Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart'

‘The flaw in Achebe’s vision of the past is that his protagonist is too limited to arouse the reader’s concern.’ Discuss this view of Things Fall Apart.

Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ achieves the paradoxical effect of enabling African tribal life to be accessible to western society while simultaneously excluding it. Brians (Washington State University, 2002) states that ‘its most striking feature is to create a complex and sympathetic portrait of a traditional village culture in Africa’. To label the novel, or its protagonist as limited, would be to disregard the many levels on which the novel exists. On the contrary, Achebe aims to prove, among other things, that the inhabitants of Africa are not as limited as the stereotype constructed by European and other western societies. The protagonist of the story, Okonkwo, depicts the complexities and struggles that all humans must attempt to deal with, and provides a worthy and interesting account of the human psy...