![]() A session of storytelling may begin with proverbs and incorporate songs. The Igbo traditionally tell folktales only at night, after the day’s work is done and preferably in the dry season. Achebe’s placement of each folk tale in the text is intentional containing symbolic implications for the narrative. Five different folk tales appear at various points in the story: Vulture and the Sky Mosquito and Ear Leaves and the Snake-lizard How Tortoise Got His Bumpy Shell, and Mother Kite and Daughter Kite. Thirdly, Achebe used folktales to reinforce the more conventional elements of the novel and emphasize the values of the Igbo culture. In this text, proverbs serve to ease difficult conversations as “the palm oil with which words are eaten.” They preserve the wisdom of elder generations succinctly and help the reader understand the moods and attitudes of the novel’s characters. Igbo conversation is studded with these nuggets of wisdom. The inclusion of proverbs in this novel was another means of cultural preservation for Achebe. Achebe also used similes drawn from the daily life of the Igbo, each helping the reader to experience the particular time and place of the novel. The use of Igbo reminds the reader that certain concepts are unique to this culture and are not fully translatable. The meaning of each can be readily grasped from context, but Achebe also included a glossary of Igbo words at the end of the novel. In Things Fall Apart, the first method Achebe used to create “a new English” is the introduction of Igbo words and phrases directly into the text without translation. Achebe says that if he was to write for the people of Nigeria, he had to write in the one language they all understood, English. Thus, the people of Nigeria speak numerous languages-Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, and Fulani, and 500 additional languages. This difference arises from the artificial drawing of African national boundaries by the colonizing powers, without regard to ethnic fault lines. In a famous essay called “The African Writer and the English Language,” Achebe pointed out the difference between national language and ethnic language. ![]() With his childhood in the Igbo town of Ogidi and his education in English at the University of Ibadan, Achebe was conversant with both Igbo and English language and culture. They analyze the impact of the traditional oral elements to unlock the meanings and messages of the novel. ![]() Students identify the linguistic and literary techniques Achebe uses to convey a sense of Igbo culture. This close reading exposes students to a unique point of view and foreign cultural experience and serves to expand their base of world literature. The purpose of this lesson is to help students discover and evaluate this “new English” that has made Achebe “the father of African literature” and has placed Things Fall Apart on high school reading lists worldwide. He integrated Igbo words and phrases, proverbs, folktales, and other elements of communal storytelling into the narrative in order to record and preserve African oral traditions and to subvert the colonialist language and culture. Writing in English, the language of the imperialist conquerors of Nigeria, Achebe’s stated goal was to create a “new” and more African English. Published in 1958, just before Nigerian independence, the novel recounts the life of the village hero Okonkwo and describes the arrival of white missionaries in Nigeria during the late 1800s and their impact on traditional Igbo society. Things Fall Apart, the first novel of Chinua Achebe, deals with the clash of cultures and the violent transitions in life and values brought about by British colonialism in Nigeria at the end of the 19th century. But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings." "I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience.
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