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Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe - Episode 3 - Religion, Gender Issues, The Importance Of Balance And Chapter 13 - The Heart Of The Book! I’m Christy Shriver and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us. I’m Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast. This is our third episode in our four part series on Chinua Achebe’s stunningly complex little novel, Things Fall Apart. In episode one, we looked at Nigeria the country itself, the historical context of the book, Achebe’s life, and also the poem Achebe used for the title of his book. In episode two, we got into a couple of the cultural features Achebe highlights in part one of the book as well as begin discussing chapters 1-7. We are quick to notice that although, this is a story about a man, a very relatable man, that could be from anywhere and struggles with issues that plague us all, Achebe situates him in a cultural context that is uniquely Igbo. So, who are the Igbo? What do they value? These are things we learn organically as we read the story. But this week, as we look at getting through the rest of part one as well as most of part two of the novel, the word I want to highlight is the word complex because like every other great piece of art, when you first engage this book you don’t understand the art of it. This story feels natural, almost simple- the artist in Achebe makes the story feel easy and natural; what we don’t realize is how intentional and complicated all that is to do. It kind of reminds me of Swedish Rock. Are you really going to compare Achebe to Swedish Rock. I am, so disclosure- Christy and I watched this Netflix series called This is Pop. I’m a musician, although not a famous one, but I love learning the stories of great music. Anyway, what the host Jay McCarrol talks about, in this particular episode, one of your favorite bands- Christy-Abba. And it’s a phenomenon-= how does this little band from a little country change the musical landscape for millions around the entire globe..and actually it’s more than just Abba. Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and *NSYNC would all be obsolete without the work of Swedes Denniz Pop and Max Martin. But here’s the connection, when you listen to a song like “Waterloo”- it feels simple and easy. The listener just thinks, ohh I really like that. It stands out- why, out of thousands of songs- do some stand out? And how do the same writers do that over and over again? How do they do it? What does Max Martin know that the rest of us don’t. He’s got some trick up his sleeve. So does Achebe? How does his book stand out? Ha! Fair enough, of course, you had me at Abba, and today what we are going to talk about, among other things, some of the fascinating tricks, if you want to call them that or techniques, Achebe uses to make that human connection with all of us. And I think structure is a great place to start because it’s something that often flies under the radar- but the structure of this novel is very deliberate. Last episode we ended by reading the end of chapter 7 of the novel, one of the most important chapters of the book. It’s emotional; it’s important in terms of plot development. It’s important in terms of character development, but let’s notice where it’s placed. There are 13 chapters in part one- and chapter 7 is at the slap dab middle six chapters before- six chapters after. It’s at the heart of the first section. When we get to chapter 13 we see another big plot point. It’s the end of the first section, but it’s also the very middle point of the book- the book has 25 chapters- there are twelve before chapter 13 and 12 after it. It’s the heart of the entire book, and it is where we see Okonkwo commit a feminine crime, an accidental murder and is forced to flee. Why is an accidental murder at the heart of the book? What about this event takes us to one of the most important themes of this entire book? Why is so much attention drawn to the fact that this is a feminine crime? What does crime even have gender? Why is there such a thing as a masculine and femine crime? Achebe, of course, when asked a similar question answered using an Igbo parable- “Wherever Something stands. Something Else will stand beside it.” The idea that life is not one thing- life is duality. This duality applies to everything not just issues of gender- but gender issues may help us understand dualities- but it’s application as it pertains to issues of gender is of central importance and a focus in this book. Achebe draws particular attention to man’s need for balance between the male and female principles. He highlights through Okonkwo’s extremism the difficulty all of us have- in one way or another-in finding this balance- being okay with who we are- and to support this theme- Achebe has created balance in the very physical aspect of the how the book is laid out. Just one of those cool things- structure supporting meaning. It’s one of those subtle things artists do that we don’t notice. Another subtle thing that Achebe has done in this book that fascinates me is how he has blended African oral traditions into the genre of a novel which is something of a Western writing style. I should add, by way of being totally honest that it is a misconception about Africa to think that African literature is entirely oral. The truth is Arabic writing of Northern Africa is over 5000 years old- some of the oldest writing on the