Structuralism in Things fall apart By Chinua  Achebe

                 Sana Ali Qureshi

                                                   

Department of English (Literature + Linguistics), National University of Modern Languages Hyderabad Campus

Abstract 

Although the novel is a Western literary genre, African writers approach it in a unique way that allows them to produce works that are uniquely African. That is the case with Things Fall Apart's structure, which is heavily influenced by African folklore. And the use of Paulme's theory in conjunction with Ducrot and Todorov's theory in this novel provides evidence for the presence of morphological features of the African tale in the structure of Things Fall Apart. Because the main protagonist cannot make the story on his or her own, the plot is organised around multiple. In this research paper, I have described all the things which are related to Structuralism. The idea whose basic concept was given by French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and later Claude Levi Strauss applied it to literature. Things Fall apart is a novel from African Literature. In this paper I have also given Ronald Barthes’ five codes which can be found in this novel.

Introduction

Things Fall Apart, a novel by Chinua Achebe, is based on the life and culture of an African tribe known as the Ibo. From the perspective of the main character, Okonkwo, this story is about how Igbo lost their way and themselves. While many novels revolve around conflict and its resolution, Achebe deviates from this pattern. His novel is structured in such a way that Ibo's life is highlighted before the main conflict. The story revolves around the arrival of the white men. Their arrival is what changes the Igbo and other African people, causing dispute on an individual, family, and community level. There is no true resolution in this novel. The main character commits suicide out of shame, and the conflicts are never satisfactorily resolved, as they are in so many other novels. Rather, the lack of a resolution contributes to the sense of despair and loss that surrounds the conflict. Achebe uses this lack of resolution to highlight Africa's fractured history, where many conflicts remain unresolved. The plot is divided into three sections, each with its own set of circumstances and focal points.

The debate between Léopold Sédar Senghor and Sunday Anozie on the appropriateness of a sociological approach rather than a structural one, or vice versa, on African kerature is no longer relevant because gradual adjustment is made, prompting Anthony Appiah, quoted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (1984: 16), to state:

“It is not the case that structuralist poetics is inapplicable in Africa because structuralism is European; insofar as it is successful in general, it appears to me to be applicable to African literary material as well as any other. However, we should not expect a method to produce identical results when applied to a new set of texts..”.

This implies that any literary approach, no matter how specific, can be applied to any literary text. Language, theme, characters, setting, and plot are all components of any work of literature from any part of the world. As a result, claiming that the structural approach cannot be applied to works of African literature makes no sense. However, there is no clear definition of the structural approach as stated by Roland Barthes (1970: 3):

“I suppose a student wants to undertake the structural analysis of a literary work. I suppose this student informed enough not to be surprised by the divergences of approach which one sometimes unjustly brings together under the name of structuralism, wise enough to know that in structural analysis there is no canonical method comparable to that sociology or philology, such as by applying it automatically to a text one brings out its structure courageous enough to foresee and endure the errors, the breakdowns, the disappointments, the discouragement ("what good?) that will not fail to stimulate the analytical journey: free enough to dare to exploit what there may be structural sensibility, intuition of multiple senses; finally dialectical asser for good to persuade that it is not a question of obtaining an explanation of text, 'a positive result' (a final signified which would be the truth of the work or its determination), but conversely that it is a question of enter through crazy analysis what looks like an analysis), into the game of in to accomplish, through his work, the plural of text.”

Referring to this quotation, the critic must first identify the nature of the text in order to divide it into parts in order to understand its organisation, and then recreate it in order to make its structure more understandable. After doing so, he can now refer to an appropriate method that will be applied to a text in order to present the evaluation criteria that will aid in plunging into the intimacy of the story in order to reveal its hidden features. This quotation explains that there are various approaches to structural analysis. And the critic is free to use any method as long as it is related to the story's organisation. As a result, a structural analysis is meant to 'decorticate' a text in order to present its various connotations. Nothing should be taken for granted ahead of time. 

Basile Marius Ngassaki (2004: 78-79) writes in this regard:

"The empiricist illusion, on the other hand, manifests a collaboration between the critic and the writer as research because literary work is a field of study in and of itself".

