COLONIAL INVASION AND ENVIRONMENTAL INSTABILITY: ANECOCRITICAL READING OF ACHEBE’S THINGS FALL APART

Aondona Godwin Amough
Department of English and Literary Studies,
College of Education, Katsina-Ala, Benue State.
Email: [email protected]
Orcid id: 0009-0000-7292-8308

Abstract
This paper explores the intersection of colonial incursion and environmental instability
in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart through the lens of ecocriticism. It argues that
colonialism not only disrupted the cultural and political structures of Igbo society but
also destabilized its ecological balance. By examining the novel’s portrayal of land,
agriculture, and cosmological relationships with nature, the study highlights how colonial
forces imposed foreign systems of land ownership, economic exploitation, and religious
ideology that fractured the harmonious relationship between the people and their
environment. The paper contends that environmental degradation in the novel parallels the cultural disintegration experienced by the Igbo, revealing that colonialism’s violence
extended beyond human societies to the natural world. Using ecocritical theory as a
framework, this analysis contributes to a deeper understanding of Things Fall Apart as a narrative not only of cultural loss but also of ecological displacement