Art & Things Fall Apart

In the novel Things Fall Apart, art never really came up but sort of did indirectly. The only way we could think of is that their culture is surrounded by ojects that are hand made by the people to be used in everyday life, such as the robes, pots, huts, war masks, etc., so technically their culture could be very impacted by art whether you consider these objects art or not.

Biography of Chinua Achebe

• Chinua was born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe in the Igbo village of Nneobi, on November 16th, 1930.
• Storytelling was a mainstay of the Igbo tradition and a big part of the community.
• At the age of twelve, Achebe moved away from his family to the village of Nekede.
• In Nekede, Achebe gained an appreciation for Mbari, a traditional art form which seeks to invoke the gods' protection through symbolic sacrifices in the form of sculpture and collage.
• Went to Nigeria's first university, then know as University College but now known as University of Ibadan

Novels

• Things Fall Apart
• No Longer at Ease
• Arrow of God
• A Man of the People
• Anthills of the Savannah

Unoka

Okonkwo

By Tommy Carr

Ikemefuna

Haiku of Setting

The lower Niger
Is a place where Igbo's live
People harvest yams

Harvesting is hard
Umuofia suffers droughts
Finally rain comes

Huts made out of earth
Tribes gather for protection
Women and children

Setting

The setting in Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart is very important to the story. The novel, which takes place in the 1890’s portrays the clash between Nigeria’s eastern white colonial government and Okonkwo’s Igbo tribe. There are nine villages within the Igbo ethnic group of Umuofia, Nigeria. Umuofia is a very strong, skillful, and traditional clan. Things Falls Apart is a novel filled with many setting based themes:

1. Cultures are continuously changing and adapting in order to succeed.
2. Language is a symbol that defines cultural and setting differences.
3. Each culture’s view can be narrow minded and limited yet each culture or location can benefit from one another.