Oral Tradition and Its Influence on African Literature: A Study of Things Fall Apart

  • Unique Paper ID: 180713
  • PageNo: 2067-2075
  • Abstract:
  • Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart represents a pivotal moment in African literature, as it captures the pre-colonial Igbo society with great emphasis on the employment of oral traditions within written texts. This paper treats the manner in which Achebe uses orature, such as proverbs, folktales, myths, and storytelling, to safeguard indigenous knowledge, to give structure to the novel, and to subvert colonial narratives. Through the discussion of prominent examples, such as how proverbs are strategically used in dialogue or how folktales like "The Birds and the Tortoise" become allegories, the paper establishes how oral tradition informs the thematic concern of cultural identity, change, and resistance in the novel. The paper, in addition, foregrounds Achebe’s hybrid narrative techniques that mediate between Igbo oral aesthetics and Western literary traditions, generating a counter discourse against Eurocentric representations of Africa. In the end, this study stresses the political and artistic significance of oral tradition within African literature that will keep being attractive into the future.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{180713,
        author = {Dr. Vandana Khajuria},
        title = {Oral Tradition and Its Influence on African Literature: A Study of Things Fall Apart},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {1},
        pages = {2067-2075},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=180713},
        abstract = {Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart 
represents a pivotal moment in African literature, as it 
captures the pre-colonial Igbo society with great 
emphasis on the employment of oral traditions within 
written texts. This paper treats the manner in which 
Achebe uses orature, such as proverbs, folktales, myths, 
and storytelling, to safeguard indigenous knowledge, to 
give structure to the novel, and to subvert colonial 
narratives. Through the discussion of prominent 
examples, such as how proverbs are strategically used 
in dialogue or how folktales like "The Birds and the 
Tortoise" become allegories, the paper establishes how 
oral tradition informs the thematic concern of cultural 
identity, change, and resistance in the novel. The paper, 
in addition, foregrounds Achebe’s hybrid narrative 
techniques that mediate between Igbo oral aesthetics 
and Western literary traditions, generating a counter
discourse against Eurocentric representations of Africa. 
In the end, this study stresses the political and artistic 
significance of oral tradition within African literature 
that will keep being attractive into the future.},
        keywords = {Oral tradition, African literature, Chinua  Achebe, Things Fall Apart, Proverbs, Folktales,  Colonialism, Igbo culture.},
        month = {June},
        }

Cite This Article

Khajuria, D. V. (2025). Oral Tradition and Its Influence on African Literature: A Study of Things Fall Apart. International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology (IJIRT), 12(1), 2067–2075.

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