Examine the use of folk material such as Proverbs, Sayings and Metaphors in Things Fall Apart.

  One of the unique strengths of Things Fall Apart is the use of folk material employed by Achebe in his narration. As stated elsewhere in this block, Ibos were renowned for the extensive use of proverbs, sayings and metaphors in the communication. In fact, communication had been fine tuned to be an art and there were contests held to choose outstanding communicators. The art of conversation itself is described with the help of the following proverb:

Proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

Achebe builds this into his own narrative by weaving these folk elements into the tapestry of his narrative. Among the Ibo, proverbs are used to describe a person’s interaction and relations with others, focussing especially on his/her status or place in the society. Among them, for instance, they had a saying “if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings’’ meaning thereby that one could raise one’s social status by one’s behaviour. Okonkwo is shown to be such a person. Another proverb that fits Okonkwo is -A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness. Okonkwo’s potential is recognised by his fellow villagers because you can tell a ripe corn by its look. While his father could not raise a loan because lending him was full like pouring grains of corn into a bag of holes, Okonkwo had no such difficulty when he went to borrow yams for planting. When showing temper to an untitled person, Okonkwo is reminded by an Elder that, “those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble”.

In another situation when Okonkwo is being dissuaded from participating in the killing of Ikemefuna, especially because the latter called him ‘father’, Okonwo tries to allay the fears of those who were apprehensive that retributive Wrath would be on him, and says: A child’s fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm.  

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