Things Fall Apart is a novel written by Chinua Achebe and is primarily set in the Igbo village of Umuofa in Eastern Nigeria. The novel is an attack on a perspective held almost universally in the West, and to some extend in Africa, that the pre- colonial era was a time of unsophisticated savagery. By focusing on the life of Okonkwo, in a story of the collapse of traditional life, Achebe is able to give readers a personal and meaningful insight into the richness of life in the Igbo society before the arrival of the British.

The narrative of Things Fall Apart is separated into three parts and concentrates to a very large degree on the fortunes of its main character, Okonkwo. Through mainly this character, every chapter within this novel enables the reader to learn a different/ new aspect of the Igbo society. In Chapter thirteen, which concludes part one of the novel, the reader learns about funeral rites as one of their clansmen die and also about local laws and punishment as Okonkwo accidentally kills one of their clansmen.

This chapter begins with the ekwe talking to the clansmen and awakens the village with the news that one of their most senior clansmen, Ezeud

u, has died. It was the same old man who had warned Okonkwo earlier about harming Ikemefuna: ‘bear no hand in death.’ Since Ezeudu was a great man, he was buried in all honours with the participation of the entire village. The funeral is very messy with people going berserk, slashing at trees, killing animals and threatening the villages. Guns were fired as part of the ceremony and speeches were made to celebrate the life of Ezeudu. ‘The ancient drums of death beat, guns and cannon were fired, and men dashed about in frenzy, cutting down every tree or animal they saw, jumping over walls and dancing on the roof. It was a warrior’s funeral’ (p. 89). This demonstrates that the communal spirit is clearly involved.

From this incident, the reader learns that in Umoufa murder within the clan leads to exile. There was also a distinction between the punishment for deliberate murder and accidental murder which the village classified as two kinds, male and female. Okonkwo had committed the female kind because the murder had been inadvertent therefore is banished for seven years, after which time he could return. Okonkwo and his family leave, fleeing to Mbanta, the land from which Okonkwo’s mother came.

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