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i
IDOKO, FLORENCE NGOZIKA
PG/MA/07/42924
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ACHEBE’S THINGS
FALL APART AND NWANA’S OMENUKO
A PROJECT REPORT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF ARTS (M.A) DEGREE IN
THE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS, IGBO AND OTHER NIGERIAN
LANGUAGES (WRITTEN LITERATURE STRESS)
Linguistics, Igbo and Other Nigerian Languages
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA
2009
Webmaster
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TITLE PAGE
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ACHEBE’S THINGS FALL APART
AND NWANA’S OMENUKO
BY
IDOKO, FLORENCE NGOZIKA
PG/MA/07/42924
A PROJECT REPORT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER
OF ARTS (M.A) DEGREE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF
LINGUISTICS, IGBO AND OTHER NIGERIAN
LANGUAGES (WRITTEN LITERATURE STRESS)
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA,
NSUKKA
MAY, 2009
ii.
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APPROVAL PAGE
This project has been approved on behalf of the Department of
Linguistics, Igbo and Other Nigerian Languages, University of Nigeria,
Nsukka.
_________________________
Prof. Inno. Uzoma Nwadike
Supervisor
______________________________
Dr. B.M. Mba
Head, Department of Linguistics,
Igbo & Other Nigerian Languages
_____________________
External Examiner
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DEDICATION
TO
My Husband, Alex
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
My special thanks goes to the Almighty God, who in His infinite
mercy, made it possible for me to start this programme, strengthened me
all through and above all, brought the programme to a successful end.
To produce this work, I have had much encouragement and help
from various persons. Most prominent among them is Professor Inno.
Uzoma Nwadike (KSM), my supervisor, who untiringly directed me with
great patience and tolerance. Prof., you are a father indeed. My unreserved
gratitude goes to my husband, Chief Alex C. Idoko, who has sacrificed
ALL in his life, human and material, to keep me moving forward. Daddy,
may God bless you in a special way. My special thanks and appreciation
goes to Chief J.M.U. & Dr. (Mrs.) Oby Omeje (KSM) whose love and
encouragement has inspired me throughout the course of my study. I wish
to express my indebtedness to my children, Ifeanyi and Chidera, whose
love and encouragement continued to give me strength all through the
period. My sincere regards also goes to my foster son, Hon. F.C. Ozioko,
for his moral and financial support.
I owe a great debt of gratitude to the Head, Department of
Linguistics, Igbo and Other Nigerian Languages, Dr. B.M. Mba, and all
the Lecturers in the Department for the quality lectures we received from
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them which has gone a long way in giving this work its present appearance
of perfection.
I am very grateful to all the teachers of Modern Primary School,
Ezzi Iheakpu-Awka, for their encouragement and support. I am looking
forward to seeing you join me in the academic pursuit. I wish to appreciate
here, the advice and encouragement of my mother, my late father, my
brothers and sisters and my good friends. With all due respect, I thank you
all.
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ABSTRACT
“Comparative Analysis of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Nwana’s
Omenuko” is a critical study of the relationship between the two classical
novels in the areas of setting, theme, character and characterization.
Both Achebe and Nwana use the same pattern of settings. Two
categories of setting are identifiable in both Things Fall Apart and
Omenuko:- a pre-colonial society, free from any external influence and
fully democratic: and, a society dominated by European values.
The theme of Omenuko is offence and expiation while that of
Things Fall Apart is the disintegration of the traditional society resulting
from the influence of the colonial religion and government. The authors
also use other powerful sub-themes to bring home their stories. Such subthemes include love, manliness and survival, colonization, sojourn and
return. The authors thus succeeded in showing us the social changes in the
traditional Igbo society brought about by colonization.
These authors present protagonists that rise from a humble
beginning. Their lives are ruled by the same passion – to become
successful, powerful and rich. In the case of Achebe’s hero, the very gods
vii.
whom Okonkwo strives to obey and serve drives him out of his fatherland
because of the inadvertent killing of a clansman; just when he is ready to
acquire the highest title in the land, marry his daughters off to deserving
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suitors and initiate his sons into their first manhood groups. Okonkwo goes
into exile in his maternal home, Mbanta. All the sins he commits are
against the Earth goddess: the killing of the son of Ogbuefi Ezeudu and the
final abomination of taking his own life. On the other hand, Nwana’s hero
sells his clansmen into slavery for his own selfish interest. He goes into
exile in Ndi Mgborogwu. Omenuko is made to suffer remorse for his
crime, then appeases the gods, his land and people. Like the prodigal son,
he realizes the enormity of his sin and goes home penitent. He is
reconciled with his people and there is general jubilation.
Through the novelist’s method of characterization, one is able to
gain insight into a great variety of human behaviour and problems.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
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APPROVAL PAGE
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DEDICATION
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
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ABSTRACT
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RELATIONSHIP OF THINGS FALL APART AND
OMENUKO: SETTING, THEME, CHARACTER
AND CHARACTERIZATION
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
Background of the Study
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Significance of the Study
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Background of the Authors ::::
The Novels and their Backgrounds
Scheme of Organization
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Methodology
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Analysis of Data :::: :::: ::::
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
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CHAPER THREE
Setting
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Theme
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Character and Characterization
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CHAPTER FOUR
SOCIAL PROBLEMS ::::
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CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION ::::
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background of the study
The purpose of this study is to examine the response of African
Novelists to the social instability which necessarily came in the wake of
colonialism. I have selected Things Fall Apart and Omenuko, by
Chinua Achebe and Pita Nwana respectively because both novels are in
one way or the other concerned with societies in transition.
Transition is used in the context of this essay to define the
historical period and phenomenon of a society in an ambivalent
conflict between two radically different cultures. For the society
depicted in Achebe’s novel, transition involves a change from
independence
within
a
traditional, self
regulating
order
to
subordination to an imperial Britain. Historically, this phenomenon
occurred in the first two decades in the nineteenth century. For
Nwana’s society, transition involves a change from the Igbo political
system to the complete control of Igboland by the British colonial
administration. This change also comes in the first decade of the
nineteenth century.
1.2
Significance of the study
The reason why I selected Things Fall Apart and Omenuko is
that a comparative study will help me to evaluate the two novels in
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order to establish their respective literary merits. Secondly, it will
enable me to highlight the similarities and differences between these
two works, although the authors share a common colonial experience.
I will be able to demonstrate the contributions – national and
individual – made by each author to the central tradition of the novel.
My method will be essentially analogical. This means the
investigation
of
similar
settings,
themes,
character
and
characterization between the two works under study.
1.3
Background of the Authors
Things Fall Apart and Omenuko are separated only by space,
not by age. In a way, they belong to the same generation following the
similarities of their cultural background and the periods of their
stories.
Achebe hails from Ogidi in Anambra State of Nigeria. He had his
secondary school education at the Government College, Umuahia, and
later went to the University Collge, Ibadan, where he intended to read
Medicine, but became attracted to literature. His literary studies
included the major classical and modern authors and essayists.
Distorted presentation of Africa by some writers like Joseph Conrad,
Graham Green and Joyce Carry generated in him the desire to “set the
records straight” and to paint an African portrait of Mister Johnson:
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I know around ‘51’, ‘52’, I was quite certain that
I was going to try my hand at writing, and one of
the things that set me thinking was Joyce Carry’s
novels set in Nigeria, Mr. Johnson, which was
praised so much, and it was clear to me that it was
a most superficial picture of not only of the
country – but even of the Nigerian character, and
so I thought, if this was famous, then perhaps
someone ought to try and look at things from the
inside.
Achebe worked with the Nigerian Broadcasting Service, where
he came in contact with the whitemen whose patronizing attitude he
depicted in some of his novels.
