Achebe’s defense of civilized Ibo culture via proverbial language in Things Fall Apart

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to explore the proverbial language of Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart in support of the civilized Ibo culture. Chinua Achebe has put many proverbs in his mouth pieces. All the proverbs used in this novel belong to the Ibo culture. The proverbs used by Ibo people in the novel are worthy enough to claim that they have a strong heritage and history which is symbol of civilized culture. The language of the Ibo people when compared with whites, it becomes crystal clear that whatever they say is proved or followed by strong arguments of proverbs. Whites say things imperatively and lack strong arguments in their talks. The questioning of Ibo people during their discussions with whites is as rich as their day to day conversations. Language is one of the basic traits of a culture, the culture having language saturated with proverbs and rich vocabulary is considered to be civilized culture. Ibo language is rich in both these aspects therefore it is presented as a civilized and strong culture not mere the culture of barbarians as considered by the West. This is a text-oriented study which is focused on the language of Things Fall Apart in which proverbs are used in abundance and the purpose of this paper is to prove that Chinua Achebe wants to reveal the civilized side of Africans in general and Ibo people in particular.