AS A TRAGEDY

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a tragedy of an individual as well as the

society. The protagonist of the novel, Okonko who was rich and respectable at the
beginning of the novel meets a tragic fate at the end of the novel. When he suffers,
his whole tribe also suffers. At the beginning of the novel, the Ibo society was a
peaceful, organic society, but at the end of the novel it falls into pieces. Thus the
novel records not only the sufferings of Okonko but also his whole society.
At the beginning of the play we see Okonko as a prosperous leader of the Ibo people.
However, the novel ends with his tragic end. Thus, we can say that the novel Things
fall apart is a depiction of Okonkos tragic fall. Okonko was definitely a man of
importance for his society. He was a well known person throughout the 9 villages
and beyond. He was a warrior ad wrestler who gained respect through his athletics.
He was a fierce-free individual. He hadnt lost one fight or any battles. And for this,
the people of the village loved him. He was also respected because of his wealth.
Okonko had three wives and many children. He was able to take care of his wives
and children. Suddenly a disaster takes place in his life. He unconsciously kills the
son of a man who had warned him not to kill Ikemefune. Although the killing was an
accident, Okonko and his family are forced before nightfall to flee to his distant
native village to Manta. When they are gone, his compound and his possessions are
destroyed by his fellow tribesmen in a ritual cleansing and purification of his sin.
When Okonko came back to his village, he found that everything had changed. After
the clansman burn the Church building down, the District Commissioner asks the
leaders of the clan, Okonko among them, to go and see him for a peaceful meeting.
The leaders arrive, and are quickly seized. While they are in detention waiting for
the fine to be collected from their people, they are beaten severely by the court
messengers and their heads shaved. They are held in jail until the clan pays a heavy
fine.
Embittered and grieving for the destruction of his clans independence, and fearing
the humiliation of dying under white law, Okonko ends his life. The District
Commissioner and his messengers arrive at Umuofia to find Okonko has hanged
himself. They are asked to take down his body, since Ibo mores forbid clan members
to touch it, as suicide is regarded as an act of weakness and as attack against
nature.
Like Okonko his Ibo society also meets a tragic fate. In the first part of the book, we
see a socially, politically and religiously organic Ibo society. But this organic society
becomes divided and virtually loses all energy at the end of the book.
At the beginning of the book we see that the Ibo people have a strong faith in their
traditional religion. The religion of the Ibos consisted in the belief that there is a
supreme God, the creator of the universe and the lesser gods. The supreme God was
called Chukwu. The other gods were made by Chukwu to act his messengers so that
people could approach Him through them. People made sacrifices to the smaller
gods, but when they failed, the people turned to Chukwu. Ancestor worship was also
an equally important feature of the religion of the Ibo people. There were many
superstitious ideas related to their religious belief. They believed in evil spirits and
oracle. One of such Oracles is responsible for Okonkos sacrifice of Ikemefuna. This
incident underlines the superstitious brutality of traditional Ibo society. Thus we find
a very strong and extremely detailed picture of Ibo life society prior to the arrival of
the white man.
Later the Christianity, the colonial religion, mostly replaces the traditional religion.
When the white man arrives, however, he ignores the Ibos values and tries to
enforce his own beliefs and religious practices. Missionaries would convince these
tribesmen that their tribe worshipped false gods and that its false gods did not have
the ability to punish them if they chose to join the mission. Like many others,
Okonkos son is also affected by the colonial religion.
Prior to the arrival of the white the political life of the Ibo people was also very
organic and strong. They were very loyal to their political leaders. The colonial
politics affects the Ibo society. Okonkos life is also affected by the colonial politics.
The Ibo people become the victims of the colonial politics and many people die as a
result of colonialism.
When conflicts came up between villages, the white
government would intervene instead of allowing villagers to settle them themselves.
In the novel when the white mans government has come to Umuofia, the clan is no
longer free to judge its own; a district commissioner, backed by armed power,
judges cases in ignorance of tribal customs.
Things Fall Apart chronicles the double tragedies of the deaths of Okonkwo, a
revered warrior, and the Ibo, the tribe to which Okonkwo belongs. In literature,
tragedy often describes the downfall of a great individual which is caused by a flaw
in the person's character. Okonkwo's personal flaw is his unreasonable anger, and
his tragedy occurs when the tribe bans him for accidentally killing a young
tribesman, and he returns to find a tribe that has changed beyond recognition. The
Ibo's public demise results from the destruction of one culture by another, but their
tragedy is caused by their turning away from their tribal gods.
The title also indicates that Things Fall Apart is a tragedy. It tells the story of an
African clan being invaded by outsiders and falling to pieces. The novel also tells the
story of Okonkwo, a man of wealth and status who nonetheless has a tragic flaw
fear of being perceived as weak which leads him to make many poor life decisions.