Taken together, Achebe’s five novels encompass the entire
socio-historical experience of Nigeria from pre-colonial times to the
present. His first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), deals with the
impact of tribal life by the Western ethos. The novel is set partly in
the pre-colonial days and partly at the moment of contact of Igbo
culture with Western culture. Achebe recreates and interprets for his
people their past before the coming of the British. His second novel,
No Longer At Ease, (1960), is set partly in Lagos and partly in the
village of Umuofia. The novel is about the temptations that confront a
young Nigerian with a Western education, when he is given
responsibility in his own country. Its drama is the oppressive demands
made on the individual in a transitional society, or settling society in
which old values are crumbling under the pressures of new ones. In
his third novel, Arrow of God (1964), Achebe returns to the theme of
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the conflicts of western and Igbo traditional world views. A Man of
the people, (1966), the author’s fourth novel, is set in the city and
deals with politics. The abuses that the novel describes show the
problems of imposing an alien socio-political system on collection of
different ethnic groups each of which has its own peculiar sociopolitical culture. Anthills of The Savannah (1988) his fifth novel, is
where the issue that exercises thought is the exercise of power.
Apart from novels, Achebe has written short stories: the
Sacrificial Egg and other Stories, (1962); Girls At War, (1972). His
children’s stories include, Chike and the River, (1966), How the
Leopard Got His Claws, (1972). There are, in addition, collections of
poems and essays: Beware Soul Brother and other Poems, (1971).
Morning Yet on Creation Day, (1975), is a collection of his essays, on
a variety of subjects: literature, literary criticism, language, war,
personal travels and Igbo cosmology.
On a very wide contrast, not much is known about the author of
Omenuko. Like Chinua Achebe, Pita Nwana was not an Igbo scholar.
In the 33rd Inaugural Lecture of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka,
Professor Inno Uzoma Nwadike states thus:
He was a foreman at the Uzuakoli Institute. He
only attained Sunday School education at the
CMS on the Niger at Onitsha. Mr. Pita Nwana
trained as a carpenter.
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He published no further books. According to Erenest Emenyonu in
The Rise of the Igbo Novel (1978), “He seems, therefore, to have been
the reporter of the pioneer generation of Igbo literature and not its
creative genius”. However, Omenuko is very special in the sense that
the author, Mr. Pita Nwana is the first Igbo to write fiction in Igbo.
His novel, Omenuko, was published in 1933 after it had won an allAfrican literary contest in indigenous languages organized by the
International Institute of African Languages and Culture. It is a
biographical novel based on the actual events in the life of the hero,
Igwegbe Odum.
1.4
The Novels and their Backgrounds
Pita Nwana’s Omenuko and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, deal with
transitional periods when two different colonial societies are trying to
move from a settled way of life to a new unknown one. Achebe’s Things
Fall Apart describes a society’s response to contact with a colonizing
cultural force. The traumatic impact of this force on indigenous culture
becomes the background against which Achebe exposes the harmful
effects of the period on the minds and lives of the indigenes. This is a
starting point in the evaluation of the social problems of Things Fall Apart.
In the case of Nwana’s Omenuko, the impact the contact with a
colonizing cultural force had on the indigenes was even more devastating.
Before the era of the colonial administration, there was a kind of autonomy
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in Igbo behaviour. Individuals were free to act as they chose to as long as
they did not break popular village sanctions or mores. If they did, they
were not in danger of the whiteman’s retribution but the judgment of the
elders in their local villages. But with the changing times and the point of
transition highlighted in the novel, everybody is now accountable to the
courts of law and the whiteman.
As mentioned earlier, Achebe and Nwana share a common culture
derived from colonial experience – an experience which left an indelible
mark on the psyche of the Africans. It involves the imposition of new
political, economic and religious cultures on the colonized. More
importantly, the imposition of political control also involves conscious or
unconscious deviation of the people’s culture and distortion of their past. In
Africa, loss of political freedom was attended by loss of cultural confidence.
The work of European anthropologists, who placed the African culture at the
bottom and the European at the top of cultural evolution, undermined, to a
large extent, the Africa’s confidence in himself, making him accept the
European-created image of him as primitive.
The colonizers, however, persuaded themselves that they were on a
humane and philanthropic mission of civilizing and Christianizing of the
‘primitive’ and ‘benighted’ natives. Colonialism, however, produced a
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counter movement or cultural nationalism which functioned to inspire
artists. From the 1930s to the 1960s, educated West Africans attempted to
revive authentic West African values. Obiechina rightly points out that:
Like similar movements in Latin America,
Ireland and dependent states of nineteenth
century Europe, African cultural nationalism
took the form of the rehabilitation of the old
cultural tradition and its values, including a
re-awakening of interest in the folklore, arts,
music and cultural habits of the local people
which most distinguished them from the
metropolitan culture.
The African learned to take pride in his values which he had but
almost lost due to colonial denigration. The myth of the African
inferiority was gradually eroding. Obiechina’s comments are particularly
relevant to Achebe, in whose novels one notes a sustained attempt to
express and affirm his people’s past.
1.5
Scheme of Organization
For easier analysis, this essay is divided into five chapters. While
the first chapter introduces the work, the second chapter reviews the
existing literatures. The third chapter illustrates the relationship between
literary vehicles in Things Fall Apart and Omenuko in the areas of
setting, theme, character and characterization. The fourth chapter deals
with the social problems highlighted in the two novels under study. These
factors are essentially destabilizing agents which make the period a
transitional one, and hence their relevance to the theme of this essay.
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1.6
Methodology
In this study, data were obtained through two major sources
namely, primary and secondary sources.
(a)
Primary sources
(1) The novels under study: Things Fall Apart and Omenuko.
(2)
Visits were made to the National Archives where relevant
materials were obtained and utilized.
(3)
Oral interviews were held with knowledgeable artists in the
area of literature. Literary critics and comparatists were also
consulted.
(4)
Through personal observations: The researcher equipped herself
with first-hand knowledge of certain aspects of the study. Being
a scholar of oral and written literature, a teacher of Igbo
Literature and a literary critic, she is so to say, an insider.
(b)
Secondary Sources:
An extensive review of existing literature was made. These
include books, dissertations, theses, journals, seminar papers and
newspaper articles.
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1.7
Analysis of Data
Data collected from the variety of sources were subjected to a very
careful scrutiny and all possible bias and subjective judgments were
neglected.
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CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Comparative Literature means giving a comparative approach to
the study of literature. It is the discovery of cultural relativity in the field
of literature. According to Willfried Feuser (2001) in Essays in
Comparative African Literature,
The main direction of comparative scholarship in
Nigeria should, therefore, be inward. Genre study
and thematology could, for example, be applied
to selected “ethnic” literatures viewed both in
their traditional art forms and their adaptations
of imported, western models like the novel.
Nigerian literature in whatever form of linguistic expression relates
to the literatures of other African countries and to the other continents.
Comparative analysis is therefore very necessary to measure relativity.
For instance, the concept of ‘ogbanje’, as mentioned in Things Fall Apart
are used by Yoruba as ‘Abiku’, by Edos as ‘orinmin’, by the Housas as
‘damwabi’, and by the Ghanaian Fanti as ‘kossamah’. Moreover, the
concept of ‘chi’ in Igbo corresponds to ‘ori’ in Yoruba. Quoting Feuser
(2001) in the same essay,
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You cannot read a single page of Fafunwa, Tutuola
or Amaku without stumbling over some archetype
or other, and if it is true, as Roger Bastide (p.77 in
Negritude: Essays and Studies, Albert H. Berrian
and Richard A. Long, eds. Hampton, Va, Hampton
Institute Press, 1967) assures us that “Jung rediscovered all of Greek mythology in the sub-conscious
of his Swiss patients”, then so much the better for the
universality of African thought and imagery.
Apart from literature, other fields of human endeavour also enter
the orbit of comparative literature if we are to adopt its definition by
Henry H.H. Remak (1961) which posits that:
Comparative literature is the study of literature
beyond the confines of one particular country,
and the study of the relationship between literature
on the one hand and other areas of knowledge and
belief, such as the arts … philosophy, history, the
social sciences, the sciences, religion, etc. on the
other. In brief, it is the comparison of one literature
with another or others, and the comparison of
literature with other spheres of human expression.
National Literatures are not islands unto themselves. There are
bound to be border violations between the various national domains.
Those are beneficial in the sense of a greater intellectual and aesthetic
openness and an enhanced possibility of mutual understanding.
