Exploring the African history through literature: A transitivity analysis of Chinua Achebe’s things fall apart

This work is chiefly concerned with the Transitivity analysis of two selected extracts from Things Fall Apart authored by the famous Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. These extracts have been qualitatively singled out from the novel, and theTransitivity theory has been applied to them in order to highlight the various process types and the main participants. Actually, the analysis of the linguistic data has been carried out both on the qualitative and the quantitative bases. In Extract 1 the results reveal that the main experiences in terms of doings, happenings, beings and havings are ascribed to Okonkwo who embodies, to some extent, the best cultural values of the Igbo society while his father Unoka is attributed experiences which represent the less attractive facets of the same values. The analysis of Extract 2 uncovers a different meaning; it emphasizes the principal sayers, actors, sensers, carriers who are the colonial administrators on the one hand, and the people of Umuofia and the Egwugwus on the other hand. Indeed, the extract describes the deconstruction of the Igbo people ancestral values by the colonizers while the people of Umuofia try to preserve their culture in vain. Thus, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart does not only demonstrate the african societies historicity, but it also reminds Africans on how their values were methodologically destroyed and replaced by wetern values.