Things Fall Apart has been beloved by people around the world for nearly half a century and has stood as one of the world literature. Since the text was known as writing back to Joseph Conrad''s Heart of Darkness, many scholars have dealt with it in the postcolonial perspective. Describing the collapse of Igbo tradition in the encounter with British Empire, the text seems to have established itself as the classic of postcolonial literature. Nevertheless, this point of view doesn''t quite explain the reason why the work of art joined the ranks of world literature.
A postcolonial reading of Things Fall Apart has limitation not to find the text taking new approach to the concept of modernity. The novel not only criticizes the violence of modernity but also addresses the way to use its imported good manners to intervene within African culture while postcolonialists consider western reason equivalent to Eurocentric Imperialism and unquestioningly reject it. In other words, unlike postcolonialism Achebe sharply criticizes the irrational aspects of modernity and allows for its good effect or ability at the same time. Thus, another standpoint is needed for reading Achebe''s text.
This thesis sheds new light on Things Fall Apart with transmodern perspective in order to find the answer to the question on the literary position of the work. The idea of transmodernity was frist formed by Latin American philosopher, Enrique Dussel. According to him, modernity was born along with the discovery of America in 1492, and in fact Christopher Columbus didn''t discover the American Indians but denied them as Other or covered over. So the objective of transmodernity is to give a critical examination into ''the myth of modernity'' and to liberate those who have been treated unworthily in the oppressed Other.
Approached in this term, this thesis focuses on two divergent attitudes of Igbo tribe towards the plural aspects of modernity. In particular, how Igbo people respond to modernity is in close line with the name of the text. Each character in the novel has a different sense of signification of the title. For Okonkwo, the thing falling apart is the clan broken up by the irrational reason of western power whereas Nwoye feels the same way because of weakness of Igbo tradition. That is, transmodern reading of the work not merely exposes violent behavior of modern ego in view of Okonkwo, but it also demonstrates through Nwoye the necessity of assimilating the rational outcome of western culture into Igbo life in order to make African situation better. However, this doesn''t mean that western culture is the key to solve the problems of Igbo society. By way of denying the innocence of modernity and of affirming the alterity of the other (which was previously denied), it is possible to discover for the first time the hidden other side of modernity: duality, which is Igbo world view. The Igbo dual perspective has the alternative potential to Eurocentric modernity based on the western binary opposition in that it doesn''t divide one into two, but rather combine two into one. This is the basic principle to the transmodernity: existing in one without exclusion.
Now this primary elements of transmodernity account for why the novel belongs to global literature arguing with Pascale Casanova''s Eurocentric viewpoint on world literature. Given the fact that overcoming western modernity became essential to the world literary space, transmodern reading of Things Fall Apart will expand the space to the local areas.