With reference to the texts under review namely, Achebe’s Things
Fall Apart and Nwana’s Omenuko, a lot of references were made as it
concerns comparative literature. Commenting on the heroes of Chinua
Achebe and Thomas Hardy, David Carroll observes in Critical
Perspective on Chinua Achebe,
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As Okonkwo’s life moves quickly to its tragic end, one is
reminded forcibly of another impressive but wrongheaded
hero, Henchard in The Mayor of Casterbridge. They
share in obsessive need for success and status, they
subordinate all their private relations to this end, and both
have an inability to understand the tolerant, skeptical
societies in which their novel single mindedness succeeds
… Viewed in the perspective of the Wessex, rustic way of
life, Henchard is crass, brutal, and dangerous; but when
this way of life as a whole is threatened with imminent
destruction, then his fierce resistance takes on a certain
grandeur. The reader’s sympathy describes a similar
trajectory as it follows Okonkwo’s career. By the values
of Umuofia, his inadequacies are very apparent; but
when the alien religion begins to question and undermine
these values, Okonkwo, untroubled by the heartsearching of the community, springs to its defense and
acts. (Chinua Achebe 62 – 63).
In comparison of the character of the heroes of Achebe and Hardy,
Eustace Palmer, in An Introduction to the African Novel (1981), states
thus:
Things Fall Apart is a novel of character and
environment but in a slightly different sense than
the novels of Hardy. In Hardy’s novels a character’s
destiny depends on social circumstances. But in Achebe’s
case, environment is character. Okonkwo is what his
society made him, for his most conspicuous qualities are a
response to the demands of his society: if he is plagued by
fear of failure and of weakness, it is because his society
puts such a premium on success; if he is obsessed with status
it is because his society is preoccupied with rank and prestige;
if he is always itching to demonstrate his prowess in war, it is
because his society reveres bravery and courage, and measures
success by the number of human heads a man has won; if he
is contemptuous of weaker men it is because his society has
conditioned him into despising cowards. Okonkwo is the
personification of his society’s values and is determined to
succeed in this rat race.
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Early reviews of Things Fall Apart tended to stress the simplicity
of its narrative plots, themes and anthropological details. But later
critics have shown that the apparent simplicity of the novel is deceptive
as there are complex and subtle interplay of values and attitudes
artistically embedded in the work. Such complexity has been, in fact,
identified and analyzed by various critics. Solomon O. Iyasere, talking
about the complexity of themes of Things Fall Apart, write in Critical
Perspectives on Chinua Achebe (1979), where he states:
Things Fall Apart seems a simple novel, but it is deceptively
so. On closer inspection, we see that It is provocatively
complex, interweaving significant themes: love, compassion,
colonialism, achievement, honor, and individualism.
As recorded in the Breast of the Earth, Kofi Awoonor (1975),
contributing on the theme of Things Fall Apart asserts that on the
question of theme, Achebe’s preoccupation is to recreate out of the
despised history of Africa the story of its dignity and integrity:
African people did not hear of culture for the first time
from Europeans; their societies were not mindless
but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and
value and beauty, they had poetry and, above all,
they had dignity. It is this dignity that many African
people all but lost during the colonial period and
it is this they must regain.
Consequently, Things Fall Apart is a novel which attempts to
recapture Igbo traditional life in its unpolluted state. The author
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recreates a settled past when the people enjoyed a tranquil life without
contrasts with the instability brought about by British colonialism.
Ejikeme Alua (1976), writing on the theme of Omenuko, records
his own contribution in an article in the Journal of the Igbo Studies
Association, Volume 2, titled Odenigbo. According to him:
The contemporary view is that Pita Nwana has,
may be inadvertently, explored two themes in the
book. Basing their argument on what the author
stated in his preface, one school of thought
holds that the book is woven round the concept
and acknowledged philosophy of the African that a
stranger must always feel the urge to go home no
matter his achievements in his place of sojourn
outside his home. The reason for this is that events
which regulate his life in another land must invariably
remind him that he is a stranger who is not wanted by
his hosts. Instances are then cited from the book to
support this view.
As a critic, I do not agree with this school of thought. That a
stranger should always feel the urge to go home is a philosophy in
different parts of the world. Such a philosophy must not be regarded as
a theme. It is the punishment of the sin he committed that led him to
sojourn to Mgborogwu. What disturbed Omenuko at Mgborogwu much
was not the urge to go home but the urgency of cleansing himself from
the sin he committed. He had started getting worried even before the
first secret meeting of the people of Mgborogwu against him. Omenuko
needed peace of mind and got something close to that as soon as he
retrieved the people he sold and offered sacrifices for the sins he
committed and not when he finally returned.
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The other school of thought holds that the theme of the work is
“sin and its expiation”. This concept was just muted by Ernest
Emenyonu in his article in Research in African Literature, Volume 4,
number 1 (1973). Those who support this view also advance evidences
from the work.
Ejikeme Alua also gave detailed expositions to settle this
academic tussle by weighing the views expressed by the two parties on
the basis of the facts emerging from the work. A close observation of
the detailed discussion on the issue reveals that he tried to convince the
reader to arrive at an acceptable conclusion as he comments:
In conclusion, it is evident that “Sin and expiation”
is the theme of the book. It was sin that sent
Omenuko out of his home and caused him the emotional
disturbances and other awful experiences abroad;
it was the expiation and adequate restitution
for the sin that brought him back home. It puts a stop
to the emotional booby-traps which had bedeviled
Omenuko since after his crime. Ejikeme Alua (1976).
The setting of Omenuko is discussed extensively by Ernest
Emenyonu in The Rise of Igbo Novel (page 33). The setting is important
to the actions in the novel as it helps to bring out the conflict in which the
hero is trapped. He writes:
Omenuko is set in Okigwi, one of the densely populated
areas in Imo State. The action takes place in
the rural communities around busy market places,
where commercial activities go side by side with
serious matters, such as settling disputes and planning
community projects. The market is more than
a meeting place for local affairs. People drink palm wine,
pour libations, as haggling and bargaining go on over their
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agricultural product. Families live within walled compounds
where the head of the family supervises his immediate and
extended families from his obi.
For the setting of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Innes (1986: p.47)
writes:
Each of Achebe’s novels shed light on a different era in
the recent history of Nigeria. Things Fall Apart
(1958) is set in a traditional Ibo village community at the
turn of the century when the first European missionaries
and administrative officers were beginning to penetrate
inland.
Many other works of different literary artists have been
compared to prove certain similarities among different cultures.
Kofi Awoonor (1975: p.225) who compares Achebe and
Tutuola as artists observes:
Achebe is a more conscious artist than Tutuola. His
preoccupation with creating an “authentic” African voice
is more deliberate and studied than Tutuola’s felicitous
accidents of language. If Tutuola’s work is described wholly
from the African tradition, Achebe is the direct articulate
product of the European presence in Africa.
In their comparative study, Ernest N. Emenyonu and
Benaiah E.C. Oguzie (1958) tried to compare the poor
relationship that exist between the foreigners and their hosts.
According to them:
We also see the lack of social interaction between the
foreigners (the whiteman, the court messengers and the
interpreter) and the people. There was complete lack of
trust between the two groups. The whiteman was said to
be ignorant and did not speak the native language and so
was unable to understand or learn the culture of the people.
The messengers were ridiculed as well. The special
27
prejudice is clearly seen in the song by the prisoners:
Kotma of the ash buttoks
He is fit to be a slave
The whiteman had no sense
He is fit to be a slave
(Things Fall Apart, Chap. 20, pg. 123)
This attitude of the ‘new Africans’ is also shown in other
works by African writers which goes to confirm that the issues
which Chinua Achebe wrote about in Things Falls Apart were
not peculiar to Igbo people alone. They were also common to
other parts of Africa. In his Song of Lawino Okot P. Bitek from
Uganda showed how Lawino pleaded with her husband, Ocol,
not to cast away the ways of his ancestors in favour of a new
culture. She pleads:
… Listen Ocol, my old friend
The ways of your ancestors
Are good
Their customs are solid
And not hollow
They are not thin, not easily breakable
They cannot be blown away
By winds
Because their roots reach deep into the soil
(Okot P’Bitek, Song of Lawino, pg. 29)
The same people writing about the views of arts from Kenya in
reference to the whiteman’s presence, quote Ngugi Wa Thiong’os from
Kenya, in his Weep Not Child (Heinemann 1964) who shows the
whiteman’s presence in Africa also as unwelcome to the people when
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he said: “We made the roads and cleared the forest to make it possible
for the warring whiteman to move more quickly”.
