A Consideration of Ethics in Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart

by Joanna Johnson, M.A.

Core Values

Citizenship, Cooperation, Fairness, Honesty, Integrity, Kindness, Pursuit of Excellence, Respect, Responsibility These core values are reflected throughout the novel and the novel's characters. In fact, insofar as a novel can be said to represent real-life, all of these values can be found and examined in Things Fall Apart.

For example:

The people of Umuofia, at least in part one of the novel, before the missionaries arrive, have a very clear understanding of what their roles as members of their society are: After a village meeting, Okonkwo is banished to seven years away from his village for his transgressions (not following the rules of the society). Here we can see examples of clanspeople acting with integrity (behaving in a way that is consistent with what they say they believe in), with a belief in citizenship (members of a society who behave responsibly), fairness (in the pursuit of law and order), and cooperation (clanspeople work together to reach their decision).

All the following case studies/activities to think about will ask the students to consider these core values in relation to the text and the characters, and to make connections such as those outlined in the example above.