Eventually sent into exile, our protagonist is not in his home village when the
outsiders white missionaries first arrive. Thus he is not able to save his people
during the early stages of danger. In the end, because of his lack of the ability to
save his tribe, a shame for him indeed, Okonkwo kills himself. As stated by his best
friend, Okonkwos death is tragic because white men drove a good man to kill
himself. Okonkwos personal failings might also have had a hand in it.

From its very title, Things Fall Apart foreshadows the tragedy which the novel
depicts. The novel documents the falling apart of the Igbo tribe due to the coming of
the Christian missionaries and the rule of the English government. The only point in
the book in which the title is referenced is Chapter Twenty, when the main character,
Okonkwo, and his friend, Obierika, are discussing the invasion of white men into
their community. Obierika says, 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. This
passage clearly ties the destruction of the Igbo peoples way of life to sneaky,
divisive action on the part of European missionaries and imperialists.
A tragedy is defined as a story where the protagonist is unsuccessful. At the end of
"Things Fall Apart", the protagonist, Okwonkwo kills himself because he cannot
adapt to the changes in the Igbo people. He resents Christianity and the white man.
However, in death, Okwonkwo becomes a hero and actually brings back some of the
traditional Igbo ways. They will not bury his body because he commited suicide and
they make sacrifices to cleanse the land desecrated by the suicide. His friend,
Obierika exclaims that Okwonkwo was one of the greatest men of his tribe and it
was the white man who drove him to kill himself. So, by killing himself, Okwonkwo
brings back some of his people's traditions and makes them aware of the dark side
of the white people. Okwonkwo is a tragic figure but his death brings back the very
things he died for.
A strain of criticism developed around the relations between Things Fall Apart and
Aristotelian or Greek tragedy. While investigating the novels structure, plot, and
characters, critics began debating whether Okonkwo can be called a classical tragic
hero. In Greek tragedy, the tragic hero is a noble character who tries to achieve
some much-desired goal but encounters obstacles. He often possesses some kind of
tragic flaw, and his downfall is usually brought about through some combination of
hubris, fate, and the will of the gods.
One of the earliest articles on this theme is Abiola Ireles The Tragic Conflict in the
Novels of Chinua Achebe (1967), in which Irele asserts, Things Fall Apart turns out
to present the whole tragic drama of a society vividly and concretely enacted in the
tragic destiny of a representative individual . This idea grew popular during the
1970s and 1980s and has endured as a typical way of defining Okonkwos
charactereven the back cover of the 1994 Anchor edition of the novel claims that it
is often compared to the great Greek tragedies.
David Cook, in African Literature: A Critical View, which contains an important early
formalist study of Things Fall Apart, provides a close reading of Okonkwo, claiming,
If Things Fall Apart is to be regarded as epic, then Okonkwo is essentially heroic.
Both propositions are tenable(reasonable) . He closely examines Okonkwos
actions, and, although Cook believes Okonkwo is similar, he concludes: Okonkwo is
unlike the prototype epic heroes of Homer and Virgil in one very important respect
which has to do with circumstances rather than character. He is not a founding
figure in the fabled history of his people, but the very reverse.
Harold Bloom does not consider the novel a traditional Greek tragedy, but he does
compare Okonkwo to Shakespeares Coriolanus, concluding in his introduction to his
Modern Critical Interpretations volume on Things Fall Apart, If Coriolanus is a
tragedy, then so is Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo, like the Roman hero, is essentially a
solitary, and at heart a perpetual child. His tragedy stands apart from the condition
of his people, even though it is generated by their pragmatic refusal of heroic death
.