Talking about the concept of the Hero in The Rise of
the Igbo Novels, Ernest Emenyonu (1978: p.157) compares:
It is interesting to compare Achebe’s concept of the hero to
that of Pita Nwana in Omenuko. Both novels have historical
perspectives and deal with the same people although they
are set a generation or two apart from each other. In both
novels success is the aspiration of every member of the
society and achievement is greatly applauded and honoured.
Both novelists show how the pursuit of success can lead to a
cunning wrestling with the forces of nature, causing a
lopsided development of the individual, which, in turn,
ultimately, affects his society. In both novels popular
expectations produce tragic consequences in the lives of the
heroes. The Rise of the Igbo Novel (1978: P.57).
In summary literatures reviewed show that comparative
studies had existed long ago. This means that a lot have been
compared; ranging from literary artists to works in other fields of
study. Studies indicate that there are relativity among cultures,
themes, concepts, ideas, etc. as well as differences.
Many
concepts found in one culture surprisingly exist in other cultures
within a country and even beyond. The study further indicates
that comparative study units have been established in different
universities across the country. This goes to show that there is
even interdisciplinary comparison.
The literatures reviewed also show that the novels Things Fall Apart and
Omenuko have been studied and compared by various critics over the years.
29
In the next chapter, we shall look at the relationship between
Things Fall Apart and Omenuko in the areas of setting, theme, character
and characterization.
30
CHAPTER THREE
RELATIONSHIP OF THINGS FALL APART AND
OMENUKO: SETTING, THEME, CHARACTER
AND CHARACTERIZATION
The choice of an adequate literary form for a story is of the
most crucial choices confronting any novelist who wishes to make a
faithful representation of life. The form of a novel is as important as its
content, and indeed, constitutes the organizational principle which
renders the content significant. In this chapter, therefore, the intention is
to analyze the similarities and differences in Things Fall Apart and
Omenuko based on the following elements of literature – setting, theme,
character and characterization.
SETTING:
A close observation of Things Fall Apart and Omenuko shows
that their setting effectively promotes the themes of transition. In these
texts, both authors deal with characters who live in a native environment
and culture. Both Achebe and Nwana have adopted a similar pattern in
setting because both authors are concerned with the theme of transition.
Two major categories of setting are identifiable in both Things
Fall Apart and Omenuko: a pre-colonial society and a society dominated
by European values.
31
(1)
Place of Setting:
Omenuko is set in Igboland in well known places. All the
towns mentioned are familiar and still exist up till today. For
example, Mgborogwu where most of the events take place is
Mkpologwu in present day Aguata Local Governsment Area of
Anambra State. Emenyonu (1978:34) is of the views that:
Omenuko is set in Okigwi, one of the densely
populated areas in Imo State. The action takes
place in the rural communities around busy market
places where commercial activities go side by side
with serious matters such as settling disputes and
planning community projects.
Other towns mentioned where Omenuko plassed or stayed for the
purpose of trading such as Umuduru Nso Ofo (presently Umuduru, near
Arondizuogu); Umulolo, Bende, Ozuakoli and Ezi Nnachi, are all
familiar places in Abia and Imo States and Awka, where Omenuko
received his warrant of office is the present Awka, capital of Anambra
State. In Things Fall Apart, the events that take place occur equally in
Igboland specifically in Umuofia and Mbanta (unknown places). Most
of the activities depicting family life take place in the various
compounds while others such as wrestling competitions and clan
meetings take place in the village playground (Ilo). According to
32
Wren (1980;1) “Things Fall Apart is set in the land where the author
was born, raised and educated”. He adds that “the land lies east of the
great Niger River and north of the Niger Delta”.
(ii)
Time of Setting
Both stories in Omenuko and Things Fall Apart took place
very many years ago when the Igbo people were still stark illiterates
and when whitemen with their religion and colonial government had
just made their appearance. In Things Fall Apart, for example, the
whiteman’s very existence and physical appearance still belong to the
realms of rumour and grim humour. This emerges clearly in the
discussion of variation in customs during the marriage of Obierika’s
daughter. Obierika compares the rumour of whiteman’s existence to
“the story of whitemen who, they say, are white like this piece of
chalk … and these whitemen, they say have no toes” ( chapter 8, pp.
51 – 52). At this point, no one from Umuofia had yet seen a
whiteman. Machi humorously associates white with a local word for
leprosy (“the white skin”). This joke is to prove prophetic eventually,
for when the whiteman eventually appears, he proves as destructive to
the old order as leprosy is to the skin. It could be safely assumed that
the events reported in both novels took place when Christianity was
just appearing on the horizon because ritual murder, killing of twins
and slave trade were still being practiced. At this point, Igbo customs
33
had not been tainted to a large extent by European civilization and
influence. About Omenuko, Emenyonu (1978: 34) affirms:
The novel is set in the last few decades of the nineteenth
century, but the most important actions take place in the
first two decades of the twentieth century. Omenuko is
said to have returned to his hometown (at the end of the
novel) in 1918.
(iii)
Social Setting:
The story of Things Fall Apart starts when the Igbo society is
unsoiled and virtually free from any external influence. The political
structure is clearly defined and everybody is subject to the law of the land
and impartially treated. Democracy at its best is practiced. On this, Wren
(1980:) has this to say:
Within the clan the political organization is democratic.
There are no chiefs or kings … important decisions are
made by the clan assembled as a body … while major
internal conflicts are dealt with by the ancestral egwugwu …
Thus no one person has authority much in excess of his
fellows:
The overall picture is that of a peace loving clan where nobody is
unduly oppressed. At the bottom of the social ladder, the osu (outcast)
would be found. These are people dedicated to the gods of the land and
who are not allowed the freedom to enjoy the rights and privileges of the
free-born.
However, towards the end of the novel (from chapter fifteen), there
is a marked erosion of this political structure by the colonial authority.
34
Wren (1980:3) writes that:
The stability of the order among the eastern Igbo
was profoundly shaken by the coming of the European
colonial power. The checks and balances which the
communities had evolved over the centuries were
rendered useless when the district commissioners –
British political officers laid down the law without
understanding the tradition and custom.
In
Omenuko, the political life of the people is more or less
organized in the same manner as in Things Fall Apart with everybody
including men and women, elders and priests participating in the art of
governance. (Emenyonu (1973:35) says that
The affairs of the village are decided by a general
assembly in which men and women can participate.
However, effective control is in the hands of the
elders, members of an age set whose turn it is, to
govern the village at a particular period in their
age grade circle.
Again, as in the case of Things Fall Apart, after the first few
chapters,
European colonial administration is ushered in with native
courts, warrant chiefs, court clerks and court messengers and interpreters
actively participating in dispensing law and justice and maintaining order.
For instance, it is the white district commissioner that issued the warrant of
office to Omenuko at the death of Eze Mgborogwu on behalf of young
Obiefula, the son and heir of Eze Mgborogwu. It is the same District
Commissioner (Nwa D.C) that warned the people of Orumba na Isii of
the dire consequences of attacking Omenuko and his people at Ikpa Oyi.
35
Religiously, the Igbo people at the early beginning of Things Fall
Apart are idol worshipers although they have an unshakable belief in God
Almighty called Chukwu (Great God) or Chineke (The Creator). The
other deities which they worship include Ani (the earth goddess),
Amadioha (god of thunder), Agbala, Idemili and Ogwugwu. Prayers,
libations and sacrifices are consistently and carefully offered to these
gods, goddesses and ancestors through the mouthpeace of the deities –
the diviner, priests and priestesses. Ezeani is the priest of the earth
goddess, Ani, while Chielo is the priestess of Agbala. To a great extent,
the life of the individuals in the community and indeed the life of the
community is controlled by these deities through their pronouncements
and sanctions. There is complete obedience to their laws and
commandments. Wren (1980: 2) notes that “morality is enforced by the
priest of the earth goddess and the oracle of the Hills and caves provides
advice to individuals and guidance to the clan”.
