Thinking Activity on Things Fall Apart

Here are some questions on Things Fall Apart. 

Things Fall Apart is set in the 1890s and portrays the clash between Nigeria's white colonial government and the traditional culture of the indigenous Igbo people. Achebe's novel shatters the stereotypical European portraits of native Africans.

1. What is historical context of Things Fall Apart?

The novel “Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, while often thought to offer readers an accurate portrait of Igbo or African culture in general, often does not effectively represent the culture it seeks to portray. More generally, one of the challenges of the fiction genre, and of the frequent criticisms lodged against it, is the manner in which history, people, and place are integrated into the narrative. Writing a fictive narrative that is based on real people, places, and events poses some inherent dangers, not the least of which is the possibility of inaccurate or partial 

While Achebe’s literary intentions in “Things Fall Apart" were probably noble, his achievement, in the eyes of many critics, falls short of the mark.  By presenting some beliefs, rituals, and characteristics of the community about which he writes, Achebe necessarily leaves out other important details about Igbo culture in “Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, giving the reader only a partial view and understanding of the tribe and its culture. Thus, the reader sees that although history and narrative can be complementary—after all, history itself is a narrative, and it is certainly not objective (Gikandi 3)—the relationship between the two also poses particular problems for the writer and the reader of a fiction work.

2. What is the significant of the title?

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a novel whose title bears the central massage of the work. The very title ‘Things Fall Apart’ foreshadows the tragedy which takes place at the end of the novel. The novel depicts the tragedy of an individual as well as the tragedy of a society. The protagonist of the novel Okonkwo who was rich and respectable at the beginning of the novel meets a tragic fate at the end of the novel. Achebe portrays how an ambitious, well known, and respected African Okonkwo’s life falls apart. But when he suffers, his whole tribe also suffers. At the beginning of the novel, the Ibo society was a peaceful, organic society, but at the end of the novel it falls into pieces. Thus, the novel records not only falling apart of Okonkwo’s life but also his whole society.

3. Write a brief note on the concept of 'Chi' in Things Fall Apart?

The concept of chi is discussed at various points throughout the novel and is important to our understanding of Okonkwo as a tragic hero. The chi is an individual’s personal god, whose merit is determined by the individual’s good fortune or lack thereof. Along the lines of this interpretation, one can explain Okonkwo’s tragic fate as the result of a problematic chi—a thought that occurs to Okonkwo at several points in the novel. For the clan believes, as the narrator tells us in Chapter 14, a “man could not rise beyond the destiny of his chi.”

5. Write a brief note on Ibo people's belief in the world of spirits.

The Igbo religion is in direct conflict with a monotheistic religion like Christianity, meaning a religion with one god. The Igbo believe that there are multiple gods and goddesses representing every facet of life and the ancestors who had walked the earth in previous lifetimes.

6. How is the difference between the father land and the mother land is described in Things Fall Apart?

Things Fall Apart takes place sometime in the final decade of the nineteenth century in Igboland, which occupies the southeastern portion of what is now known as Nigeria. Most of the action unfolds prior to the arrival of European missionaries. Accordingly, the geography of the novel is dictated by precolonial norms of political and social organization. In Igboland, clusters of villages band together to protect each other and guarantee their own safety. The action of Things Fall Apart centers on the fictional village of Umuofia, which is part of a larger political entity made up by the so-called “nine villages.”

In Igboland, geography takes on gendered aspects depending on where a person’s parents were born. For instance, Umuofia is Okonkwo’s father’s home village, which makes it Okonkwo’s fatherland. When Okonkwo gets exiled for the crime of manslaughter, he and his family travel to another of the nine villages, Mbanta, which is Okonkwo’s motherland—that is, the village where his mother was born. The gendering of geography plays an important symbolic role in the novel, since Okonkwo sees his seven-year exile in the motherland as an emasculating threat to his reputation.

7.Point out the important points of llKanthapura by Raja Rao.

The novel Kanthapura (1938) was an account of the impact of Gandhi's teaching on nonviolent resistance against the British. Rao borrows the style and structure from Indian vernacular tales and folk-epics. He returned to the theme of Gandhism in the short story collection The Cow of the Barricades (1947).

