From line to light: The poetry of ‘Things Fall Apart’
By James Eze
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
THE above is from Irish poet, W.B Yeats in his poem entitled ‘The Second Coming.’ If only Yeats knew the anarchy that verse would unleash on the theories of racial supremacy, European expedition in Africa and elsewhere and other pitiable theories that sought to free Europe from the burden of inelegant history once Chinua Achebe caught hold of it, he would, in all likelihood, have kept it for himself.
In a sense, that verse sealed the pact between poetry and prose in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. And from the first page of that sublime work where poetry jumps at the reader in the passage “The drums beat and the flutes sang and the spectators held their breath… Every nerve and every muscle stood out on their arms, on their backs and their thighs,” to the final page where we encounter the devastating irony in “One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph at any rate,” there is no letup in the lyrical poetry of Things Fall Apart.
Famous Czech writer, Franz Kafka once observed that “If the literary work we are reading does not wake us up, why then do we read it? A literary work must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.” A good writer exerts enough mastery of poetry and prose and even drama with its arresting dialogue, to break the sea frozen inside the reader. And that is exactly what Chinua Achebe did in Things Fall Apart.
It must be noted though, that from the beginning of time, the three genres of literature; poetry, prose and drama have been tied at the navel by an umbilical cord. Any piece of writing aspiring for the heights of literary excellence must present a creative segue between the forms. The overlap between poetry and prose is as old as literature. Imagination is the transformative touch that turns language to monument. The application of imagination to the craft of poetry and prose heightens the sensory appeal of what is read. More often than not, both genres share the common practice of deploying literary devices, storytelling, emotion, concise expression, cadence and the aspiration for impact. There is also the burning ache for showing and not telling which drives the writer to strive for a sensory language that would loop the reader into the whirlpool of the experience being shared.
In clear terms, anyone who reads Things Fall Apart carefully cannot miss the acute word economy that made the book a timeless classic. Poetry emphasizes word economy and adroit use of language in a way that leaves nothing unsaid. Chinua Achebe’s practice of word economy verges on the sublime. We encounter this in the passage where Chika the priestess chided Unoka thusly “When a man is at peace with his gods and his ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm. You, Unoka are known in all the clan for the weakness of your matchet and your hoe.” Achebe adroitly condensed what would have taken a less gifted writer several pages to capture into two sentences. Only a poet of the highest order can achieve that. Achebe’s deployment of word economy is even sharper in the account of the murder of Ikemefuna. “Okonkwo looked away. He heard the blow. The pot fell and broke in the sand. He heard Ikemefuna cry, ‘My father, they have killed me!’ as he ran towards him. Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his matchet and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak.” The sentences were carefully chiseled out for a more cinematic depiction of the unfolding action. Here, language swiftly becomes the consummate coquette, stroking the reader tenderly to pry open their senses and make them vicarious witnesses of the gory scenario.
James Ngwu Eze
Indeed, the cursory reader cannot in all probability, see the deceptive poetry hidden in plain sight in Things Fall Apart. But as American poet, Robert Frost says “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe gave his reader so many teary moments, wrapped in poetry. The following passage, for instance, draws tears from the eyes – “A vague chill had descended on him and his head seemed to swell, like a solitary walker at night who passes an evil spirit on the way. Then something had given way inside him. It descended on him again, this feeling, when his father walked in, that night after killing Ikemefuna.” The reader cannot help but feel Nwoye’s sense of loss, the silent protest and revulsion that simmered beneath the surface. Achebe evoked the same feeling in the following passage; “That night the Mother of the Spirits walked the length and breadth of the clan, weeping for her murdered son. It was a terrible night. Not even the oldest man in Umuofia had ever heard such a strange and fearful sound, and it was never to be heard again. It seemed as if the very soul of the tribe wept for a great evil that was coming – its own death.” With this poetic invocation of mood, the reader is conscripted to shed a tear for Umuofia, a clan that had so easily won their affection in the early chapters of the book.
Back to poetry, the line; “Go-di-di-go-go-di-go. Di-go-go-di-go. It was the ekwe talking to the clan,” is onomatopoeia at its best. It is easy to get the meaning from the sound. Onomatopoeia is a very impactful poetic device that heightens the experience and aids the understanding of the subject matter. The book also reached incredible heights in the deft use of symbolism. When we read about the coming of the locusts, we may not know it but we are actually reading about the invasion of Umuofia by the white man. When we read so much about yams, it is because yams represent masculinity in the book. Women were not allowed to cultivate yams which were⁴ invariably described as an ‘exacting king.” The personification of yam as an exacting king is pure poetry. We see the same thing in the following line “That year, the harvest was sad, like a funeral, and many farmers wept…” This line is so poetic that the imagery leaps at the reader. Sadness is an emotion. Only beings with sensory powers can feel emotions. So, line by line, Chinua Achebe bleeds poetry into his prose, leaving the reader in unnamable ecstasy. Also, when we witness Obierika and the men of Umuofia set Okonkwo’s homestead on fire to cleanse the land he had desecrated, we watch as in a mirror, the metaphorical collapse of our hero, signaling his coming suicide. Achebe’s deft use of symbolism is compelling. The allusion to Amadi the leper as the equivalent of the white man is devastating. They share the same skin colour, after all. The white man’s bicycle that Abame people hung on a tree mirrors the impending doom, like the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. The swarm of locusts on Umuofia foreshadows the invading alien culture that would lay the indigenous culture to waste. Achebe’s masterful deployment of symbolism and imagery is devastating.
Chinua Achebe turned proverbs from a ploughshare to a frightening sword in Things Fall Apart. Some proverbs seem deceptively menacing while others simply disarm the reader, forcing them to look inwards in search of their own soul. When we hear Unoka tell his creditor that “the sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them,” we are invited to a clearing in the field where we can unabashadely look at the mirror and interrogate ourselves.
Squeezing poetry like water from a rock, Chinua Achebe gives us endless ecstatic moments. Frost says “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” In response, Achebe writes “And then quite suddenly a shadow fell on the world, and the sun seemed hidden behind a thick cloud,” to foreshadow the imminent invasion of Umuofia by the locusts…predicting the coming anarchy that would soon arrive with the white man.
In the end, if we must tell ourselves the truth, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart belongs to two worlds. That book is as much prose as poetry. As the narrative tone and mood shifts from elegiac to heroic and ironic decibels, we sense the nearness of something immense and unstoppable. We feel goosebumps as Achebe, the master craftsman treads cunningly in the interstices between genres to lift the latch on the door and let us into a new world of imaginative possibilities where genres meld seamlessly into one ocean of inspired genius that continues where God stopped!
* Being a paper by James Ngwu Eze presented in the poetry workshop at the first ever Things Fall Apart Festival in Enugu, from June 29-July 5, 2025
