One of Achebe's greatest claims to fame is the remarkable competence with which he handles the English language . Of all anglophone writers he has probably given most serious thought to problems facing the African writer who is forced to write in English and he is probably the most sucessful in solving them. He may not attain the urbanity, verbal dexterity(which some times degenerates into linguistic, gymnastics) and self-conscious mastery of Soyinka, but he displays much greater versality and range. Achebe's own normal narrative style which is standard and idiomatic, radiates, to borrow his own phrase, a diazzling beauty. In Things Fall Apart in particular it posseses a grandeur and rhythmic beauty which distinguises it from the prose of the other works.



Things Fall Apart(1957) demonstrates a mastery of plot and structure, strength of characterisation, competence in the manipulation of the language and consistency and depth of thematic exploration which is rarely found in a first novel.

Alyhough Achebe has never quite been able to sustain this exceptionally high standard in subsequent novels, the general level of performance remains consistently impressive and he assuredly deserves his place as one of the most accomplished African writers.

Infact in the history of anglophone novel, Achebe's Things Fall Apart comes next to Ekwensi in chronological importance, but his work is much more comprehensive in scope than that of the latter who confines himself almost entirely to contemporally situations. All the shaping forces which combined to stimulate the growth of modern African literature in 1950s are discernible in Thingss Fall Apart.

The theme of Achebe's Things Fall Apart is that of tradition versus change: he gives a powerful presentation of the beauty, strength and validity of traditional life and values and the disruptiveness of change. It may be that Achebe's presentation of traditional life is not accurate reproduction of the historical truth. However, what we shall be concerned with here, is an attempt to see the ppicture of his Igbo society that emerges, is not a faithful anthropological documentatoin but the way in which Achebe sees it.

The novel further demonsrates the paramountcy of religious beliefs in nineteenth-century Igbo land. Societies which the missionaries later branded as pegan were infact religious that any thing that had been seen in the western world for a very long time. No major enterprise, whether national or personal, was undertaken without first attempting to divine the will of the gods and dities, major and minor ranging from personal through the ancestral spirits and clan deities, to the major national gods.

The novel portrays a powerful belief that the clan should not go for war unless its case was clear andd just, for it could not otherwise count on the support of its deity. the fear of the gods, then, helped to sanction right conduct on both the personal and national levels. Achebe puts out this exactly and in the right way hence portraying a strength.

And yet, inspite of their faith in their gods and their conviction that their religious system is right and effective, the people of Umofia display remarkable religious tolerance. they are generally kind and courteous towards the new religion, demonstrating a sophisticated liberalism and modernity which are completely absent from the new camp.

How ever because Achebe is one of the earliest of modern African novelists, his relation ship to the oral tradition ought to be examined. This is important if we are to establish that the African novel is an out growth of the oral tradition. Ekwensi, his predecessor owes little to that tradition. Though in a sense he diverges from Ekwensi in concerning himself with the African past in two of his novels. It is therefore possible that Achebe's Things Fall Apart could have derived independently from the oral tradition. A careful consideration of the novel can only lead to the conclusion that there is little in its structure which recalls the oral tale. Certain aspects of its form suggest the influence of the oral tale, but this does not in itself prove conclusively that there is a direct line of development from the oral tale to the novel, or that Things Fall Apart derives from the oral tale . The point indeed is that Achebe incorporates elements of the oral tradition into his work. This is the nature of relationship between his work and the oral tradition.

By

Happy Innocent Ammoti

B.A(EDUC)

Makerere University

Kampala

Uganda.