In Things Fall Apart, Achebe includes many Igbo myths and folk tales such as the story of the cunning Tortoise and..... Achebe includes these stories as they illustrate many key values of the Igbo culture and also give warnings about the consequences of not following these ideals. As in many cultures, these folk tales highlight cultural ideals as they are often passed down through storytelling and allow these values and ideals to be ingrained in the minds of younger children who will then eventually pass them down to their children. Achebe incorporates these stories effortlessly into the novel which allows the novel to retain its authenticity while simultaneously giving the reader valuable insight in the Igbo culture.
One of the longer stories within the novel is that of the cunning Tortoise. We see this story being told by Ekwefi in chapter twelve of the novel as Okonkwo's wives and children sit in their huts listening to folktales. In this particular folktale, Tortoise convinces the birds to give him feathers so that he may join them for a grand feast in the sky. However, once they arrive Tortoise tricks the birds and ends up eating all the food, leaving only scraps for the birds. Out of anger, the birds take back the feathers they had loaned Tortoise and leave him stranded in the sky. The Parrot then tricks Tortoise and tells the wife of Tortoise to put out all the hard objects instead of the soft objects. Tortoise then jumps and lands on all the hard objects which causes his shell to break into pieces which are then put back together by a medicine man, providing an explanation for why the shells of tortoises are uneven. This story highlights many of the main values of the Igbo culture. This particular folktale is a good example of how the Igbo people value transparency in the community. Tortoise deceives the birds and lies to them however as we see later in the story this greatly backfires on him. This demonstrates to the reader that the Igbo culture holds transparency in high esteem and not living a transparent lifestyle can result in consequences.
Achebe also finds a way to communicate and incorporate these ideals within the novel by including mentions of other stories. Instead of telling the whole story as in the case of the Tortoise story, Achebe inserts one or two sentences describing a story which highlight the main idea of the tale. For example, when Okonkwo breaks the Week of Peace "They called him the little bird Nza who so far forgot himself after a heavy meal that he challenged his chi." This story warns about letting your success go to your head as this could cause you to do unwise things. Besides this one tale, Achebe includes many other stories such as the one of Eneke the bird which says that since men have learned to shoot without missing, he has learned to fly without perching. This tale demonstrates the idea which is highly prevalent in the novel and is contrasted by the character of Okonkwo. Eneke represents the idea that one cannot remain stagnant but must learn to adapt and change along with its environment. However, Okonkwo contrasts this idea as he is unable to realize that his actions must change due to the presence of the white men. In this sense Achebe is using a story to give contrast with one of the characters.
In conclusion, Achebe utilizes a variety of folktales and stories in order to highlight some of the main values and ideals of the Igbo culture. These tales also lend the novel a sense of authenticity which therefore enriches the content of the story.
0 comments:
Post a Comment