planet. However, oral literature does have an important role in Africa and in Things Fall Apart, we understand why this matters and how oral traditions enrich and stabilize a society. I’m glad you mentioned other African traditions, because that reminds me, I don’t want to give the impression that Achebe was the first modern African novelist ever, and there didn’t exist other African novels before his because that is not true at all. There are other writers before Achebe that had written African novels- a famous one among them is Amos Tutuola’s book The Palm Wine Drunkard- But Achebe’s book stood out at the time and has stood the test of time because of its popularity and impact on how the world sees Africa. It focuses on the colonial issues, the native cultures as well as the unifying idea of our human simultaneously- and people really just identified with it. It had a very large commercial impact, but also a larger cultural imprint than any of the previous books. And I wanted to clear that up if I’d given a wrong impression. Okay, let’s get into some culture, religion and gender issues. Oh my- way to stay away from anything controversial there- well, before we get into that, I wanted to make one more comment about structure and how it relates to colonialism that to me is really genius. As you pointed out, one way Achebe blends African oral traditions with Western traditions is by intertwining myths and proverbs organically into the text throughout the story. There are 27 proverbs. However, what’s interesting is that they are not dispersed equally. Most of these are from the first part of the story and the last chapter has no proverbs at all. The role of myths and proverbs steadily decreases over the course of the story- what an amazing design element. Just as the Igbo get slowly colonized almost without noticing, the book itself gets colonized- the reader is getting colonized. The latter parts of the book heavily quote from the Bible and the myths slowly slip away- just an interesting observation of technique. For sure- super-interesting and something to notice as we read through. When we left off, Okonkwo had just killed Ikemefuna. In chapter 8, he’s drinking booze from dawn to dusk and not eating food. He can’t sleep and doesn’t eat until Ezinma, his daughter who he is constantly lamenting isn’t a boy, sits there and makes him eat. Okonkwo actually chides himself saying, “When did you become a shivering old woman, you who are known in all the nine villages for your valor in war? How can a man who has killed five men in battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.” To which I would add, you most certainly have not- I would say most women wouldn’t have killed Ikemefuna- Well, there’s a comment- I would argue most men wouldn’t either. You’re probably right- I feel my personal biases creeping in there- but I draw attention to these comments because all of this gender talk really has upset a lot of women over the years and has gotten Achebe called a chauvinist on more than occasion by more than one feminist critic. But, and I know this is going to sound surprising coming from me who has raged at more than one male artist for chauvinism over the years, but I don’t see this text that way at all. It’s clear that Okonkwo is obsessed with gender and is a chauvinist- and of course, there is chauvinism inherent in Igbo culture as well as all other cultures that I know anything about- but Achebe, the artist, is not endorsing this. He’s exposing the weakness inherent with obsession with gender. And I might add, obsessing with gender is NOT just a problem in Igbo culture, I would argue that the world has never been more obsessed with gender than the Western world is at this current moment. Which for me, makes Achebe’s ideas extremely interesting for us to consider today. Yes- it’s something that literature always does, it allows us to consider sensitive topics that many of can’t talk without getting too emotional but somehow in the context of the past it a feels safe and non-threatening. We can consider more than our own insecure point of view. Well, let’s see if that works as we talk about gender in the context of the the Igbo worldview as well as issues of faith and religion because in many cases those two issues overlap for all of us. Garry, how is pantheon of the Igbo gods organized and how do gender roles tie into that? Great starting point, so let’s revisit this idea of balance. Now, I know we’re going to credit the Igbo worldview for this idea, but I want to, and this is something that came up with Tolkien and Christianity, we don’t want to say that the Ibgo people are the only people that believe in balance, or that the Igbo faith tradition is the only faith tradition where this value is central because that’s not true. But it is where Achebe gets his values so as we reference the context of balance, we are going to reference it as an expression of Igbo religious thought. The Igbo caution against excesses in all aspects and promote balance in equilibrium in all things- like the proverb you just quoted- “Wherever Something stands. Something Else will stand beside it.” This proverb comes up a lot when you read things about the Igbo. Every person, every community, if they are to function without chaos, must have an equilibrium between male and female qualities. Now, I know we could go down a rabbit trail on what constitutes male and female qualities and which ones are better than the other ones- but that really is