In his essay, “The African Writer and the English Language”, Achebe sees the need for African literature to contain complex ‘African scenes and materials’ (Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin, 1995). The narrative style that is employed by Chinua Achebe is a compelling linguistic redress of the European literary texts. These sentiments are addressed directly to the colonizer and they are a major indicator of Achebe’s colonial discourse. After publishing “Things Fall Apart”, Chinua Achebe wrote an essay that was addressed to “Victoria, Queen of England” where he claimed that his book “was an act of atonement with the past and a ritual return of the prodigal son” (Ramone, 2011). In “Things Fall Apart”, the author gives prominence to his nation’s history by referring to his oral traditions repeatedly. The “independence of any nation can be ascertained using its narrative dispositions and origins” (Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin, 1995). One scholar argues that every nation has to invent its own tradition and have the ability to narrate its own history.

Chinua Achebe’s book manages to weave all these three elements together with the aim of subverting the colonial discourse. When accomplishing this mission, the authors seek to “use indigenous cultural traditions, appropriate English, and focus on the aftermath of colonialism” (Ramone, 2011). Most of the authors who seek to correct and protest against the post-colonial literatures do so by questioning the motives behind colonial discourses. This paper explores how Achebe’s novel subverts the colonial discourse and acts as a counter-narrative to the European texts. “Things Fall Apart” has often been mistaken to be the ‘first African novel’, but it is the book’s rich African narrative that has greatly contributed to this misconception. Using “Things Fall Apart”, Achebe introduces a new African identity from the perspective of an African. Throughout his book, Achebe tries to reverse the negative notions that have been created by European texts such as Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. The arrival of the missionaries brings chaos to the traditional Igbo society because its political structures are threatened by the colonial systems. Achebe’s book centers on the life of a village ‘superstar’ by the name Okonkwo and the arrival of white missionaries at the fictional village of Umuofia.

Things fall apart by chinua achebe