After reading Ong's book about Orality, and discussing the difficulty associated with writing about oral cultures through literate means, Achebe has tackled that mission head on. He writes Things Fall Apart, a book about an Nigerian clan, Umofia and Okonkwo. The Umofia are an oral culture, and Achebe takes on the task of describing their culture and the infiltration of colonized literate people. Okonkwo is a respected warrior in his clan, though he lives the shame of his father's life choices. The values of the Umofia people are shown not by the books on a bookshelf, but by what the clanspeople find important such as Okonkwo's son being lazy, or his father being a coward and poor with money.
In the book, Okonkwo fears that if the social standards are changed, his status in the society will be changed. The incoming Christian society values those who convert to Christianity over the warriors of the Umofia clan. There are others in the village who do not have the same fears that Okonkwo does. Though he sees his status as uber masculine, he is punished by the community for breaking the week of peace for beating his wife.
The Nigerian clans are heavily reliant on agriculture, and when Okonkwo is exiled his uncle Uchendu lends Yam seeds to help start his new life in a new village during his time away from Umofia.
I have read this book once before, but that was from an anthropological and women's studies standpoint. Reading this book again after reading Ong's book on Orality, really gives this book a different feel. I know from previous study that Achebe wrote the book in English to better show the colonial peoples what life in Africa was really like. Achebe tried to include some of the Umofia words into his writing to better illustrate the complexity of the language, and its useage.
No comments:
Post a Comment