ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. Achebe uses this opening stanza of William Butler Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming, ” from which the title of the novel is taken, as an epigraph to the novel.

Detailed explanation-2: -"Things Fall Apart” launched the Nigerian literary revival upon its publication in 1958. Written by Chinua Achebe, the book traces the life of Okonkwo, an Igbo leader, during a period of dramatic change in Nigerian society.

Detailed explanation-3: -In Yates interpretation of “the center cannot hold” he describes it as a situation where everything is out of control, a place where you cannot feel safe anymore because the “center” which holds everything together can no longer hold the weight and collapses whereby everything falls apart.

Detailed explanation-4: -W.B. Yeats made his debut as a poet in 1887, but in his earlier period his dramatic production outweighed his poetry. Along with playwright Lady Gregory, he founded the Irish Theatre, which later became the Abbey Theatre. His plays are often based on Irish legends and are full of mysticism and spiritualism.

Detailed explanation-5: -The action of Things Fall Apart centers on the fictional village of Umuofia, which is part of a larger political entity made up by the so-called “nine villages.”