Decolonizing the Mind and Things Fall Apart

In what ways does this text influence your understanding of Achebe’s use of language and stylistic choices in Things Fall Apart?

The extract from "Decolonizing the Mind" by Ngugi influences my understanding of Achebe's use of language and stylistic choices in Things Fall Apart. Through Ngugi's writing it can be seen that both family backgrounds are of large families who enjoy story-telling similarly to Ekwefi and Ezinma. It talks about the value of words for their meaning and nuances which like in Acebe’s book the use of Igbo language throughout the novel are used as to both conform to 'Western style" writing in English but also deviates from it with the addition of their own language. He states that words had suggestive magical power, which tells the immense value of good orator in their culture, with the ability to manipulate words through proverbs, tales and songs to enrich their speech within their culture.

Ngugi expresses the harmony in which their community was in, in terms of their way of life with the use of the Gikuyu within their homes and fields; Achebe also mirrors this perspective by giving an insight on the Igbo way of life before the colonization of Umuofia. Both of these works show the influence the colonizers have had within their community with the lingual harmony broken, and the usage of the colonist ideologies to implement their own language and society in which the others have to bow before in deference.  

Language in both of these novels are seen as the tool or reason for the assimilation of their societies with Ngugi saying that English became more than a language, it was the language everyone had to serve. While in Things Fall Apart, it caused conflict between the missionaries and the local community with their incomprehension of each other language and how in the assimilation of their society the colonizers didn’t bother to learn about the local culture.

This was of importance as language gave the people “a view of the world, but it had beauty of its own.” It provided a new perspective of things, and the colonizers with Reverend’s Smith’s approach didn’t bother to learn but reject everything the locals believed in.