Things Fall Apart and Lord of the Flies

This paper provides a critical comparison of two of the most famous literary texts. One is “Things Fall Apart”, written by Chinua Achebe; and the other one is “Lord of the Flies”, written by William Golding.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Achebe's first novel, Things Fall Apart, is a classic of African literature. Among all the colonial governments in Africa, the British in Nigeria fostered first education in its territory. As a result, Nigerian writers preceded those in other areas of Africa. Things Fall Apart is noted as the first African novel. Achebe, a master of his craft, has also written No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1988). Achebe has also published poetry, short stories, and essays.

In Things Fall Apart and in his later novels, Achebe wanted to counter demeaning and incorrect stereotypes of his people and Eurocentric presentations of the confrontation between the Ibo of Nigeria and the British intruders. In his novels, Achebe admits, he strives for artistic excellence but also wants to give a message. Just as the oral tradition of the Ibo people served their society by sustaining its values, so the modern Ibo, writing in English, should serve Ibo society (Gikandi, 52).

In Things Fall Apart, Achebe combined the Ibo oral tradition's narrative style with the Western world's traditional novel form. In novel form Achebe narrates an African tale in African style. The novel's narrative voice could be Achebe's or it could be the voice of a village elder. In either case, the voice is connected to the world of the novel. Though the voice is objective, it is also a part of the scene depicted (Lindfors, 10).

To achieve an African voice, Achebe uses plain, short, declarative sentences. Also, throughout the novel, characters narrate or listen to traditional stories from the society's past and stories that illustrate and teach the culture's values. The novel opens with the retelling of Okonkwo's exploits in a traditional wrestling match, the ritual by which young men proved themselves worthy of a high place in their clan.

Achebe weaves Ibo proverbs into the novel's dialogue, to clarify a point, teach a lesson, and, usually, provide humor. Also, many Ibo words are used in the text without translation. Some of these can be understood by the reader through context, but others remain mysterious and create a distance between the non-Ibo reader and the Ibo world of Things Fall Apart. Taken together, sentence structure, Umuofian stories, proverbs, and language create a memorable colloquial narrative voice.

The novel's structure, on the other hand, is formal. There are twenty-five chapters: thirteen in book 1, six in book 2, and six in book 3. Achebe establishes the nature of the Umuofian society and Okonkwo's character in book 1. In book 2 tension heightens as the outsiders appear. In book 3 the conflict comes to a head when Okonkwo kills the clerk and his people retreat before the power of ...