However, towards the later part of the story (Chapter 16) Christian
missionaries of blacks led by a few white men started to make inroads
into the traditional religion and life of the Igbo people. The people are
told of All Powerful God and His son Jesus Christ (who God had without
a wife) and that whoever worships this God through His Son, the Christ,
will go to heaven. They are informed, to their chagrin and bewilderment,
36
that the deities they worshiped are pieces of wood and stone and are
ineffective and impotent and that persistent worship of these deities will
send them to hell fire that burns with unquenchable fire. These two
opposing teachings led to very serious clashes between the clan and the
Christians backed by colonial power and authority which finally led to
the break-up of the Igbo society.
Similarly, the Igbo community represented in Omenuko worships
the God Almighty (Obasi Di n’Elu) and various other deities. These
deities wield enormous power and influence on the life of the community
and their commandments are scrupulously obeyed. Hence, when
Omenuko committed an abomination against the gods and the people of
his land, he is punished by going into exile and by being made to offer a
very costly propitiatory sacrifice to appease the gods and the people. On
the above, Emenyonu (1978: 37) asserts:
Because of the enormity of his crime and his
recalcitrant behaviour, Omenuko is required to
offer a sacrifice of atonement in the highest terms
ever prescribed by the chief priests of the two
angered deities. In the process, he learns selfdiscipline and comes to appreciate the true values
of his society …
The two angered deities in question are represented by Aniche and
Iyiukwu. However, later in the work, mention is made of Omenuko’s
children going to school without reference to the influence of the
missionaries as is the case in Things Fall Apart.
37
The economic life of the Igbo people in Omenuko revolves around
farming and trading although emphasis is placed on trading as against
Things Fall Apart where emphasis is placed on farming. Unfortunately,
at that period, slave trade was still being practiced without interference
from the colonial masters. That is why Omenuko is able to sell some of
the young men who are helping him in his business when he loses all his
goods in a river mishap. However, by Igbo standards, Omenuko is
respected for his astuteness in life generally and in business in particular.
Due to the uncanny handling of his business, he becomes extremely
wealthy while in exile in Mgborogwu. He was one of the richest people
in his clan on his return to his native land.
In Things Fall Apart, economic activity of the Igbo people
revolves around farming; the main crop being yam. The other crops
planted by the women are cassava and cocoyam. Apart from farming,
there is palm wine tapping by the men. There is also local markets where
goods are sold with the aid of cowries. Later, with the coming of the
church which brings new form of worship and education, there is trading
in palm oil and palm kernel. Again educated Igbo people serve as court
clerks and teachers. Life is such that everybody struggles for himself to
make both ends meet and to carve out a name for himself, economic
prosperity being one of the hallmarks of a great man and a great family.
38
THEME
The theme of Omenuko, according to Emenyonu (1978: 34) is
offence and expiation. It is a story of the abomination committed by the
protagonist, Omenuko, and how he finally appeased the gods of the land to
enable him live in amity with both the gods and the people of his land.
To Wren (1980: 45), the central theme in Things Fall Apart is the
disintegration of traditional society resulting from the influence of the
colonial religion and government. The entire story revolves around how
the culture and traditions of the Igbo society crumbled due to the influence
of the colonial masters ably backed by their government.
Apart from these central themes, Chinua Achebe and Pita Nwana
brings out many sub-themes in their texts – Things Fall Apart and
Omenuko respectively. These sub-themes include:
(i)
Love
Achebe’s hero, Okonkwo, allows his buried humanity to express
itself only in private unguarded moments. Publicly, especially among the
members of his own clan, he struggles to maintain the image of an
unusually calm and stalwart individual, a man worthy to be a lord of the
clan. It is only in private, and often in the dark, that Okonkwo
spontaneously reveals the love and warmth he feels for his family. In the
dark, he rushes to protect his daughter from harm by Chielo; without
39
thought, he rushes to save her from iba. He had wished Ezinne had become
a boy. Okonkwo also loves Ikemefuna. It is the closeness of this fatherson relationship, being expressed in the feasting of the locusts, that Ezeudu
interrupts to tell Okonkwo that Ikemefuna must die. At the very moment of
his violence against Ikemefuna, we see love locked inside. “As the man
who had cleared his throat drew up and raised his matchet, Okonkwo
looked away”. Okonkwo looked away not because he is a coward, not
because, like his father, he could not stand the sight of blood; after all; “in
Umuofia’s latest war, he was the first to bring home a human head, his
fifth”. Okonkwo looks away because of his buried love for Ikemefuna
whom he has taken as his own son.
Omenuko’s expression of love on the other hand is outward. He
loves his brothers and confines in them when he was in trouble. He also
took their advice to run out of their homeland after the sin he committed.
Even the boys he sold into slavery he felt for them and made sure that he
brings most of them back.
(ii)
Manliness and survival
In Things Fall Apart, the thematic emphasis on manliness and
survival, becomes extended through the yam, the “king of crops”,
a
“man’s crop”. Okonkwo’s effort to assert himself through success as a yam
father is firmly based in an ontology that insists on man’s masculine role as
the provider of support for the family.
Contrasted with this and
40
illustrating the society’s insistence on manly virtues is the picture created
of Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, a man known “in all the clan for the
weakness” of his matchet and hoe. Okonkwo visits Nwakibie, an elder, in
order to borrow yam seedlings for his new farm:
“I have come to you for help”, he said. “Perhaps you
can already guess what it is. I have cleared a farm but
have no yams to sow. I know what it is to ask a man
to trust another with his yams especially these days
when young men are afraid of hard work. I am not
afraid of hard work. The lizard that jumped from
the high iroko tree to the ground said he would praise
himself if no one else did. I began to fend for myself
at an early age when most people still sucked their
mother’s breast. If you give me some yam seeds, I
shall not fail you”.
Moreover, Okonkwo’s desire to assert his manliness is clearly
dramatized in the killing of Ikemefuna. The obsession with proving and
preserving his manliness dominates Okonkwo’s entire life, with public and
private: “He rules his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the
youngest, live in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so do his little children”
(Things Fall Apart, Chapter 2, p.9). Even in the informal relaxed story-telling
sessions, Okonkwo sees as threat to himself and his dynasty, the boys sitting with
their mothers, “for these stories will make women of his sons, make them like
their grandfather rather than like their father”. So, at those times, “Okonkwo
encourages them to sit with him in his obi and he tells them stories of the landmasculine stories of violence and bloodshed”.
41
The hero of Pita Nwana, Omenuko, shows his own manliness through his
actions no matter the consequences. His ambition to rise above his humble
beginnings seems to have produced an extreme reaction in his character. Being a
trader, profit becomes his guide in most of his major actions in the novel;
humanness becomes a consideration only later when he can afford it.
Consequently, he is always on top of things, scheming and grasping, the cool
man and the easy talking operator. Only few of the people he meets recognize
him truly for what he is, not even the ‘white District ’Commissioner.
(iii)
Colonization
Achebe, in Things Fall Apart, tries to show the impact and the
attendant consequences of the colonial system on the Igbo traditional
system. Pita Nwana has also done that twenty years before Achebe. The
difference here would lie on the different ways in which the different authors
mould their chief characters. While Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart is more
pronounced and more uncompromising in his reaction to the changing
society, Omenuko is not only silent and non-committing in his reaction, but
he also tries to utilize this new change to his own advantage. Pita Nwana
sees through his chief character that the whiteman’s colonization is not what
one can fight against, but something one has to accept and exploit to one’s
own good. Pita Nwana, however, is not as articulate as Achebe in showing
42
the social reaction and conflict generated by this colonial system in Igbo society.