Structuralism

A very famous French linguist, "Ferdinand de Saussure", gave the idea of structuralism in linguistics. In this, he talked about the structure of language and how the language is structured. Most structuralists see language as a machine and believed that as machine works, language works. But the most interesting thing to be noted here is that all the ideas of structuralism were taken from the notes of his students from three courses as well as manuscript notes by Saussure. Structuralism is a linguistic theory which was applied to literature by Claude Levi Strauss. Ronald Barthes and Genette's narratology are also considered the main parts in the literary theory of structuralism.

 Things fall apart

Things Fall Apart is a novel which was penned by Chinua Achebe and has been admired since its publication for its familiar approach to explaining an unfamiliar culture.

Structuralists Perspective in Things fall apart

From a structuralist perspective, none of its cultural impacts have an impact on its literary value, because structuralism contends that no quality of any novel is more important than the shapes in it that create it a portion of the literary world. This argument stems from the fact that all creation, including the written arts, is based on structures that are built upon a plethora of other small structures that create meaning. In general, meaning can only be created by smaller structures in structuralism, and the fact that the larger structure can be interpreted differently should not obscure the meaning that the smaller pieces give to a literary work. Things Fall Apart can be analysed for the patterns that give it structural meaning.

Examining the events that occur in individual chapters can demonstrate the existence of this structure. The reader is not given any information about the missionaries or the "whitemen" in the first chapter of Part Two; instead, the reader is confronted with Okonkwo's mental struggles with chilling out and the conversation he has with the village elders. This chapter contains no indication of the actual conflict that will later set up the rising action in the section, so it serves only to introduce the setting and state Okonkwo's feelings. The concept of white missionaries is gradually introduced in the following chapters, with hints to the destruction they bring, and the author's word choice reflects the tribe's gradual familiarity with them. In chronological order, the following words were used to describe the white missionaries: "white man," "albino," which emphasised the alien concept of white skin because they share the same plot, structure and outcome as the novel, they connect to the larger structure. The novel's literary devices, such as sentence structures, frame stories in the form of folktales, and word choices, are also used in patterns. All of the sentences in the novel are structured in the same way, which is an unusual structure for the English language. This unusual structure is one method of emphasising the distinction between Umuofians and missionaries. While Umuofians do not use typical English grammar when speaking, their speech comes across as a translation, missionaries' speech patterns include traditional English grammar found in the Bible, such as "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh" (Achebe 156). While this is yet another example of how the two cultures differ, it also highlights the religious differences between the peoples. Aside from sentence structure, another factor that demonstrates the uniqueness of the Igbo culture is represented in the text by folktales in the form of frame stories. Characters from nature, such as "duckling," "chick," "mosquito," "ear," "tortoise," and "bird," are frequently featured in these folktales.

This contributes to the Igbo society's fundamental naturalist principle structure, which is indicated throughout the book by beliefs such as moonshine meaning a safe night and the rainmaker not being able to intervene with nature. Furthermore, the author's word choice complements and enriches both structures. The description of another village's "mysterious" lake and the "warnings'' issued by their Oracle (Achebe 140) highlights Igbopeople's religious beliefs, while the use of the "strange" adjective for Christianity (Achebe 143) emphasises the differences between cultures. To summarise, the novel's sentence structures and folktales serve to enrich the larger structures of cultural difference and religion, and word choice is an element that supports both structures. Finally, Things Fall Apart demonstrates a thorough understanding of structuralism, as it contains plotlines, sentences, folktales, and words that work, together to create larger narratives. Every concept in the book, it can be said, can be interpreted as a building material for a larger concept; even if they have meaning on their own, this meaning is linked to the main idea. According to structuralism, most literary works are established by piling up structures on top of each other to disseminate ideas, and Things Fall Apart is a primary example.

Ronald Bathes and his five codes in things fall apart 

As Roland Barthes defined 5 codes in his book named “S/Z. There are 30 pages of a short story called "Sarrasine”.He divided this short story into 561 lexis/words and then organised them into 5 groups/codes. Proairetic code, Cultural code, Hermeneutic code, Semic code and  Symbolic code.

1. Proairetic code:

Ronald Brthes called the action words in any story “The Proairetic codes. Chinua Achebe’s “Things fall Apart” has six main action codes. These are divided into chapters and given below.  

