Who Is Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart?

Achebe communicates his personal beliefs on the way Western civilization studies the culture of those thought to be more primitive than their own when he closes his novel with the District Commissioner’s thoughts and book title: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger. Despite giving the book’s title “much thought,” the District Commissioner ends up highlighting the insensitivity and ignorance commonly used by the District Commissioner as well as by the Western civilizations when they practice ethnography (Achebe 209). The District Commissioner’s supposed “[p]acification” of the tribes accentuates the fact that the District Commissioner is ignorant to the fact that his and the imperialistic efforts to pacify such a country
Therefore, “the resolute administrator gave way to the student of primitive customs,” and the District Commissioner suspended his duties and inquired about the purpose of the Umofia’s tradition in dealing with the corpse (Achebe 207). After hearing two short responses to two basic questions, the District Commissioner deems himself an expert and decides to add Okonkwo’s story to a book he is writing. Okonkwo’s story, however, will not span an entire book as Achebe’s Things Fall Apart does; Okonkwo’s complicated history will be written into “perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph” by “cutting out details” (Achebe 209). This summary of Okonwo’s life that is already incomplete due to insufficient research will become further from the truth as the District Commissioner “cut[s] out details” to ensure “interesting reading” (Achebe 208-209). In this way, the author enforces the idea that, through the imperialistic tactics used in the Western civilizations’ scramble to colonize Africa, any culture of the indigenous people becomes irrelevant and is replaced by the beliefs valued by Western
Despite all his efforts, Okonkwo’s worst fear becomes reality when his fellow tribesmen abandon him. It is, in fact, because of Okonkwo’s actions that his worst fear becomes a reality. Okonkwo “felt a cold shudder” when he imagined the prospect of his children deciding to “follow in Nwoye’s steps” and “abandon their ancestors” (Achebe 153). He is frightened of his progeny abandoning the customs of his culture because he likens this idea to the “prospect of annihilation” because if his children are not there to remember and honor Okonkwo, Okonkwo truly dies (Achebe 153). This fear is what causes him to act so irrationally. Okonkwo does not need to kill the messenger, but he does so because violence is the language he speaks. There are people in the controlling European powers who the indigenous people can talk to. Mr. Brown was willing to leave the Umofians who did not wish to be bothered alone. He did not impose his beliefs or rules upon anyone, but instead, simply offered them up if anyone wishes to practice