Things Fall Apart

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1958

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-13

Chapters 14-16

Chapters 17-19

Chapters 20-22

Chapters 23-25

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Vocabulary

Essay Topics

Quiz

Symbols & Motifs

Drums and Instruments

Villagers respond to the calls of drums and ekwe instruments that both communicate messages and build urgency. A drum beat, “persistent and unchanging,” announces the coming wrestling match (44). As a cultural event, the wrestling match offers a chance for men to prove their manhood; it also brings the community together in a single space that exposes village hierarchies.

In Chapter 13, the ekwe, a “hollowed-out wooden instrument,” sends the message that “somebody [is] dead” (120). The instrument speaks a particular language with which all villagers are familiar; its specific call is more efficient than a traveling manager. Though the Ibo are not concise with language, choosing to communicate with proverbs and pleasantries, their announcements are efficient and clear.

Both the drums and the ekwe communicate with nonverbal language. The drums are “like a pulsation” of the village’s heart, “[filling] the village with excitement” that builds throughout the wrestling match (44). Similarly, the ekwe calls the villagers to unity. In addition to the rigid, recognizable structures of ancestry, Achebe introduces these other means by which the Ibo solidify kinship bonds to suggest that communication and connection can be both verbal and nonverbal, both tangible and spiritual.

Fetishes

Fetishes are objects (including bodies) inhabited by a spirit or a magical medicine. When a village wants to attract more visitors to its market, for example, it makes a “powerful medicine” contained within a fan (113). This medicine holds supernatural power, though it is not created by a god; in this way, humans have some magical power, just as gods possess divine power.

When the Christians build their church in the Evil Forest, everyone “[expects] them all to be dead within four days,” but when they survive, the villagers know that “the white man’s fetish had unbelievable power” (149). Though the Christians do not necessarily believe in fetishes, and though their divinity works differently, the logic of their religion remains cloudy for those in the village; the villagers translate the white men’s actions into a vocabulary parallel to their own to understand the mysteries of their world.

In the end, fetishes point to mystery: they gesture to a world in which divinity works out the fate of humans. Though some humans create medicines, harnessing mysterious power into objects, others, like Chielo, are invested with divine power, whether by choice or not. The boundary between human and divine power becomes a prominent mystery in the novel, one that profoundly shapes the actions and conflicts that emerge in Umuofia.

Darkness

The night Chielo takes Ezinma is “impenetrably dark” (93). Such darkness heightens awareness of sounds, sensations, and inner thoughts. It also inspires fear. The darkness comes to stand for mystery: the mystery of faith, the mystery of the world outside the community, and even the mystery of death.

When Ekwefi enters this darkness to search for Ezinma, she nearly loses track of her own body. In the darkness, Ekwefi fears not only the god-woman Chielo becomes, when inhabited by Agbala, but also the person who could be behind her, prepared to grab her; she is trapped “between two fears” (107). The “terrors of night” plague her, and only her motherly love can push her to face those terrors (107).

On well-lit nights, everyone in Umuofia goes out: to play, to visit, or just to spend time together. But when the Commissioner jails Umuofia’s leaders, no one emerges into the night, and it’s as though the darkness suddenly gains power.

Proverbs

For the Ibo, proverbs embody the idea that “a man’s life from birth to death [is] a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors” (122). Where “the art of conversation is regarded very highly,” proverbs facilitate that conversation while also respecting the value of past generations. Tales are not only a means of community truths but also of imagining the world (its animals and plants) as animated and invested with spirits. Thus, proverbs weave spiritual views into a cultural inheritance.

The practice of speaking in proverbs is not efficient, however. Repeatedly, men arrive at one another’s homes with important news that they do not share until they exchange proper pleasantries. Once they do, they still reach for proverbs to explain their beliefs; even Unoka employs proverbs to explain how he manages his dishonorable debts. When the District Commissioner complains about the Ibo’s wasted words, his desire for efficiency belies a critical difference in the communication styles of Ibo and European cultures.