Chapter one:

Okonkwo is a wealthy member of the umuofia clan, where wrestlers are held in high regard. He defeated Amazline the Cat in his youth, who had been undefeated until this match. His village was honoured as a result of his victory.

Chapter two:

Page 14: Ikemefuna was given to Okonkwos village because his father murdered an Okonkwo village lady.

Chapter three:

Okonkwo nearly killed his wife.

Chapter four:

Okonkwo notices one of his wives leaving the hut without making dinner during the week of peace.

He beat her repeatedly when she returned from her friend's hut. He had to repent his sins by sacrificing a goat, then pay a fine of one length of cloth and one hundred cowries for breaking the week of peace.

Chapter seven:

Okonkwo is given to a boy named Ikemefuna by a neighbouring village. One of Okonkwo's wives took him in, and he became very hostile to the family, even referring to Okonkwo as his father. Ikemefuna lived with the family for three years before Ogbuefi told Okonkwo that he had to be killed. After hours of walking, he is attacked with a machete by a man. Ikemefuna begs Okonkwo for help, but he instead cuts the boy down so he doesn't appear weak in front of the men.

Chapter thirteen:

At the funeral of Ogbuefi Okonkwo, his 16-year-old son was accidentally shot in the chest. Killing another villager is a crime in Okonkwo village, and the perpetrator is exiled for seven years.

2. Cultural code: 

Traditions

In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, the Umuofia clan has a number of oral traditions that are passed down from generation to generation. The Umuofians, on the other hand, are aware of the traditions of some of the other Igbo clans. In an ironic turn, the Umuofians' eagerness to stay peacefully with others who do not invest their traditions steers to the eventual death of their culture.

Rules for Hosts and Guests

Some customs apply to both hosts and guests. We see an etiquette ritual that involves breaking a kola nut and honouring the gods and ancestors when a neighbour comes to visit. Unoka is the first character in the novel to be cast as the host. Unoka rose and shook hands with Okoye, who then unrolled the goatskin he was carrying under his arm and sat.Unoka entered an inner room and emerged with a small wooden disc containing a kola nut.'

The host hands the kola to his guest, who returns it to the host, insisting that it is the host's responsibility to crack the kola nut. This exchange of traditions proceeds until the host ratifies the honour of smashing the nut and serving it to the guest. Unoka prayed to their ancestors for life and health, as well as protection from their enemies, as he broke the kola.  

Gender Roles and  Bride Cost

The Umuofia clan maintains traditional gender roles for both men and women. Women are solely responsible for cooking, and women pass down the group's incredibly rich folk tales from generation to generation. Umuofian men, on the other hand, are the primary breadwinners and warriors. Only men are allowed to farm yams, while women can grow 'women's crops' such as beans and cassava.

The bride price must be paid before a man allows his daughter to marry. The potential bride's and groom's male relatives meet to determine the bride price. This is accomplished by exchanging short broomsticks in a form of wordless negotiation.

After reaching an agreement, the women enter with foo-foo, soup, and palm wine to celebrate the engagement. However, if the bride runs away from her husband after they have married, her family is obligated to return the bride price.

Weddings and funerals:

The groom's family is responsible for supplying the palm wine used to celebrate the wedding at the uri, the pre-wedding feast. The groom's family arrives in the bride's village with palm wine for the celebration. The number of pots of palm wine is regarded as a sign of respect. When the groom's family brings numerous pots of wine, it is interpreted as a sign of great respect for the bride.

The ceremony and reception, on the other hand, are primarily the responsibility of the bride's mother. She cooks a lot of food, and her husband slaughters a goat for the commemoration after first confer it alive to the groom's family.

3. Hermeneutic code: 

Plot elements which raise questions in the mind of the reader about what will happen now after some traumatic events.

Things Fall Apart depicts a traumatic state of life. The researcher concludes that the present novel is an exploration of the traumatised psychological condition of the major characters after a thorough and deep analysis of Things Fall Apart from the critical angle of psychological trauma. The novel depicts the plight of a poor Nigerian tribe during the colonisation period of White missionaries. It also vividly dramatises the local tribe's dawn fall as a result of the enforcement of Christian culture, which caused family detachment and flourished misunderstanding among themselves. In addition, the researcher elaborates on the protagonist's attempts to act out and work through their traumatic life in search of a peaceful and prosperous life. Okonkwo does everything he can to protect his Igbo culture. He valued a successful, respected, and victorious life. Okonkwo, his family, Ikemefuna, Mr. Brown, Mr. Smith, Uchendu, and others are victims of traumatic life events in the novel.