irrelevant to what we want to do- so setting that aside- we will accept what are the male and what are the female qualities as they are accepted for the Igbo- So for the Igbo- the idea of war must be set precisely next to the idea of peace- with equal value. The idea of force must be entirely balanced with the idea of grace, so forth and so on. What we must understand that in the Igbo societies, even in pre-colonial days, women had self-expression and power- it was just not exactly the same as the male version of these two things. I know we don’t have time to talk about it here, but historically, in 1929, there was even a Women’s War where women all over the country cooperated politically. One thing to see as we move through the story, although women had limited rights in their husband’s homeland, they never lost power in their own homeland- that’s important. Women always maintained a voice in their natal lands and could come and go as they wished- let me point out that women have not always had this power in many other more “progressive” cultures- so the social institutions themselves have an inherent balance of power between male and female- just like the proverb- Wherever Something stands. Something Else will stand beside it. When we understand this concept- it’s easy to see that Obierika, not Okonkwo is a better example of a balanced man, and therefore a strong and better man. Okonkwo clearly cannot be the representative of an ideal Igbo man in large part because he is absolutely unable to reach any kind balance between the male and female principles in his own life. He’s angry at himself that he feels love for Ikemefuna- he sees it as weakness and not strength. His misunderstanding of strength causes internal anxiety and fear. This seems obvious to an outside observer, but honestly, lots of us, if we are honest, struggle with issues of identity as it pertains to male and female principles. We have trouble defining who we are as humans because of this very imbalance illustrated vividly from within the Igbo culture- Achebe makes the case that if we do not have a balance between the male and female principles in our lives, the result is internal chaos. In TFA the female goddess, Ani, who is the most central diety in the book is assisted by a male human helper, Ezeani. The male oracle Agbala has female priestesses- Chika and Chielo. In the Igbo religious tradition, even the gods themselves are made to have balance. Yes- and when we compare the attitudes of Okonkwo to Obierika throughout the book- the contrast between these two men only grows over time. Let’s read the passage out of chapter 8 when after killing Ikemefuna, Okonkwo goes to Obierika to ask why he didn’t participate in the killing. Obierika gives us the proper mindset of a balanced Igbo warrior. Page 66-67 Did you catch the cultural detail of the kola nut? Well of course- it’s funny that after something like that is drawn to your attention, you notice it everywhere. Another thing that is difficult for those who are monotheists to understand is the complexity of polytheistic traditions- where the will of one god, in this case Agbala, leads straight into conflict or a clash with another, Ani, and only a wise human like Obierika knows how to find that narrow path of balance. What Okonkwo doesn’t understand is having a female characteristic doesn’t make you a woman- everyone is supposed to have both male and female characteristics and if they don’t come to terms with that they have chaos. It’s kind of a controversial statement to make, even now. So many people feel and express a struggle in finding balance with these principles in their own lives. So much of the culture wars that get so aggressive, cruel and chaotic might benefit from some of the Igbo wisdom embedded in their very ancient cultural legacy. There is NO doubt about that. When we use the term the “female principle” what we mean is all aspects of female involvement in society- that includes the physical and visible realm but also the spiritual or invisible realm- and in all animistic cultures, not just Igbo culture, there is a lot of crossover between these two worlds. Remember, most people on planet earth are animists to one degree or another. Explain to us what an animist is? An animist is a person that believes there is a spirit world that engages the physical world. Most people embrace this to some degree. Even in the most secular societies on earth we see elements of animism- the evil eye is a good example, but there are other more secularized expressions of this- participating in seances or reading horoscopes. Anything that reaches out to spirits in any way falls into the category of what we call Animism. Achebe illustrates in his book what that looks like specifically in the Igbo culture. Animism isn’t a certain set of beliefs. It looks different in every religion or culture. It just means you believe in the spirit world at some level. So, in the Igbo tradition, the physical world must balance itself out between the male and female principles, but also the spiritual world must as well. We see it in the kola nuts. Just like the two halves of the kola nut are still one kola nut- both halves of the female and male principles connect to create completion. When you upset the moral code designed by the gods and goddesses all of society is put at risk. The creator god, as we see at the end of the book is Chukwu, but Chukwu is neither male nor female. It’s the lesser gods who are gendered and are under