Things Fall Apart... Some of my thoughts...

While reading through Things Fall Apart, you can’t help but notice the importance placed on oral culture. Throughout the book, there are many traditions passed on through generations through speaking, whether it is songs, stories, or anything else. They told stories to get across a message or a moral and also to form common ground between families. Since they lived in such close quarters, telling the same stories over and over put everyone on a common level of knowledge. Story telling was also just something to do. There is no TV or internet in an oral culture. Stories are a source of entertainment, even with a moral or past history embedded in the story. They also had traditional songs they sang during certain times. Having these traditions within a culture kept everyone close and connected. The stories were their history. Whatever was passed on was all that was known about the past.

When the white missionaries came into the village, they were someone knew, with different ideas, different stories, and different traditions. Because they didn’t have any common ground, they did not mesh well. What the missionaries brought with them was change, a new way of doing things. They measured time in terms of weeks, or based on certain days of religious importance, rather than based on seasons or market weeks. They did not speak the same language as the Ibo tribe which was a huge barrier in communication, oral communication being key in the Ibo culture. With various differences between the two groups of people, the problem that arises is a resistance to change within the Ibo tribe. You notice that those with higher societal status are very resistant to adapting to the ways of the missionaries, such as Okonkwo. It is the outcasts who first join in the ways of the white people.

When the Ibo people begin to adapt to what the missionaries believe, they are leaving behind their old traditions. No more story telling or singing of traditional Ibo songs. They have to learn a new language and take up new traditions. They are no longer a part of their native culture.