1. UGRC 160 – Introduction to Literature
SESSION 6

2. The Novel – Part 2- Narrative Technique

3. Session Objectives At the end of the session, the student will
Understand the complexity of the plot of the Novel vis-à-vis the Short story form.
Gain a better understanding of how Point of View and other narrative strategies are employed in the novel.

4. The Complex Plot of the Novel
Compare Things Fall Apart to any of the short stories already discussed in class. What can you say about Plot structure? Whose Story is being told in Things Fall Apart?

5. A WEB OF PLOTS – STORIES WITHIN A STORY
Okonkwo and his father, Unoka
Okonkwo and his household
The Story of Ikemefuna
The new Christian missionaries and their converts VS adherents of the local traditional faith
A Story of Umuofia, an Igbo commune

6. THEMES
“When the missionaries came, the Africans had the land and the Christians had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them they had the land and we had the Bible” - Jomo Kenyatta (in Mazrui )

7. The Struggle between Change and Tradition
(Resisting OR Embracing Change)
Varying Interpretations of Masculinity and Femininity
Social Disintegration
Greatness and Ambition
Fate and Free will
Complexity of Igbo Society
Clash of Cultures

8. Achebe stated that he would be content if Things Fall Apart did “no more than teach my readers that their past—with all its imperfections—was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.”