Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Seminal Novel in African Literature

Abstract

Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is an influential novel in African literature for three reasons. First, it is a novel meant to promote African culture; second, it is a narrative about where things went wrong with Africans; and third, it is a prose text which contributed to Achebe’s worldwide recognition. It contains Achebe’s rejection of the degrading representation of Africans by European writers, and fosters Africa’s traditional values and humanism. The excesses of Igbo customs led the protagonist to flagrant misuse of power. The novel’s scriptural innovations bring fame to Achebe who is considered as the “Asiwaju” (Leader) of African literature, the “founding father of African fiction”, or again the “Eagle on Iroko”.

Positioning a Literary Work into Major or Minor Literature: Comparative Studies of Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

“…Chinua Achebe is one of the great authors from Nigeria, and Things Fall Apart is categorized as a seminal novel. A seminal novel is a creative and original fiction, which is considered to be of great influence because it contains the seeds of the future development of literary work (Casimir, 2020). Being considered a seminal novel, Achebe"s works must have something different from other minor literature.…”