Highlights of Ethical Values in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: a Hermeneutical Approach

Abstract

Literature mirrors society. This is what Chinua Achebe set out to do in Things Fall Apart which paints the picture of the incursion of white missionaries/colonists into the African society using Umuofia as an example. Beyond the cinematographic manipulation of the plots, Achebe also highlights some ethical values which only an in-depth understanding of the novel would reveal. This work adopts the philosophical hermeneutical method to highlight these values which are clothed beneath the plots in the novel.