Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart is great as a personal story of a strong man with overwhelming fears and as a story about a society that is falling apart. The title is ironic because it comes from William Butler Yeats's poem "The Second Coming," which laments the breakdown in society due to the waning of Christianity and the coming of a new dispensation. In Chinua Achebe's book, Christianity is the new dispensation that is crowding out the old religion of the tribal society.
Achebe is very fair in describing the conflicts. Okonkwo, the hero of the book, is forever trying to prove to himself and those around him what a strong man he is, partially to make up for the weaknesses of his lazy father. On the one hand, Okonkwo is a great warrior with deep convictions and a settled commitment to the traditions of his people; he has a strong moral center. When he inadvertantly commits a crime against his people, he accepts his punishment without question. On the other hand, Okonkwo is a harsh husband and father, a hot-tempered brooder, and and so full of the fear of how others perceive him that he is willing to take part in killing someone he loves deeply.
Likewise, Umuofia, Okonkwo's tribe, is not an ideal society of "the noble savage." The local gods terrorize the people of Umuofia and rule them in the bondage of fear, even making them do horrific things like throwing twin babies into the forest to die. At one point, the priestess of one particularly scary god carries away Okonkwo's most loved daughter to do who knows what with her, and Okonkwo and the child's mother can only helplessly let it happen. Still, the society functions with clear laws and traditions that hold things together, and some of these laws seem more just than the laws that the British bring and try to impose on the tribe.
One thing that bothered me about the book was that the Christian missionary argues that these gods are only wood and stone; I think any thinking Christian would recognize that these local gods are demons. Because he doesn't recognize the power of the local gods, the missionary loses credibility in the eyes of the tribal leaders. At the same time, Achebe acknowledges some of the greatest things about Christianity, that it accepts the lowly and the outcast and that its true converts may be people of strong conviction who are willing to suffer for their beliefs. The Christians fearlessly neglect the local gods and build their church in "the evil forest," depending on God to protect them. The main problem with the Christians in this novel is that they open the door for and even collude with an outside power who has no regard for the norms of the traditional society.
Things Fall Apart succeeds largely because the author writes with a great deal of what Keats called negative capability. We see things mostly from Okonkwo's view, but we are given glimpses into the minds of people around him--particularly his son Nwoye and his friend Obierika--that help us sympathize with other points of view. In the end, the story is a human tragedy that moves the heart deeply.