1. When oracle was disclosed

While Okonkwo, Nwoye, and Ikemefuna are happily eating the rare food, Ogbuefi Ezeudu, the village's oldest man, requests that Okonkwo speak to him privately. He informs Okonkwo that the Oracle has ordered Ikemefuna's death as retribution for the death of a woman three years earlier in Mbaino. He tells Okonkwo not to participate in the killing because the boy refers to him as "father."

Later, Okonkwo informs Ikemefuna that he is returning to Mbaino, but the boy is sceptical. When Nwoye learns that his friend is leaving, he sobs and is beaten by his father.

Many Umuofia men accompany Ikemefuna to the village's outskirts and into the forest. Ikemefuna loses his fear as Okonkwo approaches him and thinks about his family in Mbaino.

Okonkwo abruptly drops to the back of the group, and Ikemefuna is terrified once more. One of the men strikes the first blow with his machete while the boy's back is turned. "My father, they have killed me!" cries Ikemefuna as he runs toward Okonkwo. Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna with his machete because he is afraid of appearing weak.

Something changes within Nwoye when he learns that Ikemefuna has died. He recalls the feeling he had one day when he heard a baby crying in the forest — a tragic reminder to him of the practise of leaving twins to die in the forest.

2. When Okonkwo was exiled

Okonkwo and his family must be exiled from Umuofia for seven years for accidentally killing a clansman, which is a crime against the earth goddess. The family relocated to Okonkwo's  mother's hometown.

3. When Ekwefi was ill.

Okonkwo and Ekwefi's daughter Ezinma becomes ill in Chapter 9 of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Ekwefi's sad history with her previous nine children, all of whom died before Ezinma, is recounted.

4. When Okonkwo comes back to his village after 7 years of exaltation.

This situation creates chaos in readers' minds and on a multi perspective level.

Okonkwo is finally preparing to return home to Umuofia after seven years away. When he returns to his village, however, he discovers that the influence of the Christians who have come from England has spread there as well.

4.  Semic code:   

In “Things fall apart”, there are semic codes and they are: Fire, Yams, Locusts, folktales, Okonkwo, Nwoye’s personality, Adoption of a new name by Nweoye and weather

1. Fire: Fire symbolizes Okonkwo’s destruction rage.

Throughout the novel, Okonkwo is related with burning, fire, and flame, attributing to his severe and hazardous anger—the only emotion he permits himself to affirm. However, as Okonkwo acknowledges in Chapters 17 and 24, the problem with fire is that it destroys everything it consumes. Okonkwo is both physically and emotionally destructive, killing Ikemefuna and Ogbuefi Ezeudu's son while suppressing his feelings for Ikemefuna and Ezinma in favour of a colder, more masculine demeanour. Okonkwo eventually succumbs to his intense rage, allowing it to rule his actions until it destroys him, just as fire feeds on itself until all that is left is a pile of ash.

2. Yams: Yams symbolizes masculinity and strength.

Yam is a crop grown primarily by men. This crop requires a lot of work, and a man's work ethic can be measured by how much of the field and harvest he gets. Growing yams in Africa is solely for the purpose of acquiring wealth and feeding the family.

They represent a man's ability to provide. In this novel, a man with a large barn full of yams was not portrayed as a failure like Unoka—he had a large barn full of yams (Chinua, 1958, p. 4). Nwakibie declines to give the young men yams, arguing that they will toss out them on the floor rather than looking after for them as a man would for his family's well-being. Yams are extremely valuable and would only be owned by the most hardworking people.

The yam's central position highlights the tribe's distinguishing characteristics. Its use as a source of satisfaction exemplifies the symbolic meaning. Bulk harvest represents a yearly achievement gained from nature due to the intensive efforts required in cultivating it. The image of a yam is highlighted as a cultural necessity.

