Problematique on Things Fall Apart

Suicide in African novels

Sign of weakness or bravery

Excerpts from things fall apart, death and the kings horseman

A literary work is first and foremost fiction. Nevertheless the writer does not create in vacuum, he is inspired very often by the happening around him, these he appreciates sometimes objectivity and others subjectivity, the roman remain a privileged medium in this exercise because a literary work is considered among other genres as a mirror of the society. So does the most popular African novel Things Fall Apart in its description of African people's life before and after the arrival of the Europeans in Nigeria as a response to John Carry's Mister Johnson. Broadly speaking, the novels tell the story of a brave man, describes his rise and fall in a culture that is bound by traditions and superstitious.

Things Fall Apart one of the African standards has always fascinated me, in terms of ideas, aesthetics and world view. It is a story of a man who fears being weak and struggles in order to prove his bravery, the novel tells us the most important element of his life, of his mature life mainly, and it ends up with his suicide, but as one may ask why he has committed suicide, is it to prove that it's a brave act from him or is it just an escape and why if he is really a brave man, why he has not accepted to assume his act, why he lets himself been buried that way, since suicide is against Ibo rituals?