Colonial Intrusion and Stages of Colonialism in Chinua Achebe’sThings Fall Apart

Abstract

Abstract:Chinua Achebe’s first novel,Things Fall Apart, has continued to offer—perhaps much more than his third novel,Arrow of God—the most vivid account of the process of early colonial penetration in Africa. This study examinesThings Fall Apartthrough an analytical and conceptual framework that illuminates the five stages of colonialism in Africa. These five stages (exploration, expropriation, appropriation, exploitation, and justification) were necessary in order for colonialism to become both aneffectivetoolfordomination and asuccessfultoolofdomination; as such, they provide powerful glimpses into Achebe’s fictional representation of the cataclysm embodied by colonial intrusion, not only within the confines of the fictional Igbo universe that he depicts, but also throughout a sub-Saharan African world whose cultural and sociopolitical ethos were shaken to their core. An analysis of these stages, therefore, leads to an understanding of colonialism that defines it not as a series of specific historical events, spaces, and places, but rather as aprocessor aseries of psycho-historical processeswith a certain number of inescapable features that conspired to make it an effective tool of and forsustainedpolitical, cultural, and economic domination in sub-Saharan Africa. Achebe’s novel can be used as a tool that can help to decipher and foreground thepsycho-historical processesinherent in what, ultimately, may be called “the psychology of colonialism.”