Navigating Hybridity: The Complex Interplay of Identity and Belonging in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.

Abstract

This thesis explores the impact of colonialism on the personal identities and psychological states of characters in Things Fall Apart (1958). Throughout the novel, colonialism has influenced tribes beliefs and individual lives, particularly Okonkwo’s, who is torn between traditional Igbo customs and the new colonial order. This work aims to investigate the internal struggles faced by individuals as they try to deal with the shifting cultural forces that were brought by colonial rules. Moreover, it examines the themes of displacement, alienation, and identity crisis by highlighting the cultural breakdown, identity confusion, and hybridization in the postcolonial African literature. Hence, the present research digs deeply in these tensions through the lens of Frantz Fanon’s analysis of alienation and cultural stereotyping, as well as Homi’s Bhabha’s theories of hybridity and notion of the Third Space Ultimately, this research argues that colonialism not only fractures traditional cultural structures but also creates internal tension, shaping hybrid identities that leaves individuals suspended between the past and the unfamiliar colonial present.