To what does the title of the novel things fall apart refer
Answers
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a novel whose title bears the central massage of the work. The very title ‘Things Fall Apart’ foreshadows the tragedy which takes place at the end of the novel. The novel depicts the tragedy of an individual as well as the tragedy of a society. The protagonist of the novel Okonkwo who was rich and respectable at the beginning of the novel meets a tragic fate at the end of the novel. Achebe portrays how an ambitious, well known, and respected African Okonkwo’s life falls apart. But when he suffers, his whole tribe also suffers. At the beginning of the novel, the Ibo society was a peaceful, organic society, but at the end of the novel it falls into pieces. Thus, the novel records not only falling apart of Okonkwo’s life but also his whole society.
The title of “Things Fall Apart” is taken from the poem “The Second Coming,” which was written by the Irish poet W.B. Yeats. It was written in 1920, after the end f the First World War and during the Irish civil war which followed independence. The poem reflects the violence of the time around him, the bloodshed and dissolution of certainties which the previous years had brought to Europe.