3. Locusts: Locusts symbolize the destructive nature of the colonizers.

Achebe depicts the locusts that descend on the village in highly allegorical terms, foreshadowing the arrival of white settlers who will feast on and exploit the Igbo's resources. The fact that the Igbo eat these locusts demonstrates how harmless they consider them to be. Similarly, those who convert to Christianity are unaware of the harm done to the culture of the colonised by the culture of the coloniser. The language used by Achebe to describe the locusts reveals their symbolic status. The repetition of words like "settled" and "every" emphasizes the insects' immediate ubiquity and attributestes to how the appearance of white immigrants grabs the Igbo off warden. Furthermore, the locusts are so heavy that they break the tree branches, symbolising the splintering of Igbo traditions and culture as a result of colonialism and white settlement.

Obierika's comment in Chapter 15 is perhaps the most explicit indication that the locusts represent the colonists: "the Oracle... said that other white men were on their way." They had been locusts.

4. Folktales:

According to Okonkwo, the majority of the folktales in the novel that feature small animals symbolise women's behaviour, such as the Ekwefl's tale about the birds and tortoise who were invited to a feast in the sky. The tortoise couldn't fly because he didn't have wings, and the birds were aware of his ungratefulness and cunning, so they couldn't help him.

The tortoise was starving and had to persuade the birds to feed him. During their journey, the tortoise claims that there is a custom that requires them to take new names, despite the fact that the goal was to obtain the most respectable position. Because the women were all inferior, they all caved, and the cunning tortoise ended up feasting on the best food while leaving leftovers for the birds. Through the use of animal imagery in Things Fall Apart, the author depicts women's indecisiveness while also providing useful morals in society.

5. Okonkwo

Okonkwo should be mentioned when analysing Things Fall Apart symbols. He represents masculinity, a character who is diametrically opposed to the Christian concept of love. His personality embodies the spirit of the African people as a whole. He, like the Igbos, is a self-sufficient and strong individual. Weinstock and Ramadan (1978) stated the following about Okonkwo:

Okonkwo is inextricably linked with masculinity, and he almost always distrusts, opposes, and attacks anything feminine or associated with femininity. Christianity embodies and underscores the qualities Okonkwo regards as feminine, such as love, affection, and mercy, and he characterizes missionaries as a "lot of ladylike men clucking like old hens" (p.128).

The summary of the story shows Okonkwo fighting bravely against ideologies that opposed what he valued, and his downfall is the result of his opposition to colonisation.

Okonkwo's death represents the end of African culture. Achebe chose the act of Okonkwo committing suicide rather than being killed to represent the hands of Africans yielding to Christianity and allowing Christianity to take control, thereby wiping out African culture. It is a conspiracy to have written an entire book about the negative aspects of colonisation that the final statement in his piece of writing could belong to the Britain District Commissioner.

He mentions Okonkwo's suicide by saying he could dedicate a chapter to him in his book. This fact slightly contradicted Achebe's intended theme because depicting Africans as primitive differed from what Achebe wanted to demonstrate. Achebe uses the symbol of Okonkwo's suicide to argue that Africans should be held accountable for allowing foreign ideologies to flourish in their midst.

6. Nwoye's Personality 

Nwoye's personality was a Christian symbol. His father was always opposed to feminine behaviour. His conversion to Christianity served to bolster Achebe's symbol. Okonkwo's family was his pride and joy, while Nwoye's conversion to Christianity was the last pain he would experience. Because his son had rejected his way of life, the only option he had was to end his life.

7. Adoption of a New Name by Nweoye

With the significance attached to his decision to adopt a new name, Isaac,it carries, confirms his devotion to the Christian religion. Though the precise name he chooses implies significance beyond the immediate sense of personal salvation, it evokes memories of Abraham's Biblical story, in which an animal was substituted for his son, Isaac. Nwoye's adoption of this name captures the full meaning of his conversion, which was a critical sign of liberation from the constraints of family creation.

8. Weather

Weather plays an important role in the lives of Nigerians, particularly the Igbos. The tribe's reliance on weather for survival is demonstrated by the availability or non-availability of rain. Weather influences the extent to which their crops grow as well as the flow of rivers, which influences their water and food supply. The sun is used by plants and to heat things up on sunny days. However, excessive rain or sun is likely to cause damage (Rand, 1966).

