Internal Collapse:The Collective Unconscious In Thing Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart(1958),Chinua Achebe's first novel,is one of the most widely read and studied books among numerous novels about Africa ever written by western or native African writers,meanwhile,it is a breakthrough to unshackle the bind of the stereotypes of African people defined by Europeans before.The protagonist Okonkwo's death,as a main topic and plot in the novel,has been discussed in different perspectives with various interpretations by scholars and critics overseas and at home.However,this thesis intends to apply Jung's theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious to reveal and open a new door to reevaluate the tragical death from an internal and psychological perspective to review the interaction between the individual and the collective spontaneously.This thesis contains five parts.The introduction includes the background of the author and the novel,literature review,and the theoretical framework of Jung's theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious.Chapter I discusses how the shadow,the hidden killer,takes both Okonkwo and Ibo society into its possession and foreshadows the individual death and the social collapse.Chapter II illustrates Okonkwo's and Ibo society's denial of the undeniable anima.Chapter III shows that the rigid persona continues to increase the possibility of the failure of the integration of Okonkwo and the society.In the conclusion,the uncanny web spun by the collective unconscious will be undone,and the mystery of the former tribe hero's death will be solved.Okonkwo's final suicide is not only an individual behavior,but also a symbol of the collapse of Ibo society in the big hands of the collective unconscious.Okonkwo's death and the collapse of Ibo society are metaphoric.The unbalanced and inflexible sides of a traditional value system are hidden internal destructors who make catastrophic effects on the collapse of the tradition.