It is natural to expect that the two cultures could not have had such a peaceful and
uneventful fusion as Nwana presents it. Achebe’s hero, Okonkwo, is very
articulate in his contempt of and opposition against the new culture. Omenuko,
on the other hand, is silent and uncommitted in this war between the two
cultures. He does not believe in fighting or dying for any of the systems. He
would rather exploit to his advantage, anything good he finds in any of the
systems.
(iv)
Sojourn and Return:
The chief characters, in Things Fall Apart and Omenuko, have
been made to undergo the same fate with near identical consequences.
Omenuko as well as Okonkwo committed crimes and as a result, both
of them are made to go into exile as punishment for their crimes. In the
case of Okonkwo, it is exile for a stipulated number of years (for seven
years), while in the case of Omenuko, the number of years in exile is
not stipulated; it could go on for life. The reasons are that while
Okonkwo’s crime is non-premeditated or accidental, Omenuko’s crime
was a premeditated one.
In the traditional Igbo society, almost all crimes are atoned for.
This usually is in the form of sacrifice to be done by the offender.
Before Omenuko could go back to his home town he had to offer some
sacrifices to atone for his crime. Nwana and Achebe record that their
43
heroes returned home as wealthy men. Both came back to meet a
changed society in which the powers and innovations of the whiteman
have been firmly entrenched. After considering the circumstances
surrounding their sojourn and return, Omenuko voluntarily retires from
public life while Okonkwo retires from life itself.
CHARACTER AND CHARACTERIZATION
There are few similarities in the characters mentioned in both
Omenuko and Things Fall Apart. First, only two characters are
outstanding in both works. In Things Fall Apart, they are Okonkwo and
his great friend, Obierika; Okonkwo being the protagonist. In Omenuko,
it is the hero of the story, and again his great friend, Igwe. This is not to
say that nothing can be said about other characters in Things Fall Apart
such as Uchendu, Nwoye, Mr. Brown and Ezinne or about such
characters in Omenuko like Nwa D.C., Mazi Oji and Nwabueze.
Secondly, the two protagonists in the two novels start life from
a humble beginning. They later grow very rich. Each committed an
abomination which led to their exile. Both became wealthy again during
their exile, from where they now came back home.
Both Okonkwo and Omenuko are strong-willed, ambitious and
industrious and both are determined to achieve greatness and fame.
Both are highly respected in their communities such that Okonkwo is
chosen as the imperial emissary to Mbano and is given the custody of
44
Ikemefuna on behalf of his clan while Omenuko is so respected and
trusted that many parents entrust their children to his care for their
welfare and progress in life. Also, Omenuko, a stranger, is mandated to
hold the warrant of office of Eze Mgborogwu on behalf of his young
son, Obiefula.
The above notwithstanding, there are many differences in the
character of both Okonkwo and Omenuko. Okonkwo is a hot tempered
man who strongly believes that might is right and the only thing worth
demonstrating is strength, anger and brutality. He is a man of violence
who relishes in inflicting injury to others. In anger, he soundly beats his
wife, Ojiugo, forgetting that it is during the week of peace. In anger, he
beats his second wife, Ekwefi, just for cutting off few banana leaves
and not only that, he actually fires at her with his dane gun when he
heard her murmuring against him. It is the constant nagging, bullying
and beating which his first son, Nwoye, receives from him that makes
him feel disenchanted with life and with his father which eventually
leads him into the beckoning hands of the Church. On the other hand,
Omenuko is of cool temperance. In fact, throughout his life time, there
is no act of violence he exhibited within his family. He is always levelheaded and strongly believes in using his considerable wisdom in
solving his problems.
45
Okonkwo had an inflexible will and once he starts something, he
would neither budge nor stop to reflect, but would go all out to fulfill his
wishes no matter the consequences. For instance, after their humiliating
imprisonment, he swears revenge when they were eventually released. “If
they listen to him (Egonwanne), I shall leave them and plan my own
revenge”, he swore (Chapter 24). This, he fulfilled by butchering the head
messenger sent by the District Commissioner to stop their clan meeting.
This is an attribute of a flat character. On the other hand, Omenuko is a
very flexible person and able to adapt to varying conditions and situations.
He always considers his actions very carefully before doing anything. For
instance, when Ndi Mgborogwu start harassing him by insisting that he
should hand over the warrant of office back to Obiefula, instead of
adamantly refusing, he accepts. After he trickishly secures his own, he
hands over Obiefula’s own to him.
Okonkwo is an autocratic father who rules his family with an iron
fist. He takes decisions unilaterally. He does not believe in consultations,
always believing that he is right in his decisions. For instance, despite the
warning he receives from Ogbuefi Ezeudu not to participate in the killing of
Ikemefuna, he refuses and he is the very person who kills the poor boy. He
refuses to agree with his wife, Ekwefi, that two goats would be enough for the
farewell feast for his mother’s kinsmen. He always has contrary views on issues
with his great friend, Obierika. On the other hand, Omenuko is a democrat to
46
the core. He believes in persistent consultations and out rightly seeks for advice
and also accepts suggestions from his people and abides by them. For instance,
after the sale of his kinsmen into slavery, Omenuko calls a meeting of his
family members where he tells them of his heinous act and of the mayhem he is
envisaging. During the subdued meeting, he is dissuaded from carrying out his
evil intention which he readily accepted. At the death of Eze Mgborogwu, he
called the elders of Mgborogwu together to deliberate on how to meet the
District Commission at Awka. He always consults his great friend, Igwe, on any
important decision he wants to take.
When the only course open to Achebe’s hero was to go into exile, he
fled to Mbanta, his mother’s kinsmen. There, he was received, supported and
consoled. Achebe writes about the assurance of protection given to Okonkwo
by his mother’s younger brother, Uchendu.
It’s true that a child belongs to its father. But when
a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in his
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. Your mother is there to protect you.
She is buried there. And that is why we say that
Mother is supreme. (Things Fall Apart Chapt. 14
p.94).
47
In contrast to Pita Nwana’s hero, when Omenuko fled his
hometown, he did not seek refuge among the kinsmen of his mother’s
maiden family, instead, he fled to Mgborogwu, where he was without
patrilineage and therefore without citizenship either in the world of men
or in the domain of his ancestors. The people of Mgborogwu seized upon
this when they rose against him for seeking to hold the highest office in
their land. They protest to the white District Commissioner, “we shall
never allow this to happen in this our own land, that one who is, afterall,
a stranger should be our head and chief executive”.
Okonkwo of Things Fall Apart, started preparing for his return as
soon as he entered his last year in exile. Irrespective of the kindness
showed to him by his mother’s kinsmen, he regretted everyday of his
exile. He says, “The seven wasted and weary years were at last dragging
to a close”. He is very happy as he prepares to go.
Omenuko on the other hand, tries various devices to prevent his
return. He tries exaggerated acts of charity, as well as other diplomatic
maneuvers but these only serve as temporary tolerance. The evidence that
Omenuko is not happy going home is that he became very willing only
when the District Commissioner sees the threat to his life and advises
him to return to his original homeland to avoid being assassinated by his
angry landlords.
48
In the heroes’ characterization, while Okonkwo’s name hase
nothing in relation to his actions in the novel, Omenuko’s name shows
his actions in the novel. He gives out actually even in the face of scarcity.
49
CHAPTER FOUR
SOCIAL PROBLEMS
In Things Fall Apart and Omenuko, the authors tried to highlight
many of the social problems of the time. Some of these social problems
still rear their ugly heads in the present day society while some are either
carried out secretly in a different way or not done at all. In this chapter,
effort will be made to look at the striking social problems as contained in
the two novels to see their relatedness or otherwise. They include
(i)
Slave Trade:
In Pita Nwana’s novel, Omenuko, it is clear that slave trade was
practiced at that time, though not openly. A merchant by profession,
when the novel opens, he had lost all his goods on his way to the market
following the collapse of a rickety bridge. With amazing rapidity,
Omenuko sells his neighbours’ sons and relatives who were apprenticed
to him into slavery for the sake of his own economic survival. Omenuko
arranges and sells those boys secretly in the middle of the night, hence
committing a criminal act against his society. In the author’s own words,
we read:
50
N’ime abali ahu ha ruru Bende, o wee jekwuru
ndi enyi ahia ya, ndi nke na-agba ya mmadu,
si ha, “Bianu ugbu a n’abali, m jiri ihe ahia bia.”