5. The symbolic codes:

Ronald Barthes defines these codes as there are some symbols in every story which are universal and those symbols are called Symbolic code. In these codes, he basically described binary oppositions of the stories.                                                                                                              

Binary Opposition of Claude Levi Strauss in the Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart:

Albert Chinua lomogu Achebe employs "Binary Opposition" as a major narrative technique, which is unavoidable when writing about a society that does not know itself or when using English to describe an Ibo-speaking world, as these two depict two diametrically opposed poles. Before looking for binary opposition in the novel, it's a good idea to define the term "Binary Opposition."

What is “Binary Opposition?”

Binary refers to the combination of two things, such as a pair or duality. Opposition, on the other hand, refers to the act of strongly disagreeing with someone or something, usually with the intention of preventing something from happening. So, binary opposition refers to two things that are diametrically opposed but are interrelated or interconnected. We would not recognize white if there was no black. We can feel daylight despite the darkness of the night. There is a widely used term with distinct meanings in several fields, as well as one that has had multiple meanings in post-colonial theory.

The binary opposition is the greatest form of difference possible-sun/moon: man/woman: birth/death: black/white, and so on. Such oppositions, each depicting a binary system, are familiar in the cultural formation of fact. However, binary opposition is never helpful in distinguishing between beings or events. For example, the stage between childhood and adulthood is referred to as "youth," which is regarded as a scandalous category.

Post structuralism and feminist theories have shown that such binaries imply a violent hierarchy. Where man rules over woman, birth rules over death, and white rules over black, binary opposition exists to confirm that dominance. The binary logic of imperialism is a growth of Western opinion's common inclination to see the world in terms of binary oppositions that organize a hegemony connection. A simple distinction between colonizer/colonized, Metropolis/Empire, civilized/primitive represents the violent hierarchy are on which imperialism is based and actively perpetuates very effectively.

Binary Oppositions have a structural relationship with one another. Things Fall Apart depicts this in a variety of ways, both culturally and psychologically.

1. Individual vs. Community 

2. Femininity vs. Masculinity,

 3. Son vs. Father

 4. Civilized vs. Primitive

 5. White vs. Black 

6. Retarded vs. Advanced 

7. Bestial vs. Human

1. Individual vs. Community:

What happens to the significances that establish Okonkwo's cultural community and his own perception of ethical order is prominent to the novel. Okonkwo, a strong individual and Ibo hero who has always struggled to maintain his people's cultural integrity against the overwhelming power of colonial rule, broke some Ibo customs and committed suicide at the end of the novel. So, despite being an Ibo, Okonkwo is a unique individual. Okonkwo may have failed due to personal weaknesses, but his failure was unavoidable because Colonial rule destabilised the values and institutions that supported him. In the novel, there is a close relationship between Okonkwo's individual crisis of authority and power and the community's crisis.

2. Masculinity Vs Femininity:

Gender lines are clearly defined in Ibo society, and the Ibo community consistently reinforces this. Being a man means being violent and strong, and displaying any emotion is considered a sign of weakness or a female trait. In Ibo society, all that is good is thought to be masculine, while all that is bad is thought to be feminine. Only in a few minor cases are women treated as humans rather than animals or slaves. The first section was completely dominated by male principles. The second part, on the other hand, deals with the importance of feminine principles.

Okonkwo associates masculinity with aggression and believes that anger is the only emotion he should express. Okonkwo associates Unoka with weakness, and femininity with weakness. His behaviour is so dissimilar to his father's that it constitutes masculinities. Okonkwo mercilessly beats his wife Ojugo because "Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody halfway, not even for fear of a goddess."

It is also clear that Okonkwo was only punished and fined once for breaking a piece's tradition and law, not for beating a woman. Wife beating was a minor issue to them. Nwoye's character also exhibits a rise in masculinity. But he couldn't rule his wife or children; he wasn't a man. As a result, it is clear that manly qualities were to dominate their wives. Okonkwo was always proud of his manly qualities, and women in the Ibo community were always thought to be inferior to men.

3. Father Vs Son:

Things Fall Apart presents a two-fold father-son binary opposition. Once as Okonkwo's son and Unoka's father, and once more as Okonkwo's father and Nwoye's son. In both cases, Okonkwo is portrayed as a strong, courageous warrior whose qualities are admired by the people of his village. His polar opposites are Unoka and Nwoye, who are both lazy, profligate, cowards who enjoy music and conversation. Okonkwo is terrified of such traits, and Nwoye heightens his fear because his character is the gyre of Oknokwo's father Unoka, who had no title.