him/her. Under these gods are the ancestors who have died- these ancestors are close at hand, and we see in this section of the book that they are called on from time to time to weigh in on community life. The priests and priestesses are the ones who can go back and forth between these two worlds. We have also seen, and this may be a good place to point this out that in Igbo religion, each individual has their own god or spark of divinity which is called a chi. There is dialogue between the spirit world and the physical world at every level all the way down to the chi. Yeah- I’m glad you brought of Chi- that word is a constant in the book, and something that doesn’t really have a cultural equivalent for many of us. Yes- and even anthropologists have a hard time agreeing on a definition while discussing it. One reason it’s hard for us to understand is that it too is discussed in Igbo culture as being a part of a duality- Achebe simplifies it for us as well as anyone, honestly. It’s one of those things you have to accept and not try to totally dissect- if I were going to suggest a remote Christian equivalent, I would say maybe the Holy Spirit and the Trinity- something that is difficult to wrap a concrete definition around, but you must accept to ascribe the Christian worldview. Okay- leaving the spirit world for a minute, let’s go back to physical representations of gender in Igbo culture. That is something where the roles are obvious and visible. Let’s look at the construction of Igbo compound, for example Okonkwo’s compound. Instead of a house, like we have in Memphis, Okonkwo has a hut that he build in the middle and that is where he lives- his Obi. He clearly is represented as in charge. Each of his wives, though, has their own home, in essence. In their home they run things as they wish. They cultivate crops, raise their children, do whatever they wanted to do. Every night they bring dinner to Okonkwo- but basically the administration of their world is on their terms. They even covered for each other, as we saw Okonkwo’s first wife doing at one point. We can see that they are intricately involved in business matters. They go to the market and negotiate trades. We can also see they are the are the ones who instill values in the next generation- they transmit history- they are nurturers, but they also hold the power of the purse interestingly enough. Two things you pointed out- women are highly organized in this community and have economic freedom. That is not just in Okonkwo’s case. Women in Igbo society are overwhelmly organized in this way- even to this day, but especially during the polygamy days. We cannot underestimate the power in this. I know it feels like men are in charge because Okonkwo is sitting in the middle of that hut, the nine justices are all male and seem to be running the show, but what Okonkwo finds out when he goes back to his mother’s homeland is that that is a misguided perspective and one that is partly responsible for his own demise. Okonkwo doesn’t understand the balance of male and female roles in the community. He understands one to be superior to the other in terms of his community and in his own life as well. So much of this middle section of the book deals with addressing these issues of gender principles and how connected and intertwined they are. Event after event centers around gender. We are going to see the marriage negotiations. In chapter 9 we see the events surrounding the birth of Ezinma, and in chapter 10 we see the entire community coming together to address the issue of a man beating his wife. All of these are specifically discussed as issues of gender. That court ceremony scene in particular is something that culturally, if you just read it from a Western standpoint may seem strange- almost otherworldly. It seems these masked individuals are arbitrarily creating justice from spirits; but in all actuality, if we look at what is actually happening in the passage, there is a lot that is very similar to Western justice and really a universally accepted way to think of justice, if you are looking for a system that can be accepted as fair and balanced. What do you mean by that? So, in this court scene, if we want to call it that, the entire village is called together to give a public airing of the dispute- and this airing of the dispute will be judged by a group of people that are called “egwugwu” but what are the egwugwu? Nine justices- one from each tribe- presumably elders who are communing with ancestors. Think of our courts- in the United States at our highest court- we also have 9 supreme court justices. Going before this group or any other court is public and full of ceremony. These men embody the wisdom of the American ancestors as codified by the constitution but not just the constitution – judicial review as it has been upheld since the beginning of our court system- the public is to watch to see that the judgements made are according to the agreed upon social norms that transcend any one person, any one group of people, or even any one generation- they are to give a collective understanding that is bigger than one political, cultural or social moment. They are dressed in a way that clearly indicates that. Our justices also wear distinctive clothes. In Britain the costumes are even more pronounced. In our courts the justices are not speaking for themselves, at least they are not supposed to. They are not be activists using their own opinions and personal moral codes to