(Omenuko Isi mbu, p.6).
(In the night they arrive Bende, he (Omenuko) went to his customers that
buy slaves from him and said, “come this night, I came with some
articles of trade”).
The author, however, disapproves and severely condemns this
practice of slave trade. This we can see through the critical reactions and
condemnation which Omenuko receives on his return from Bende where
he sold his boys into slavery. Even his brothers were not exempted in the
condemnation. When he initially solicits the support of his brothers, they
responded with serious reproach.
His brothers told him that it (the selling of his
apprentices) is a thing unheard of and can never
please the ear that hears it … They blamed him
for his rash act, because it is an event which can
never be forgotten in life. They wondered how
he could summon up courage to sell the children
of his fellow men merely because his goods fell
into a river. “Was it the fault of your fellow man
that you lost your goods? (Emenyonu, 1978 p.39).
In the same way, Chinua Achebe makes us notice the existence
of slavery in Things Fall Apart. He calls it ‘low born and outcasts’ (the
slaves and the osu). The traditional society of that time excludes this
group of people from communicating socially, politically and religiously
with the free-born. When the free-born who joined the church started
51
mixing freely with the outcasts who formed the bulk of the congregation
in those days, it was seen by the elders as an abomination and they
lamented that “the church had come and led many astray. Not only the
lowly born and the outcast but sometimes a worthy man had joined it”. A
worthy man here refers to the free-born of the village and titled men as
shown by Ogbuefi Ugonna, who being a titled man and well respected in
the village, “had cut the anklet of his titles and cast it away to join the
Christians”. In trying to convince the missionary why the outcasts should
not be allowed into the church, one of the converts says,
He was a person dedicated to a god, a thing set
apart – a taboo for ever, and his children after him.
He could neither marry nor be married by the freeborn. He was in fact an outcast, living in a special
area of the village, close to the general shrine.
Wherever he went he carried with him the mark
of his forbidden castle – long, tangled and dirty
hair. A razor was a taboo to him. (Things Fall Apart,
Chapter 18, p.111).
The author, however, shows his disapproval of the osu practice in the
way the missionary responds to the speech of the converts.
In our society today, we cannot say that the practice of slavery is
completely wiped out. Where it is practiced however, it is done with
utmost secrecy and sometimes given another name, for instance, when
we listen to the media most of the time, we hear government battling with
how to stop human trafficking and child labour.
52
(ii)
Murder:
Chinua Achebe records many cases of murder in Things Fall
Apart as opposed to Pita Nwana who records only one case of murder in
Omenuko. In Things Fall Apart, the wife of Ogbuefi Udo went to the
market at Mbano and had been killed. No reason was given for her
murder. In a gathering of Umuofia people in the market square, Ogbuefi
Ezeugo had said through a gleaming white teeth, “Those sons of wild
animals have dared to murder a daughter of Umuofia”. The woman was
the wife of Ogbuefi Udo.
During the second year of Okonkwo’s exile, his friend, Obierika,
visits him. In their discussion, Obierika tells him the events that had
taken place in his absence. One of such events is another case of murder
as recorded by the author. “Have you heard, asked Obierika, ‘that Abame
is no more?”. Obierika narrated to his friend how the first whiteman was
seen in Abame and on consultation with the Oracle, they were told that
the strange man would break their clan and spread destruction among
them;
And so they killed the whiteman and tied his iron horse
to their sacred tree because it looked as if it would run
away to call the man’s friends. I forgot to tell you
another thing which the Oracle said. It said that other
whitemen were on their way. They were locusts, it
said, and that first man was their harbinger sent to
explore the terrain. And so they killed him (Things
Fall Apart, Ch. 15, pp 97 – 98).
53
Continuing his story, Okonkwo’s friend, Obierika, told him that on a
market day, when the market was full, the whitemen and their followers
surrounded the market and began to shoot. According to the story,
“Everybody was killed, except the old and the sick who were at home and a
handful of men and women whose chi were wide awake and brought them
out of that market”.
Furthermore, at the gathering of the clan of Umuofia, after they have
ransomed the six elders detained by the British Administration to plan their
next line of action, the District Commissioner send his hated messengers to
break up the meeting. “Okonkwo confronts the head messenger, trembling
with hate and unable to utter a word”. Achebe creates a powerful scene as he
writes,
In a flash Okonkwo drew his matchet. The messenger
crouched to avoid the blow. It was useless. Okonkwo’s
matchet descended twice and the man’s head lay
beside his uniformed body. (Things Fall Apart
Ch. 24, p.144).
In comparison with Omenuko, Pita Nwana did not record any
intentional murder in his novel.
This second social problem of murder is still present in the society
of today as assassins are hired to kill people who are regarded as enemies.
(iii)
Wars:
There are cases of wars recorded by the two authors in review. Pita
Nwana records that when the people of Mgborogwu could not force
54
Omenuko to leave their home for them, they met and decided to carry war
to his house at Ikpa Oyi. During this fight, two people; one from each side,
were killed. However, Chinua Achebe did not present wars physically but in
many occasions talked about wars. For instance, when the sons of Mbaino
killed the daughter of Umuofia, Okonkwo was sent to Mbaino as “the proud
and imperious emissary of war”. The people of Mbaino, however, out of
fear for the war-like people of Umuofia, opted for a peaceful settlement by
giving them a lad of fifteen and a young virgin. We also hear stories of wars
in different parts of the world today.
(iv)
Accidental Killing
During the funeral ceremony of a warrior, Ogbuefi Ezeudu, Achebe,
records Okonkwo’s activities as well as other people’s activities to give the
great man a befitting burial. In his words,
The drums and the dancing began again and reached
fever-heat. Darkness was around the corner, and the
burial was near. Guns fired the last salute and the
cannon rent the sky. And then from the centre of the
delirious fury came a cry of agony and shouts of
horror. It was as if a spell has been cast. All was
silent. In the centre of the crowd a boy lay in a pool
of blood. It was the dead man’s sixteen-year-old son,
who with his brothers and half brothers had been
dancing the traditional farewell to their father.
Okonkwo’s gun had exploded and a piece of iron
had pierced the boy’s heart.
55
There is no record of such action in Nwana’s Omenuko.
It is a social problem as many people carry guns in different
ceremonies today either as a way of respect, as in funeral ceremonies or
as show off in other parties.
(v)
Bribery and Corruption
The social problem of bribery and corruption is shown in the texts
under discussion – Things Fall Apart and Omenuko.
In Things Fall Apart, it is clear that bribery and corruption is in
vogue that time. It is shown in the text where the court messenger and
interpreters take bribe in a land dispute and decide the case in favour of
the wrong side. This act of bribery spread fast as is shown in the speed
with which the court messenger demand a bribe for the release of the
elders who were detained by the whiteman. In the same way, Pita Nwana
also records a case of bribery when Okoroafo and other men were
traveling to Aru Ulo to see Mazi Oji for a discussion on how to get back
the slaves sold to him. When Okoroafo and his men got to Ozuitem, they
were caught by the people saying that they have violated their ‘Ekpe’. In
the course of the argument, the people of Ozuitem collected five shillings
each from the four men traveling with Okoroafo.
This case of bribery is present everywhere these days - in the court,
on the road, even in offices. Government has, however, tried to introduce
many programmes to combat the issue of bribery and corruption such as
56
War Against Indiscipline (WAI), Independent Corrupt Practices and
other related Offences Commission (ICPC) etc. It is hoped that very soon
it will be a thing of the past. Even land dispute which rear its head has
also claimed many lives in our society today.
(vi)
Violence Against Women
In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe records many cases of violent
acts
exhibited by his hero, Okonkwo.