What is the importance of the heading 'Kanthapura' as depicted by Raha Rao in his novel? Kanthapura is the title, which is reminiscent to notify the reader of the contents of the novel. The heading 'Kanthapura' is the name of a village that is located in the South of India.

Thinking Activity: The sense of an Ending

Hello Readers,

Welcome to my blog !

This blog is a part of my thinking activity given by professor Dr.Dilip Barad. In this blog,we have to write our views regarding below given questions. To see the blog and the questions click here

The sense of an ending is novel written by Julian Burns. Tony  Webster is an protagonist of Novel who is in his 60s. He is on that time off life that now he get something to know about his past life events then he is not able to do anything.  The same thing happen with him that due to some reason he has to look at his past then he realized that whatever is in his memory is not true. And the actual truth is different than his memory.  All the truth of his actual life came to him  and at the end he got shocked with some of his own doing. For that he write that Who has done this I am not that Tony. 

1) A general critique of this novel also

2) Study of film adaptation

click here

Although I found the pacing of the novel quite slow at times in the second section, the climax was absorbing and tense. The final revelations force the reader to reconsider Tony’s narrative in a whole new light, become a literary detective and piece together the various clues amongst the faded memories. I’m trying to comment without revealing any major spoilers, but a quote from a review by The iIndependent captures the mood well: ‘the concluding scenes grip like a thriller – a whodunnit of memory and morality’. It is to Barnes credit that we initially read Tony as a genuine, average – if not emotional protagonist, with Veronica the unstable and calculating antithesis. But memories are subjective, and once the repressed past surfaces, we draw closer to the causes of Adrian’s suicide and Veronica’s anxieties – Tony has a part to play in both. 

Sexuality is another major theme in the novel. Tony describes his clique of friends as ‘sex-hungry’, and the metaphor of the ‘holding-pen’, from which they are ‘waiting to be released’, denotes their desire for sexual, as well as social, liberation. Throughout the first section, Tony’s disdain towards Veronica is centred around her rejection of sex. Later, it is implied that Sarah’s (Veronica’s mother) sexual transgressions have stunted her daughter’s psychological growth. Issues in the private, sexual sphere repeatedly spill out into the public world and cause great pain, affecting both filial and romantic relationships. 

The Sense of an Ending is dramatically different in tone, style and register to England, England, the only other Barnes novel I’ve read – this attests to authorial scope and imagination. The real achievement of The Sense of an Ending is that it offers no concrete ending. Upon completion, it demands to be re-read and analysed further. This process mimics the text’s plot, in which Tony must confront and scrutinise his murky past from a new perspective, peeling away the layers of artificiality he has constructed in his head. 

It's a book about history and how we recall events.” Robin Leggett

When we read the Novel The Sense Of An Ending sat that time we see that this is a book about the once personal history. We all have our own history of life with which we live. we see this book we are that this book is about the some events happened with Tony and how he recall history. When he got the truth that time he didn't able to believe that in his life he has do e some things like this also.

we see that this bool is about the personal history. we all have our own history. so, we can say that it is a book about history & how we recall events.

2) Study of film adaptation

A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dialogic process.

A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film. Other works adapted into films include non-fiction (including journalism), autobiography, comic books, scriptures, plays, historical sources and other films. From the earliest days of cinema, in nineteenth-century Europe, adaptation from such diverse resources has been a ubiquitous practice of filmmaking.

Thanks...

મનોચિકિત્સા

Dr.Shailesh Jani મનોચિકિત્સા  writing is very interesting.

Very interesting is mind matter in મનોચિકિત્સા .Feel the mindfree and freshness after reading psychiatry.

I read these days i like this. Very interesting and very enjoyable.

Mind matter:-

અમુક માણસોના મોઢા પર કાયમ  હાસ્ય  જોવા મળે છે એટલા માટે નહીં કે એ લોકો ખુશ છે પણ એટલા માટે 

કે  લોકો પરિસ્થિતિ કરતા મજબૂત છે…..