The point of this blog is to choose between a feminism and postcolonialism lens when analyzing the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I was originally going to analyze it from a feminist reading because I believed it would be simpler since the women are obviously dominated by the men that treat them like “objects.” I changed my mind later, and decided to go with postcolonial since the novel does a good job of describing Umofia before and after it was colonized by white settlers trying to change the customs of the people. The main idea i want to discuss is that "the conquerors not only dominated the physical land but also the hegemony or ideology of the colonized people."
When I write an essay about this I will begin by explaining how the colonized people were affected after they were conquered compared to before when they were living peacefully. I already have a copy of the postcolonial text (thank goodness nobody stole it), so I highlighted several sentences I believe relate to Things Fall Apart. Once I get my thesis organized I will try to organize the ideas I want to get across into possible paragraphs. I will use Fanons idea that “as soon as the colonized were forced to speak the language of the colonizer, the colonized either accepted or were coerced into accepting the collective consciousness” of the colonizer. I can use Okonkwo’s son as an example of this since he left all his beliefs behind and accepted those of the white people. I can also include the education the Christians are offering as ways of manipulating the young and old people into leaving their customs behind since language can shape the way people view reality. Another insight I could also use page 235 in the packet and add how “many westerners subscribed to the colonists ideology that all races other than white were inferior or subhuman. These subhumans or “’savages”’ quickly became the inferior and equally evil.” I could support this idea by using examples from the end of the novel when the colonized stopped fighting and gave in to the demands of the white people after they those who had power were treated like animals in the hands of the Christians.
Okonkwo was the only one who did not give in to the demands of the colonizers. His last act of rebellion was when he murdered a man who was sent to stop the meeting created to put an end to the white people abusing their rights. Because of this I believe Okonkwo represents the power Umofia had. The power it had died with him when he committed suicide.
