Resumo de Things Fall Apart

This novel had been written by the celebrated African author Chinua Achebe way back in 1958.The title of the novel has been excerpted from W.B.Yeats?s famous poem,THE SECOND COMING where he says, ?Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer/Things fall apart;the centre cannot hold/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.?This is the story of Okonkwo, the famous brawny ,courageous tribal leader of Umuofia. His valour was a well-known trait of his charactert from Umuofia to Mbaino. He threw Amalinze the wrestler and won a honourable title at the age of eighteen. As his father,Unoka, was somewhat indolent and failed to win any title, Okonkwo made it a point to earn titles if nothing at all in his life.These African tribes had a charter of norms, superstitions, strong beliefs and wrong notions. They believed in Oracle like Agbala,Yam, the king of crops, and other chi.The African tribes had such strong popular beliefs that superceded the levels of mere superstitions even?they believed that a child who dies an unnatural death has to be sacrificed to the god of the forestsand stamped as Ogbanje and if a man committed suicide he had to be buried by strangers, his corpse could not be touched by the men of his clan by any means. That was why, Ikemefuna stayed with Okonkwo for three years before he had been hacked to death by the enemy clan, as had been decided before, as a retaliation against losing their man to Okonkwo?s clan. Okonkwo, himself had to go on exile for seven years to Mbanta for some peccadillo he might have had as pointed by Obierika and his men. His maternal uncles and members of his mother?s family used to stay there and hence he faced no such serious problem in putting up an improvised obithere and stay put with his wives and children. But everything went topsy-turvied when the Christians came to preach to their land. Okonkwo and other reactionary fellows could not accept them at all, while his own son Nwoye got carried away by their preaching and thought of conversion. ?It was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him .He did not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion ,something felt in the marrow.?The preachers also sought for a piece of land they could have had their church built on. The elders of the community decidd together to give away a portion of the Evil Forest ?an accursed land to them. They had in mind that their egwugwu must drive these evil men from their land. However, an undercurrent of tension ran between the clansmen and the Christian preachers. They believed, ?the white men had indeed brought a lunatic religion .?Kiaga, Mr. Brown were followed by Reverend James Smith who had a militant bent of mind. Constant altercations went on between Mr. Smith and the tribals. Thye asked him toleave them to their own religious beliefs.?Mr Smith stood his ground. But he could not save his church.? Clouds of omen hovered on this issue of the destruction of the Church as the District Commissioner meddled. The noblemen of Umuofia ,including Okonkwo had been held in the lock-up and humiliated. Being unable to put up with the constantly demeaning insult, Okonkwo hacked the Messenger of the Commissioner to death. The Meeting was being deliberately dissolved by the Messenger. Hence Okonkwo got flung to fury. Just after the act, Okonkwo hanged himself from a tree to escape immediate arrest by the Commissioner?s men. Surprisingly enough, his own men declined to bury him. However ,Obierika exclaimed, ?That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself ;and now he will be buried like a dog..?The Commissioner in his deper within resolved to write a book entitled, ?The Purification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.?He would write on Okonkwo mainly. The book brings forth controversial issues like racial conflict and primitive nature of the African clans at the time of changing culture and civilization to the fore. A must read for all who are interested in the changing faces of culture in Africa.. Dr. Ketaki Datta

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