Things Fall Apart: A Norton Critical Edition, Reaction Paper Example

Chinua Achebe named his novel Things Fall Apart after a line from Willam Butler Yeats’ poem The Second Coming. In his poem, Yeats says, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” and in this poem, he is referencing both loss of culture and the aftermath of change. Achebe relates this line to his novel as a way to describe the aftermath of British colonialism in Nigeria and the fall of Okonkwo as a leader of the Umuofia clan and the fall of the Igbo society in Nigeria.

Yeats’ The Second Coming and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart were both written in response to major political and world changes. Yeats’ poem references the apocalypse, and was written after the first World War. Achebe’s focus on change and loss of culture is rooted in British colonialism, and Yeats wrote from his viewpoint of displaced identity and culture, as well. In Yeats and Achebe, A.G. Stock says that,

No civilization can either remain static or evolve for ever towards a more inclusive perfection. It must both collapse from within and be overwhelmed from without, and what replaces it will appear; most opposite to itself, being built from all that it overlooked or under-valued (259).

Both works describe the internal struggle of the old and the new, and how to exist in a changing society, whether that change is good or bad.

By reading and understanding The Second Coming, we can see the foreshadowing of events to come in Things Fall Apart. Yeats’ poem is about the unavoidable aspects of change and the turning of time. Yeats is referencing the apocalypse in his poem, whereas Achebe uses this title to foreshadow the fall of Okonkwo and the inevitable change of the Igbo society brought about by the English colonialists. In chapter twenty of Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo and Obierika are discussing the white man’s invasion and the changes that are happening to the tribe, and in response, Okonkwo says,

The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has a put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.

Essentially, time cannot be stopped, and change is a result of time moving forward.

In Things Fall Apart, Achebe gives the reader a look into the subject matter and the theme of his novel by referencing Yeats’ poem in the title. Both Yeats’ and Achebe’s works are meant to create a dialogue among readers about forced change and loss of identity and culture.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart: A Norton Critical Edition. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.