Chinua Achebe's main concern in "Things Fall Apart" is to portray the effect white men have on traditional Ibo society. Discuss how effectively this has been achieved throughout the novel.

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James Gilmore

English Literature

Chinua Achebe's main concern in "Things Fall Apart" is to portray the effect white men have on traditional Ibo society. Discuss how effectively this has been achieved throughout the novel.

In Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe tries to dispel the myth of savage African tribal culture. He does this by creating a complex and sympathetic portrait of a traditional village culture in Africa. Achebe is trying not only to inform the outside world about Ibo cultural traditions, but also to remind his own people of their past and to assert that it had contained much value. All too many Africans ( such as the Christian converts in the second half of the novel) were ready to accept the European judgment that Africa had no history or culture worth considering. Achebe fiercely resents the stereotype of Africa as an undifferentiated "primitive" land, the "heart of darkness," as Conrad calls it. Throughout the novel he shows how African cultures vary among themselves and how they change over time. He shows the reader a well established civilized society with it's own customs and beliefs. One of Achebe's main goals throughout the