Abstract

This study delves into the paradoxical representation of “creative destruction” in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, examining how subversive colonialism, despite its perceived suppression, plays transformative roles in reforming and reviving African society. This qualitative study seeks to highlight how colonialism inadvertently paves the way for liberating the African people from their intra-cultural superstition and exploitation and for sowing the seeds of solidarity against the usurpers. The study unfolds the numerous inhumane cultural norms of Igbo society that are eradicated alongside the disintegration of the culture itself. The narrative also explores how the encounter with colonial forces familiarizes the superstitious and ignorant Africans with the modern world, empowering them to adopt advanced practices, technology, administration, and strategies as a means of reorganization and resistance against colonial dominance. As postcolonial independence marks a significant shift, the African people, once free from colonial rule, overcome primitive brutalities and violence. The duality of destruction and construction, marked by the rise of positive attitudes and abilities alongside the fall of negative cultural and social aspects of African Igbo society with the arrival of the colonial rulers, opens up new scopes of understanding a different narrative from an alternative perspective.