chose things as they see fit. They swear to make their judgements based on principles that predate them and are larger than they are. It’s actually an extremely high pressured job because as we see on tv pretty much every day, people want what they want and they do not want to be held accountable to a tradition that is older than they are or interested in more than just what they as individuals want or think best at that little moment in time. That is exactly what we see here. This court is doing the exact same thing that we see in other traditions. In the American tradition, if the trial is important enough it sometimes is put on tv, like in the famous case of OJ Simpson. But here- what is happening is that each party gives its testimony and then the agreed upon values determine the outcome. Achebe is reminding us of the blindness and ignorance of people who can’t see beyond their own culture or their own moment in time. Once again, Conrad’s characters, had then been watching would have been thrown off by the drums and ceremony and completely missed the cultural equivalency. Igbo justice is cross-generational- it looks to the ancestors for wisdom and moral instruction. The stability of their community survives because the system instills trust, members agree to comply and submit to what is perceived as fair. It survives because it includes the past into the discussion. Interestingly again, something that is also a problem in modern life where culture devalues the past by using negatively connotated words like “out-dated”, or “old-fashioned”. In this case, it’s interesting that Achebe chooses to highlight a case where a man had beaten his wife. I was a little disappointed that they made the woman return to the mean man, but I will say, being threatened to having his genitals cut off may make him think twice before hitting her again. And it isn’t clear to me if she HAS to go back or she is being given an opportunity to reconcile which is seen to be to her advantage if he does indeed make the changes he’s charged to make. I also want to point out an interesting detail now that we’re talking gender politics of power and religion. In the very next chapter, Chielo shows up possessed by the spirit of Agbala and takes away Ezinma, Ekwefi, Okonkwo’s second wife’s only daughter. In a feat of super-strength, she carries the girl away. This is the only moment in the entire book where we see Okonkwo embrace what the Igbo would consider the feminine principle and show a caretaking emotion of nurture. He stays out all night and watches over his daughter, he also shows compassion and affection towards his second wife. He follows her lead. She is the strong one in the incident, not he, and he readily acknowledges his support of her. Ironically also here he is closer to the gods then he will ever be at any point in the story. In the next chapter we have the celebration of Obierika’s daughter’s engagement- another happy time – there are cultural points to make, but we’ll have to skip over them for time’s sake because we need to get to the heart of the book- chapter 13 where Okonkwo accidentally kills Ezeudu’s sixteen year old son at his funeral. Okonkwo has now offended Ani, the goddess of the earth, for the third time- the first time was when he beats his wife during the week of peace, the second time when he kills Ikemefuna, but this time, he murders a clansman- and even though it is accidental, or a feminine crime, there is swift and immediate punishment. It’s pretty immediate, his house is burned down – and I will add that even Obierika participates in this-a sign of agreement- Okonkwo is exiled for seven years to live in his mother’s homeland. Uchendu, his mother’s youngest brother explains the thinking around this to us a little later in the story. It’s an often-quoted passage actually. He says this: “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. And that is why we say that mother is supreme.” Well, I know we need to move on from issues of gender- but I do want to add one more thing- when we get to the end of the book and Okonkwo commits his last crime- I won’t spoil that in case you don’t know what happens- but I will say that his crime will again be a crime against the goddess Ani- the feminine principle at work again. He offends the feminine side of his culture in every possible way from beginning to end- the obvious point being that it is this obsession with gender- this lack of balance between the gender principles in his own life which causes things to fall apart for him on a personal level. It's certainly an idea worth thinking about. And if you are reading this book as a class or as a club, a question to talk about- what does this look like in my culture? Getting back to structure again, Achebe divided his book in three clear parts. The first part focuses entirely on Igbo land, Igbo culture, Igbo characters. It is an entirely pre-colonial world. It’s not the garden of Eden, that’s for sure, but it is self-contained. And while a lot of this story is absolutely realistic, the idea that there would be a town in the 1890s totally isolated from colonial or outside influence is obviously not entirely realistic. Part two is really a transitional part of the book- in this part the focus is adaptation and change. Achebe places Okonkwo in exile from his clan, in Mbanta, the land of his mother, and in this section he introduces colonizers- the white man, the albinos as they are sometimes called. Okonkwo hears about the advent of