Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Summer 2011
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958)
Use the information and discussion questions on the following pages to facilitate your book club’s conversation.
Then visit www.mfah.org/bookclub to sign up for a scheduled drop-in tour or make a group reservation.
BOOK DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
[1] The novel’s title comes from the poem “The Second
Coming” by William Butler Yeats. This poem was written in
1919 in the aftermath of the First World War. Are there
parallels between the novel and the poem? What, if
anything, does this suggest about Achebe's attitude
towards European literature? About Christianity?
[2] What proportion of the book is devoted to the coming
of white men to Umuofia? What are the cause(s) of the
clash of cultures between the Igbo culture and European
colonizers?
[3] How do the egwugwu, masqueraders who impersonate
the ancestral spirits of the village, help organize and control
others? What methods do the Christian missionaries use to
displace Igbo beliefs and practices?
[4] Umuofia is a patriarchal society founded on the balance
of masculine and feminine qualities in Igbo culture. What
are these masculine and feminine qualities? Okonkwo,
ashamed that his father Unoka failed to be a "real man,"
seems to over-compensate. How does this result in conflict
throughout the novel?
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hew the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again,-- but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony deep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
--William Butler Yeats, 1919
[5] Describe the complex relationship(s) that exist between Okonkwo, his second wife Ekwefi, and
Ekwefi’s only surviving daughter, Ezinma.
[6] Chapter 7 tells the story of Ikemefuna's death. How does Okonkwo’s role affect your opinion of
him? Also consider how this killing relates to another well-known narrative that is similar: The Sacrifice
of Isaac (Book of Genesis, Chapter 22). What would you sacrifice based on faith?
[7] This story is told in a roundabout way, with digressions, folk tales and proverbs, and passages or
whole chapters (i.e., Chapter Five) devoted to description of everyday life. What does this achieve?
[8] Why is the last chapter told from the point of view of “the District Commissioner”? What is the
effect of this change in narrative focus?
[9] Critics have suggested that Things Fall Apart has a universal appeal. Do you agree? Can you think of
other literary works (novel, play, poem, etc.) you have read that relates to some of the themes?
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe was born November 16, 1930. He was raised by Christian parents in the
Igbo town of Ogidi in southeastern Nigeria. Excelling at school, Achebe won a scholarship to study
medicine at Nigeria’s first university. After a year, he changed his major to English, history, and
theology—losing his scholarship. His family provided him monies to pay tuition. At this time, he began
writing stories.
After graduation, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service beginning 1954, moved to the
metropolis of Lagos, and began writing his first novel: Things Fall Apart, published in 1958. It is
considered Achebe’s magnum opus, and has become the most widely read book in modern African
literature. He is also a poet, literary critic, and professor.
Achebe has written his novels in English and has been forced to defend time and again his use of
English, the "language of colonizers," in African literature. Additionally, Achebe offered controversial
critiques of celebrated European and American novels about Africa, most notably Joseph Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness. In June 2007 Achebe was awarded the Man Booker International Prize, and in 2010
he was awarded The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, one of the richest prizes in the arts. Now in his 80s,
he is the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University in
Providence, Rhode Island.
Spirit Statue [Male Figure], African (southern Nigeria),
Urhobo, Early 20th century, wood, The MFAH, Museum
purchase with funds provided by the Caroline Wiess
Law Accessions Endowment Fund.
Pendant, African (Ghana, Akan), c. 1900,
gold, The MFAH, Gift of Alfred C. Glassell, Jr.
MORE BY CHINUA ACHEBE
• No Longer at Ease (1960)
• Arrow of God (1964)
• A Man of the People (1966)
• Anthills of the Savannah (1987)
ADDITIONAL READING
The following novels, also by African writers, are set during the pre-colonial era, or describe the clash
between traditional African and colonial European cultures.
•
•
Ferdinand Oyono, Houseboy (1956) | A Cameroon houseboy records his fascination with his white masters.
Ousmane Sembene, God's Bits of Wood (1962) | A post-war strike in colonial Senegal and Mali during the
French colonial period.
•
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Weep Not Child (1964) | About Kenya before and during the Mau Mau struggle for
liberation.
•
•
•
Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood (1979) | Two Nigerian women, in the years before independence,
are caught between economic necessities, cultural taboos, and personal aspirations.
Mustapha Tlili, Lion Mountain (1990) | The struggle of a woman to maintain integrity during French occupation
of Tunisia.
J. Nozipo Maraire, Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter (1996) | A novel in the form of a single letter meant
to preserve a Zimbabwean woman from misplacing her hard-won national heritage.