Positive And Negative Impacts Of Colonialism In Things Fall Apart By Africa

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Discourse on colonialism generally results in the different opinions of the colonizer and the colonized. The upshot of such discourse shows that colonialism has divergent interpretations. For the colonizer, it is ‘a civilizing mission’; to the colonized, it is exploitation. Such concept is better understood when both the views are studied with an objective approach. Things Fall Apart is a perfect novel to study colonialism as it deals with the perspectives of the colonizer and the colonized. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the positive and negative impacts of colonialism. Key words: - Colonialism, Religion, Culture, Civilization, Conflict INTRODUCTION Things Fall Apart was published in 1958 just two years before Nigeria’s independence from the British’s rule in 1960. Achebe, who was born in 1930, had experienced colonialism in his country. The novel depicts the pre-colonial and early colonial Nigerian society. Colonialism had brought a lot of social, economical and political changes to the colonized country, and these changes could be positive or negative. Chinua Achebe deals with both the good and bad sides of colonialism in Things Fall Apart. He neither blindly justifies colonialism, nor does he utterly disapprove it. Colonialism is evil when its purpose becomes looting the economy and hijacking the culture of the people. The title of the novel itself strikes a negative note as it indicates falling apart of things. It is taken from the English poem, “The Second