What are the elements of storytelling and fiction in Things Fall Apart?
kplhardison Student Graduate School eNotes Editor I’m not certain in which context you mean “elements”; pertaining to history or to literary devices. So I’ll give you a little of each and point to an additional source. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, was written in 1958, at the commencement of Nigerian Independence, but it tells the story of pre-colonial village life of the 1890s. In this regard, it could be said that Things Fall Apart is purely fiction. However, Achebe used preserved oral story traditions, proverbs, myths and folk tales to reconstruct an authentic picture of pre-colonial Nigerian life. The Igbo tribes, several hundred of them, have been in about the same location as they are today in Nigeria for between 2,000 and 3,000 years. They are an ancient people who have left behind artifacts of pottery and forged metals. The Igbo legends tell that the Igbo believe in one supreme god, called Chukwu, who demanded obedience. When European missionaries and colonialists came t
