Ethnocentricsm in "things Fall Apart"

The late nineteenth century was a period of conflict and drastic change in Africa, where indigenous societies clashed with imperialistic European powers. Chinua Achebe's portrayal of the District Commissioner at the end of his debut novel, Things Fall Apart, exemplifies the utter ignorance of these European nations. Upon beholding Okonkwo's corpse, the District Commissioner pompously deemed the Ibo people as a disorganized cluster of "Primitive Tribes" in need of colonial pacification. However, the author counters this view by intimately describing the Ibo way of life in the rest of the novel. Chinua Achebe offers a critical comment on Western ethnocentrism in Things Fall Apart by emphasizing the civilized and vibrant nature of the Ibo culture.

Achebe challenges ethnocentric views of Africa through his use of language throughout the novel. Even though the Ibo people were illiterate and the District Commissioner scoffed at "their love of superfluous words," he failed to recognize that they had developed their art of conversation through a shared oral tradition more enriched with the passing of time. The Ibo considered proverbs as "the palm oil which words are eaten," and the same folk tales were often "told with a new freshness and the local flavor of a different clan" throughout Umuofia. Achebe thus argues against the Western tendency to see all Africans as one and the same by illustrating the existence of various subcultures within a greater regional population, each with its own set of stories. In addition, proverbs not only served to make sense of the world that they lived in, but also signified the wisdom of the elders to pass on to the next generation. For example, Okonkwo's second wife, Ekwefi, utilized the proverb of the "great feast in the sky" to explain to her daughter "why Tortoise's shell is not smooth" while also conveying the message of greed and its consequences. The people of Umuofia spoke a complex language full of proverbs in order to educate their children, which contradicted the Europeans' stereotypical representation of Africans as unlearned savages.

Although the Ibo did not establish a Westernized form of education, they did possess a complex set of religious beliefs, which served as the ultimate foundation for their societal values. Most importantly, religion guided the fundamental administration of justice in Umuofia, and the village leaders sought to exact punishment on those who committed certain atrocities, such as murder. For example, Okonkwo faced rightful punishment for inadvertently killing a young boy at a funeral ceremony because it "was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman, and a man who committed it must flee from the land." It is thus evident that the religious values of the Ibo entailed communal obedience so as to not anger their gods, whose "wrath was loosed on all the

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