Okonkwo’s
During the Week of Peace,
wife goes to plait her hair without either cooking the
afternoon meal or making
adequate
arrangement for her children’s
feeding. In the words of Achebe, “Okonkwo was provoked to a justifiable
anger by his youngest wife, who went to plait her hair at her friend’s
house and did not return early enough to cook the afternoon meal”. Even
though it was an abomination to beat somebody during the Week of
Peace and even though Nwoye’s mother tried to cover her co-wife,
Okonkwo did not recognize it and Achebe declares:
Okonkwo knew she was not speaking the truth. He
walked back to his obi to wait Ojiugo’s return. And
when she returned he beat her very heavily. In his
anger, he had forgotten that it was the Weak of Peace.
His first two wives ran out in great alarm pleading
with him that it was the sacred week. But Okonkwo
was not the man to stop beating somebody halfway
through, not even for fear of a goddess. (Things Fall
Apart Ch. 14, p. 21).
57
On another occasion, Okonkwo’s second wife cuts some leaves from
a banana tree and eventually the banana tree died. The New Yam Festival
is three days away. The women and children are enthusiastic over the feast
and are preparing for it. Okonkwo hates being idle waiting for a feast or
getting over it, instead, he prefers working in the farm. As Achebe puts
it,
And then the storm bursts. Okonkwo, who had been
walking about aimlessly in his compound in
suppressed anger, suddenly found an outlet. “Who
killed this banana tree”? he asked. A hush fell on
the compound immediately. ‘Who killed this tree?’
Or are you all deaf and dumb? (Things Fall Apart
Chapter 5, p.27)
Even though the woman admitted that she had merely cut a few
leaves off it to wrap some food, Okonkwo gives her a sound beating and
leaves her and her only daughter weeping.
In contrast, Pita Nwana did not portray such violent acts against his
hero in his Omenuko.
Violence against women is an extreme manifestation of gender
inequality and ranges from domestic abuse, female genital mutilation, to
trafficking. Some types of violence are not observed since they happen
behind closed doors and are treated as ‘private’ family matter. Violence is
one of the numerous mechanisms by which women are forced into
subordinate positions by the society. In Igboland, violence against women
is an everyday occurrence and sometimes even considered ‘normal’.
58
(vii) Human Sacrifice:
Another social problem recorded by Achebe in Things Fall Apart
is human sacrifice. This social evil is however not present in Nwana’s
Omenuko.
Ikemefuna, along with a young virgin girl, was given to Umuofia in
place of Ogbuefi Udo’s wife who was murdered by the people of
Abame. Ikemefuna had grown in Okonkwo’s house along with his own
children. He has become so used to the members of the family, especially
Nwoye, that he had almost forgotten his place of birth. Eventually, one
day, Umuofia decided to kill him. Achebe reports that the oldest man in
the quarter of Umuofia, Ogbuefi Ezeudu, had visited Okonkwo and had
said to him:
“That boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his
death”. Okonkwo was surprised, and was about to
say something when the old man continued: “Yes,
Umuofia has decided to kill him. The Oracle of
The Hills and the Caves have pronounced it. They
will take him outside Umuofia as is the custom,
and kill him there. But I want you to have nothing
to do with it. He calls you father”.
And so Ikemefuna who had been thinking of when to see his mother
and three year old sister, was sacrificed to the gods.
Though reduced to the barest minimum now following the effort of
government, the church and the school authorities, human sacrifice is still
being practiced in different parts of our society.
59
(viii) Suicide
Suicide as a social problem is highlighted by Achebe but is not
recorded by Pita Nwana.
In Things Fall Apart,
after Okonkwo
had killed
the chief
messenger of the District Commissioner who came to stop the great
assembly of Umuofia, he expected his people to react positively in his
support to wage war against the white missionary.
Contrary to his
expectation, they let the other messengers escape. As Achebe puts it,
The waiting backcloth jumped into tumultuous life
and the meeting stopped. Okonkwo stood looking
at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not
go to war. He knew because they had let the
other messengers escape. They had broken into
tumult instead of action. He discerned fright in
that tumult. He heard voices asking: “Why did
he do it?”. He wiped his matchet on the sand and
went away. (Things Fall Apart Ch. 24, p. 143).
Okonkwo goes and hangs himself, committing the final act of
abomination against the gods, in particular, the earth goddess, Ani, whom
suicide is a discretion. A man who commits suicide cannot be buried by
his clansmen.
This social problem however, does not obtain in our society these
days except in extreme frustration.
60
(ix)
Banishment:
In the traditional Igbo society, the enactment and the preservation of
the law is the civic responsibility of everybody. Chinua Achebe and Pita
Nwana show clearly that everybody knows the law and has to comply
with them. In Things Fall Apart, for instance, when Okonkwo committed
a crime, Achebe writes,
The only course open to Okonkwo was to flee from
the clan. It was a crime against the earth goddess to
kill a clansman, and a man who committed it must
flee from the land. The crime was of two kinds, male
and female. Okonkwo had committed the female
because it had been inadvertent. He could return to
the clan after seven years. (Things Fall Apart
Ch. 13, p. 87)
In the case of Omenuko, Nwana records that his own crime is a
premeditated crime. Its own type of exile could go on for life.
Omenuko’s recovery of those he sold into slavery made a change in
terms of the number of years he was in exile. The two authors clearly
make it clear that these crimes committed by their chief characters must be
atoned for before each could be accepted back into the society.
In our society today, the modern judiciary categorizes killing as
either murder or manslaughter respectively. As for going into exile, it has
ceased to exist in Igbo society.
61
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION
The pattern of history Achebe traces in Things Fall Apart
resembles Nwana’s vision in Omenuko. A close examination of Things
Fall Apart and Omenuko reveals remarkable similarities in patterns of
events employed by both novelists to reveal the nature and direction of
the transition occurring in the respective traditional societies.
The change that takes place in Omenuko is more subtle than the
vision expounded in Achebe’s pattern. It takes the nature of gradual
assimilation. Achebe’s pattern is symbolically embodied in the severance
of son from father, with the son representing the new dispensation which
replaces the world of the father. Umuofia finds itself caught up in a
whirlwind of changes, and as we move from the world of Unoka through
that of Okonkwo to the world of Christianized Nwoye, we are dealing not
only with the life of an individual but also with the history of a culture in
transition. It is simultaneously the unfolding of the history of Igbo culture.
It is clearly evidenced that in Things Fall Apart and Omenuko the
only terms for describing inter-personal affinities are those like father,
mother, sister and brother.
Hence, Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart
addresses Ogbuefi Nwakibie as “our father” or “Nna anyi” (p. 15). The
62
employment of the term “uncle” for Okonkwo’s mother’s brother,
Uchendu, is Achebe’s modern or European style rather than Umuofia’s.
In
Omenuko, most of Omenuko’s life is spent among relations who,
though not members of his nuclear family, still regard him as a member of
their family.
The subversion of the family institution is, therefore, portrayed
simultaneously as a major cause as well as a major product of change. In
Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo repudiates his father, only to be repudiated
eventually by his own son, Nwoye. The son, in effect, asserts a right to
pursue and serve his individual destiny rather than the corporate destiny of
the clan. In
Omenuko, Eze Mgborogwu directs that Omenuko should
hold his warrant for Obiefula, his young son, till he grows up. Omenuko,
through his relationship with the District Commissioner, secures for
himself a warrant with which he rules his large family at Ikpa Oyi.
Because the authors under study have the same vision, they have
themes and characters in common. Both record societies in transition in
which adaptability has become necessary for survival. In both novels, the
characters are ambitious, self-made social climber. The similarities might
be explained by saying that both authors write out of a similar experience.
The technique of exhibiting the experience differs in relation to each
author’s vision of life and the nature of environment.
63
Achebe adopts the tragic mode because of the violent wrenching of
the old by the new. The events that surround Okonkwo’s fortune and
actions are all in keeping with the tragic pattern of life and the tragic
elements in human nature.
His character is of such monumental
magnitude that he dominates the drama of the novel. As in all great
tragedies, his death has a tragic effect on his community. Omenuko as a
character also dominates the drama of the novel but instead of being
tragic, he always tries to exploit to his advantages, any situation he finds
himself.
Omenuko is a biography of the life of a great man called Igwegbe
Odum while Things Fall Apart is a fiction based on historical narratives.
Both novels are extensively used for reading for pleasure and as textbooks
for various examinations.
64
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