Cultural Invasion and Its Aftermath: Textual Reading ofThings Fall Apart

Abstract

Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart establishes the perfect harmony of Nigerian Igbo culture in the first two-third of the text. The common tribal traditions like worship of gods, sacrifice, communal living, magic, leadership etc primarily cherished in the narrative, are contrasted to the creolization of native culture and disintegration prevailing in the society after the colonial invasion. Political invasion disguised in the form of missionaries bring about the total transformation in the society. Missionaries, as an agent of imperialism, give rise to the conflict in Igbo culture supporting the imperial policy of divide and rule. The Igbo contact with the white culture is so inexorable and insidious that it infects every strata of society- culture, religion and above all the psychology of the colonized. Gradually, the rift widens, brothers turn their back to one another and soon fathers and sons prove strangers to each other. Amid the anarchy and violence, the colonized natives are destined to suffer, to die. The death of the protagonist, Okonkwo, represents the larger Nigerian canvas and the subjugation of the natives in the hands of the colonizing power.