that are relevant, not only in Nigeria then, but also in America now.  The book favors the respect and value of all human life. While the church made many mistakes, there are things they did which the author seems to praise. The tribe’s religious ideas made them afraid of twins. They responded by discarding them at birth and throwing them in a forest to die alone.  The church challenged their beliefs by rescuing those babies and raising them.  The tribesmen also valued accomplished men of high titles but rejected and ostracized men they considered lazy or worthless. They valued some people and rejected others, while the church accepted anyone, including the most despicable rejects. The tribesmen did many things that undermined the intrinsic value of humans.  This caused them to treat women disrespectfully, often in abusive ways, and to see them as unimportant. They were not considered equal to men and did not have the same rights because they were seen as weak. The Christians also came in with a

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misunderstanding of human value, as they undermined the achievements of the tribes and disrespected their culture, especially Reverend Smith. He sought to abolish all of their traditions as if they had no value, and came to the tribe with a feeling of superiority because of his ethnicity.  The book encourages the reader to look at human life for its intrinsic value and to disregard gender, economic status, ethnicity, and personal achievements as measurements of value.  Through this respect for life, the book encourages progress in the area of gender equality and highlights a need for understanding and respect of other cultures. 

The book also touches on the importance of education in a globalized world, as when Reverend Brown encourages the tribeschildren to learn to read and write because he knew they would be unable to defend themselves as the world globalized. This praising of education was also emphasized in the folktale of the tortoise and the birds when the tortoise, symbolic of the White colonialists, took advantage of the birds, representing the tribes. To defend themselves, the birds appointed the parrot to translate between the tortoise and his wife and tricked him into self-destruction. The parrot symbolizes an educated tribesman, and the story touches on the importance of education. 

My Interpretation of the End

I interpreted the ending as having to do more with Okonkwo’s internal struggles than with what was happening in outward circumstances. He displays feelings of impotence and powerlessness throughout the book. His suicide at the end is the culmination of those feelings of powerlessness and years of depression, emotional disattachment, resentment, and his inability to foster close relationships. So strong was his

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belief that his manliness and power to control his own life were attributes of self-worth, that he was more willing to die by his own hand than to be conquered and seen as feminine. He was never able to adapt his belief system to the circumstance that gave him many opportunities to see himself as he truly was: a valuable, important human being who deserved love and respect regardless of his failures or accomplishments.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. USA: Haddon Craftsmen, 1959.

Sparknotes LLC. Sparknotes Things Fall Apart. 2012. 21 Feb. 2012. 

Yeats, William Butler. “The Second Coming.” Michael Meyer. Poetry- An Introduction. 6th

ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. 655.

 Copyright Benderas (2013)