4.      Civilized Vs Primitive:

The novel introduces the concepts of civilised and primitive. White people are thought to be civilised, whereas Black people or Africans are thought to be "primitive" or living in the "heart of darkness." As Achebe shows in Things Fall Apart, the Ibo were to be civilised by British standards and under British rule, using British imported goods, the English language, and the Anglican religion, which was more decisive than any other colonial imposition. They desired to replace the word "savagery" with the word "civilization." To them, the Ibo's stateless society was anarchistic. As a result, they sought to establish the Ibo people by civilising them. Nonetheless, African life is simple, whereas Euro-centric life is overly complex. Mr. Brown's policy, Reverend Smith's disdain, and the District Commissioner's Machiavellianism have yet to touch the superstition, bind faith, and simplicity of Ibo culture.

5.      White Vs Black:

Things Fall Apart contains a racist tone that distinguishes between the White and the Black. The natives were commonly referred to as "primitives" or "indigenous" by White people. They assert that Blacks are inferior to them. The reverend James Smith's attitude toward the Ibo community is clear enough to support this binarism. Reverend Smith saw the world in black and white, with the "Black" being evil. He saw the world as a battlefield on which the "sons of darkness" (White) were engaged in mortal combat with the "children of light" (Black).

Aside from that, the District Commissioner is portrayed as the archetypal racist colonialist. He believes he knows everything there is to know about native African customs and cultures, and he has no respect for them. His ethnographic study of local African tribes is a physical manifestation of his dehumanising and reductive attitude toward race relations.

6.      Advanced Vs Retarded:

The novel's goal is to awaken Africans. White people are getting better by the day, but Africans are stuck in the same place. They still believe in nonsense such as'manliness,' 'polygamy, "superstitions,' and so on. In the novel, we learn that the Christian missionaries were granted entry due to the natives' belief in superstition. Because they believed that the spirits would destroy the missionaries, the Ibo people allowed the missionaries to establish a church in the so-called "Evil Forest." People like Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown are doing everything they can to spread Christianity in Africa. Chielo, the Oracle of the Hills and Caves and the priestess of Agbala, was thought to be possessed by the spirit of Agbala. The author investigates the conflict between old traditions and rituals within the community and the new revolt of Christianity in Africa. However, an optimistic tone is found as the falcon is shown to be the representative of the clan's young generation.

7.      Human Vs Bestial:

Humans are thought to be the most superior of all creatures. However, in this novel, the Whites are attempting to enslave the Blacks and treat them as beasts by referring to the Blacks as "savages." There are still bestial deeds in African culture. Okonkwo leads one of them to murder Ikemefuna, whom he refers to as "father." He does this solely to demonstrate the significance of the gender toll and to demonstrate his manliness.

  Conclusion:

We can conclude how the story, events and plots are structured in Chinua Achebe's Novel," Things fall Apart". As Claude Levi Strauss said that all the narratives are parole and myths are langue, it can be assumed in this novel.

The story of Chinua Achebe is a parole as it depicts the myths which he named as Langue. Claude Levi Strauss gave the concept of mytheme that are characters, events and plot. So, the mytheme is also structured in this novel. All the  events of the characters have a complete plot. Achebe has used all the five codes that were described by Ronald Barthes. The slow motion that continues in the minds of people and the curiosity in the minds of different readers about what will happen now and how the cultural codes are used by Achebe, has really made his work remarkable. He depicted all the Igbo culture of that time period when people were having very strict rules and regulations. If I talk about Semic codes and symbolic codes, those are also described by Chinua Achebe. The words which have symbolic meaning and the words which are binary opposition. If we talk about the language, Throughout this novel, Achebe uses the spelling Ibo, the old spelling of the Umuofian community. But on the map, the contemporary spelling Igbo is used. Achebe shows that the Igbo language is too complex for direct translation into English. Similarly, Igbo culture cannot be understood within the framework of European colonialist values. Throughout Things Fall Apart Achebe uses straightforward diction and simple sentence structures. His style creates a sense of formality befitting a historical narrative told from a third-person omniscient point of view. The narrative structure of Things Fall Apart follows a cyclical pattern that chronicles Okonkwo's youth in Umuofia, his seven-year exile in Mbanta, and his eventual return home. ... The novel's three parts also map onto a gendered narrative structure that follows Okonkwo from fatherland to motherland back to fatherland.