the white man to Umuofia from a second hand source. We hear about the advent of the colonizers as readers also through the voice of Obierika who visits Okonkwo during his second year of exile. It is further interesting to see that even as the missionaries are introduced into the Okonkwo’s motherland, Okonkwo relates to them from a distance. He assumes a very stiff posture of defiance and resistance. He also just assumes Umuofia is still exactly in the state that he left it. Let’s read that part from chapter 15. Page 137 We see a white man, presumably a missionary, traveling on an iron horse, which we later will understand to be a bicycle, attempting to engage a local group. When the clan decides to kill him on the advice of their oracle they provoke a revenge attack from the colonial government they pretty much don’t even seem to realize is part of a larger world that now geographically overlaps their self-contained one. There is a man by the name of Robert Wren who very convincedly, at least to me, argues that Achebe drew on an actual event that happened in 1905 in the villages of Obezi and Eziudo- when he creates the Abame story. There were two villages about 50 miles south of Achebe’s home village of Ogidi which of course is the model for Umuofia- and something almost exactly like this happened there. The real life incident was actually one of the smaller events that were part of what the British called the campaign of “pacification” in Igboland. I really love how governments or people out to control you do that- whatever something is called, if a government gives it a name, it actually does the exact OPPOSITE of what it claims to do in the name. If a government act is called a protection of privacy act, you can be assured that it will in fact invade your privacy; if it’s called a freedom act, you can be assured it’s meant to enslave someone somewhere and so forth. If something is stated to promote transparency, it actually is being designed to hide something. Exactly, and the pacification of Igboland was actually genocide- an act of violence. But what is even more interesting than that, is that the incident Achebe uses in his story to introduce colonial violence is a small event, comparatively speaking. Around this same time a much larger event occurred in real life in 1901- one that included the overtaking of a culturally significant oracle and involved the buying and purchasing of slaves to take to other parts of Nigeria. This event today called the Aro-Chukwu conflict was much wider in scale encompassing over 6000 square miles, involved resistance form the Igbo, but is not referenced at all in Achebe’s story. Christy, why do you think that is the case, if indeed, Achebe is wanting to discuss colonialism and colonial violence? Why not bring a huge conflict into the story? Well, I’m going to theorize as to why- but most critics agree that Achebe’s story does seem to be comparatively light on colonial violence. Achebe has been criticized for this. Some argue that if you are talking about the transition from pre-colonialism to colonialism it should encompass all of the atrocities that were involved? Some critics say it’s because Achebe himself was a product of colonialism and was blind to it. I absolutely don’t think that’s the case at all. In his many essays, he often references colonial cruelty unequivocally. In his essay “The Education of a British-Protected Child” he says, “Colonial rule was stronger than any marriage. The Igbo fought in the battlefield and lost. They put every roadblock in its way and lost again”. So, here’s my thoughts on this- Achebe could absolutely have written a post-colonial novel detailing atrocity after atrocity, arousing sympathy, illustrating man’s inhumanity to man in great detail. He could have written the story of brave men and women resisting this change. But that is not this story. This book is not meant to be an example of “anti-colonial resistance”. Okonkwo is not supposed to Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Remember, Achebe said he wanted to give his people their voice- to display their civilization- to show cultural equivalents- and so there needed to be a very careful exploration of the issues without letting the outside culture overshadow the Igbo one, in the case here, it’s very obvious that the British enter the story but they are not center stage. His accusation of the British, if you remember, is that they first dismissed his culture as if it didn’t even exist, then they came in and hijacked his culture through the colonization process. What Achebe is not going to do is allow the Europeans here to hijack his story. This is a story about Igboland, about Africa, and it will stay that way all the way until the very last page where we do see an ironic twist and shift, but that’s for later. It is really a very difficult perspective to take- how do you tell the story of a colonized people without focusing on the colonizer? Exactly. And so Achebe’s novel takes a few liberties at this point and does not enforce a strict adherence to the exact historical events like you might read in historical fiction. The Igbo stay center stage, and British are introduced initially indirectly through the voice of a wise and respected native, Obierika. And next week, we will see just how all of this plays out for the people of Umuofia and the comments on the world that Achebe makes through the introduction of missionaries and eventually colonial government agents and soldiers.