Structure in Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe as we all know is a proud Igbo and a devote Christian. He was a member of the Nigerian independence movement, and published the novel shortly before they gained independence. Having this information at hand, you can understand why he incorporated certain elements of structure into the novel. In the first part of the novel, he aims to educate his audience about the Igbo culture. An example of this would be in the first chapter when Okoye is talking to Unoka about the debts that he must repay him. The third person omniscient narrator mentions the fact that in Igbo culture, conversation is considered an art, where proverbs are respected, and one does speaks around the point their trying to make, rather than directly at it. This is reflected in the first part of the novel, as the story is told in a very circular motion, rather than linear. This is intentional, as it gives the novel a certain Igbo authenticity. In terms of the narrative voice, Achebe decides to use a third pe