Old Wine in New Bottles: Exploring Cultural Imperialism in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart comes out as the pioneer book of African literature written by the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, who is considered as the father of modern African literature. The novel is one of the most celebrated works of Achebe that has acquired the status of a classic both on local and global scale. The novel speaks of African culture and tradition, and the history of destruction by the British rule. Achebe has declared that he wrote Things Fall Apart “in order to reassert African identity and as part of the growth of Nigerian nationalism” (O’Reilly 2001: p. 61). In this novel, Achebe presents the close and real image of the glorious past and fallen present of African life with all their pains, pleasure and despair. The colonization of Ibo tribe dismantles the native culture and thus the process of cultural imperialism successively takes place in the community for fulfilling the whole motive of colonialism. Achebe narrates in the novel how the people of Ibo fail to keep their culture as their ancestors have done in the past. As a result, the culture of thousand years falls apart. The present study intends to explore the various upshots of cultural imperialism and its aftereffect on Ibo society in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Keywords: Cultural Imperialism; Tradition; Colonialism; Society.