Depiction of African Subaltern and Females in Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart': A Post-colonial Study

As the title of the novella ‘Things Fall Apart’ indicates the protagonist of this Nigerian story Okonkwo, the wrester and a fighter warrior of the Ibo clan, faces defacement and is defilement after the exile of seven years in Mbanta, his motherland, he arrives back to Umuofia, his fatherland. He faces the religious and racial tensions when in conflict with the new White and Christian faith and decides to battle against it. He kills a White messenger and commits suicide as the tale ends and the Commissioner mentions him in his book: The Pacification of Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger. In his conflict against the new community, he tries hard to defend his old faith but fails to gratify and restore his tribe and there in lies the significance of the title taken up from W. B. Yeat’s poem ‘The Second Coming’. African minorities and subalterns in the novella stand in stark contrast to the new White Christian faith which tries to colonise them and succeeds towards the end. The tragedy of the hero as he commits suicide highlights the coming of new age of colonialism in Nigeria which according to the writer Chinua Achebe is as superstitious as his old faith. The writer has intermingled both the cultures with the third person narrative and has given the plotting in three parts and twenty-five chapters. He has depicted the local tribal culture, subalterns, women and has garnished the colours and flavours by myths, tales within tales, traditions and way of life which makes the novella an unforgettable African classic. However, the catharsis and plotting neither favours the subaltern nor the females. In the manner colonial wings spreads on the tribe and the country the novella offers a significant point of view for post-colonial reader and that is the purpose of its selection for the study. The novella remains the first part in the trilogy and the two other novels are ‘No longer at Ease’ and ‘Arrow of God .’