"The Linguistic Structure of Funeral Rituals and Collective Mourning in Things Fall Apart"

Abstract

The novel explores Igbo society deeply to bring forth how language maintains a culture in the doing of cultural activities that give great weight to social cohesion, spirituality, and resistance to any influence from colonization. Throughout the novel, linguistic representations of cultural rituals, such as those related to funerals and mass mourning, have been very evocative in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958). This paper explores how Achebe uses linguistic tools- such as symbols, proverbs, and orality- to picture funeral rites and communal grief. The study especially looks into the analytical perspectives of those concepts regarding reinforcements made in Igbo cultural values and critiques posed by colonial disruptions that threaten such traditions. The research design follows the textual analysis approach, informed by Gumucio's theory of Orality and Cultural Identity. By employing close reading, this study analyzes salient scenes of this nature, such as in the case of Ezeudu's funeral, to analyze the linguistic structures that achieve communal and spiritual meanings. Secondary sources contextualise Achebe's linguistic choices within Igbo cultural and postcolonial perspectives. Meanwhile, such an analysis reveals that Achebe's use of proverbs, chants, and symbolic imagery is one of preserving Igbo cultural values but simultaneously can be a way of criticizing colonial intervention. These linguistic features of speech emphasize continuity within social and spiritual bonds wherein the forces of colonialism have torn apart cohesion.. This study contributes to an ever-building repertoire of African literature that deploys language and ritual to maintain cultural memory and identity and shed light on the intersection of tradition and colonial disruption.