Analysis of Achebe's Impartiality in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

“Okonkwo’s gun had exploded and a piece of iron had pierced the boy’s heart” (124).

One of the white missionaries, Mr. Brown, "spent long hours with Akunna in his obi

Foil between Mr.Smith and Mr.Brown In the book, Things Fall Apart, written by, Chinua Achebe, two prominent characters are foils to each other: Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith. Mr. Brown is the first white Christian missionary in Umuofia and Mbanta. He is a patient, kind, and understanding man. In addition, he is open-minded and willing to make an effort to respect and understand the Igbo beliefs and culture.

In the novel, Christianity presents a clear and present danger to the tribe. As Christianity moves into the region, the African tribes begin to make decisions on whether or not they will follow it. Some of the tribe members convert to this new religion, but many do not. When tribe members decide to convert to Christianity, it gives the missionaries more power and they become stronger. When the Christian missionaries gain power, they are able to control the tribe and weaken the Ibo religion. The Christian missionaries “built their church in the Evil Forest” (62). The missionaries are also able to build schools and other Christian centered facilities due to this newfound power. When they build a church in the evil forest, it weakens the tribe members beliefs and, “That week they won a handful more converts” (62). The members begin to question the Ibo religion because, “The villagers were so certain about the doom that awaited these men”

Prior to Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, Africa had been viewed as a one dimensional entity, opposed to the amount of diversity it contains. Africa is the second largest continent behind Asia. This massive size, and varying terrain must encompass people as diverse as the landscape. These people can not be deduced to a stereotyped term of being “African”, because each African does not fit the preconceived image of what an african is. It is not a country it is a land mass with people, animals, and vegetation, that differ by all the many regions. This outline that has been constructed of what makes up an African is due to underrepresentation in the media. Achebe demolished this notion for his readers, by creating a world the reader can

In order to justify the slave trade, Europeans made Africans look like primitive people who needed to be trained like animals. One way they did this was through literature. Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart, said in an interview that the main reason for writing this novel was to encourage other African writers to write about their past in order to refute the stories of the Europeans, claiming that Africans are uncivilized animals, but also shows that the Ibo were not a perfect society, highlighting the parts of Ibo culture that are considered heinous crimes today, in order to prove that there were no truly civilized societies. In his novel Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe effectively educates his readers about the culture

Throughout the book Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe challenges the typical stereotypes of colonial Africa. The story follows the lives of the Ibo people, and explains the culture and traditions of African tribes in Nigeria before and after being colonized by the Europeans.

Simultaneously, Achebe masterfully demonstrates multiple temperaments of the colonizers by foiling Mr. Brown with Reverend Smith. Mr. Brown is the first missionary sent to Umofia, and he manages to penetrate the barrier between himself and the tribesmen by learning about their customs and politely

The fact that these missionaries have started to really make an impact was unprecedented by the Ibo people; their continuous misunderstandings of one another contribute to make this situation frustrating to both the Ibo clansmen and the Christians that view their religion as superior. Okonkwo returns back to his home village of Umuofia after his exile to Mbanta, and he arrives to see missionaries have overtaken the village, created a government, and many Umuofians have joined the church. As Okonkwo and his friend Obierika are talking, Obierika says of the missionaries and their impact, “He says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us?...He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart” (176). The white men and missionaries have been successful in coming in and gaining power. They believe the customs to be “bad”, showing their disregard of Ibo culture, and how their motives for infiltrating Ibo life is based off of selfish ideas- only to gain more followers to their religion. Furthermore, by actually being successful in drawing Umuofians into their religion, they have turned

According to Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian writer who believes in the power of story, if one traps oneself into the narrow world of “single story” about another person or country, that person would risk a crucial misconception. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is considered as the most authentic response to contemporary Western’s literature depiction of Africa, which usually obligates the readers to only look at the “single story” that is written with personal stereotypes under an ethnocentric point of view. As a result, in his famous Things Fall Apart, Achebe contrasts the perspective of the colonized on imperialism with that of the colonizing in order to provide an alternative to the Western literature’s “single story” of Africa.

Small decisions can often have a large impact with major consequences. This theme is portrayed in many books, poems, movies and other types of media. This theme is also seen in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which tells the story of the people of the Ibo tribe, sharing their stories, lessons, and experiences. Many major consequences in this book are the cause of seemingly minor decisions, namely the killing of Ikemefuna, the white man in Abame, and the messenger in the marketplace. These stunning and unpredictable scenes often come to support this. To convey the effects of small actions and quick decisions, Chinua Achebe uses suspenseful and dramatic scenes.

In order to justify the slave trade, Europeans made Africans look like primitive people through literature. Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart, said in an interview that the main reason for writing this novel was to encourage other African writers to write about their past in order to refute the stories of the Europeans, claiming that Africans are uncivilized animals, but also shows that the Ibo were not a perfect society, highlighting the parts of Ibo culture that are considered heinous crimes today, in order to prove that there were no truly civilized societies. In his novel Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe effectively educates his readers about the culture and practices of the Ibo during the imperialistic age in order to show

Chinua Achebe’s, Things Fall Apart, is a story of a traditional village in Nigeria from inside Umuofia around the late 1800s. This novel depicts late African history and shows how the British administrative structure, in the form of the European Anglican Church, imposed its religion and trappings on the cultures of Africa, which they believed was uncivilized. This missionary zeal subjugated large native populations. Consequently, the native traditions gradually disappeared and in time the whole local social structure within which the indigenous people had lived successfully for centuries was destroyed. Achebe spends the first half of the novel depicting the Ibo culture, by

The author Chinua Achebe, in the novel, “Things Fall Apart,” shares extreme diversity between the female and male characters residing in Umofia. Okonkwo, the male leader of the tribe, carries qualities such as power and manliness, as all men are expected to. As for the females they are commonly referred to as being weaker for child bearing and more responsible because they are expected to cook, clean, and take care of their children. Although the traits of the Igbo culture vary in the determination of the sexes, both genders share both positive and negative aspects on their community.

In my reading of Things Fall Apart, it has better informed me of a culture that I did not know of before, and by reading it helped correct some broad misconceptions that I previously held of the people and their cultures of Africa. Reading the novel also gave me another perspective on the effects of imperialism/colonialism by the Europeans on the Africans. I believe Achebe has succeeded in enabling the West an opportunity to have them "listen to the weak" (Achebe interview), but whether or not Western society decides to listen will come down to the individual within the society--if they do choose to listen to the call of the "weak." In this essay I will share