| Introduction
Setting
the Stage: Questions To Think About…
Things
Fall Apart raises a number of global issues in relation to
the ethics of post-colonialism, and to questions of the universality
of ethical norms and approaches.
The
module will ask students to consider the question of whether colonizing
another culture or people can ever be “justified.”
Students will consider questions of moral and cultural relativity.
Students
can also discuss the parallels between situations in the novel
and current issues in the world today. For example, the various
rationales for the current situation in the Middle East, in former
Soviet states, in Latin America?
Can
colonization be justified by the benefits it brings to the colonizer?
To the colonized?.
If so, how much of a benefit and to whom?
Are
there any universal moral precepts, any specific norms of right
and wrong, just and unjust, that can be applied to everyone, regardless
of culture, religious beliefs, ethnicity?
Introduction
Making
ethical choices comes from both understanding the values that
are behind moral decisions, and from developing critical thinking
skills. The aim of this module is to develop and encourage that
process of critical thinking through consideration of the ethical
dimensions within Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe’s
1958 ground-breaking tale of the white man’s arrival in
an African village at the turn of the century.
Although the colonial arrival in the Igbo village of Umuofia brought
a “lunatic religion,” it also brought “a trading
store,” where “for the first time palm-oil and kernel
became things of great price and much money flowed into Umuofia”
(Achebe 126). The novel details what we might call the benefits
of colonialism.
But the novel also allows us to consider other kinds of important
ethical questions, that have to do with individual acts and responsibility—in
other words, the question of each of us doing the right thing.
For example, Okonkwo’s killing of his adopted son, Ikemefuna,
has been described as “his knottiest moral dilemma in the
novel” (Opata 83).
Okonkwo’s
eventual suicide, which occurs because he is unable to cope with
the change brought about by the arrival of the white man, provides
opportunity for students to consider further ethical questions:
fear of the “other” and the unknown; “savagery”
as a cultural definition; colonization as opportunity.
Educational
Objectives
Upon
completing the Things Fall Apart module, students will:
•
Identify key moral issues and concerns within the novel.
•
Describe core values and the extent to which they apply to characters
and their actions in the novel
•
Better understand questions concerning the potential for or lack
of universality of ethical precepts and approaches, that is, whether
a specific set of moral standards should be understood as applying
to everyone.
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