Foreshadowing In Achebe's Things Fall Apart

After reading Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, I was impressed by a literary device that Achebe used heavily throughout the book: Foreshadowing. The major plots in the novel follows a chronological order, which makes foreshadowing a very effective way to unfold the plots layer by layer, and shows the readers how things gradually fall apart, one after another. In addition, foreshadowing hints to the readers what might happen in the later chapters, which engages the readers and makes the novel very intriguing to read. The first example of foreshadowing is about Ikemefuna. At the very end of Chapter 1, the author mentions Ikemefuna for the first time, and says that he was “ill-fated”. (Achebe 8) This foreshadowing intrigues the readers to
wonder who Ikemefuna was and why he was ill-fated. And as we keep reading, we learn that Ikemefuna was given by Mbaino to Umuofia as a sacrifice. At first, Ikemefuna “could not understand what was happening to him or what he had done”. (15) In fact, he had done nothing, but he still had to face his “ill fate” and be taken away from his mother and sister. Gradually, Ikemefuna “became popular in Okonkwo’s household”. (28) Okonkwo regarded Ikemefuna as his son, and Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye, regarded Ikemefuna as his brother. However, Achebe has told us that Ikemefuna was ill-fated, which hinted that this kinship should not last long. After three years, the oldest man in Umuofia, Ezeudu, came to tell Okonkwo, “Umuofia has decided to kill [Ikemefuna].” He also warned Okonkwo, “…I want you to have nothing to do with it. He calls you his father” (57), Okonkwo, who was afraid of being viewed as weak, ignored Ezeudu’s warning and killed Ikemefuna by himself. This is extremely sad, but should not be too surprising, because the author has already foreshadowed Ikemefuna’s tragic destiny. Another important example of foreshadowing is when the locusts came. Locusts coming to the village foreshadowed the colonists’ advent, because there are crucial similarities between the locusts and the colonists. First of all, both the locusts and colonists are very destructive. As Achebe described, the locusts “ate up all the wild grass in the fields” (54) and “mighty tree branches broke away under them, and the whole country became the brown-earth color of the vast, hungry swarm.” The colonists are very destructive, too. They gained more and more converts over time, and gradually destroyed the traditional Igbo culture and leaders. The second similarity between the locusts and the colonists is that they did not destroy things suddenly and quickly, but gradually and slowly. The third similarity is that, for both the locusts and the colonists, Igbo people did not seem to care too much about them at first. In fact, they even found the white men amusing and offered him a piece of land, just like how they welcome the locusts. The ignorance and indifferent attitudes towards the locusts foreshadowed that the Igbo people would have the same attitude towards the white men, and eventually led to their own death, and things fallen apart.