The story of Chinua Achebe is related to its history.

A Brief History of Nigeria:

Nigeria's history is inextricably linked to its geography. Nigeria is about one-third the size of Texas and is located above the inner curve of the elbow on Africa's west coast, just north of the equator and south of the Sahara Desert. There are about 200 ethnic groups in modern-day Nigeria, each with its own language, religion, and culture.The largely Protestant Yoruba in the west, the Catholic Igbo in the east, and the predominantly Muslim Hausa-Fulani in the north are the three largest ethnic groups. Traders, nomads, and refugees from invaders and climatic changes came to dwell among the indigenous population, and foreign nations became aware of the area's resources, resulting in a diverse population. The events in Things Fall Apart take place at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early part of the twentieth century. Although the British did not occupy most of Nigeria until 1904, they had a strong presence in West Africa since the early nineteenth century. The British were a major buyer of African slaves in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The British, on the other hand, outlawed the slave trade within their empire in 1807. They did not yet control Nigeria at the time, and internal wars constantly increased the available supply of captured slaves. Frustrated with the expanding slave trade, the British decided to occupy Lagos, a major slave-trading post and present-day Nigeria's capital, in 1861. The British gradually and hesitantly occupied the rest of Nigeria. Eventually, the British were compelled to occupy Nigeria for reasons other than the slave trade. The British were competing with other Europeans for control of West Africa's natural wealth. The British declared Nigeria to be their territory at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, a meeting convened to settle rivalries among European powers. Nigerians sold them palm oil, peanuts, rubber, cotton, and other agricultural products. Trade in these products did, in fact, make some Nigerian traders very wealthy. In the early twentieth century, the British defined Nigeria as a collection of diverse ethnic groups and declared it a colony of the British Empire.

The British moved into Nigeria for a variety of reasons, including government control, religious mission, and economic incentive. The British ruled indirectly in the north, with the help of local Muslim leaders who collected taxes and ran a government on their behalf. However, in the south, where communities (such as Umuofia in Things Fall Apart) were frequently not subject to a single central authority, the British had to intervene directly and forcefully to maintain control over the local population.

For example, in Chapter 15 of Things Fall Apart, a real-life tragedy in the community of Ahiara serves as the historical model for the massacre in the village of Abame. On November 16, 1905, a white man riding his bicycle into Ahiara was assassinated by natives. 

A month later, a British expedition searched the area's villages and killed many natives in retaliation.

Following the Ahiara incident, the Bende-Onitsha Hinterland Expedition was formed to eliminate Igbo opposition. The British annihilated the powerful Awka Oracle and slaughtered all opposing Igbo groups. The British enacted the Collective Punishment Ordinance in 1912, which mandated punishment against an entire village or community for crimes committed by one or more individuals against white colonialists. The British established an efficient administrative system and brought British culture to Nigeria. They also sent a large number of capable young Nigerians to England to further their education. The experience of Nigerians who lived abroad in the years preceding, during, and after World War II gave rise to a generation of young, educated nationalists who advocated for independence from the United Kingdom. The British agreed to the Nigerians' demands and established a ten-year economic plan toward independence in 1947. Nigeria gained independence on October 1, 1960, and then became a republic in 1963. Even after the British left Nigeria, corruption and a lack of leadership hampered the country's quest for true democracy. Nigeria's fragile democracy of the early 1960s was replaced by a series of military coups and dictatorships in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. Nigeria held a democratic presidential election in 1993, which was immediately followed by another bloodless coup. And so the political pattern for the most troubled, violent, and populous country continues. All these things are related with the story of Chinua Achebe's novel which is all about Claude Levi Strauss' point of view.

References: 

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6. Edwards, Jay, 1984. “Structural analysis of the Afro-American trickster tale" in Black

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17. Chua, John and Suzanne Paylos. 15 July 2021, “Critical essay on themes of Things fall   Apart. Retrieved from  http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/things-fall-apart/critical-essys/major-themes-in-things-fall-apart.

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19. The American psychological  Association. July 1892. Semantic code, Retrieved 2021, from http://dictionary .apa.org.