Chinua Achebe 's Things Fall Apart

White. White everywhere. White men everywhere. White men with new idea everywhere. These are the thoughts running wild in a person’s mind who has never seen a person with white skin and when they begin to bring new things and ideas their thoughts begin to build. In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe what seemed to be a normal day in Umuofia turned into a day of new faces and later to come, a new clan. As white men arrived they brought many things from their culture and at the beginning they seemed to be making a difference for a more positive society but readers quickly find out that these things were only brought to manipulate the Ibo people into doing the desired actions of the white men.

Firstly, Okonkwo’s fear of being akin to his father plays a major role in characterising Okonkwo. This fear, in particular, is one of the earliest, in-depth portrayals of what motivates Okonkwo’s hard working nature and determination. Okonkwo’s distaste for his father, or men akin to his father, is first revealed in the characterisation of his father, Unoka. The quote: “He had no patience for unsuccessful men. He had no patience for his father” (ch1, pg3) shows the comparison of Okonkwo’s father to an unsuccessful man. This comparison allows the reader to infer that the Unoka held traits, such as inertia, and idleness, which made him unproductive. This is built upon further with the quote: “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness... It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father… And so Okonkwo was ruled by one passion – to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness.” (Ch2, pg 12). This use of direct characterisation to portray Okonkwo’s father reveals what Okonkwo is afraid of becoming by describing the attitudes displayed by Unoka that Okonkwo, therefore, avidly tries to avoid. This allows the reader to infer a reason for

What would you do if Christianity came and took over your world? In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, describes a man who was affected by Christianity which not only destroyed him but also his family and his tribe. Okonkwo is the main character who faces the demise of his world when the missionaries came in and took over his world. Okonkwo is a very independent, impatient African leader and is affected by Christianity, impacting the way he is accepted back into Umofia or the way he lives. Achebe 's description of life in the village after colonization, helps to create a setting that condemns colonization. In the Caryl Phillips interview, Achebe believes that “Conrad is for the colonizing mission, and he concedes that the novel, in part,

Growing up in an environment where one’s parents and society restrict the behavior of that individual, can be a very challenging situation to be in. This was so for Nwoye. Raised in the Igbo culture, social order was said to demand conformity. It was a culture where he was forced to act a certain way, or be punished by his father Okonkwo, which wasn’t a type of lifestyle Nwoye would want to be living all his life. The book, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe uses Nwoye to exemplify the outcomes in a relationship, of a father forcing masculine and cultural tradition values his son, Nwoye. Although, Nwoye’s curiosity on the Igbo culture and will to become the person that he wants to be, comes before him even if it calls for going against

Introduction Throughout the novel "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, there are several attributes that lead to the demise of Okonkwo. Often times the result of acting on personal emotional impulses can carry with them negative outcomes. Okonkwo was a noble, appreciated man in the nine villages in which tribes had lived(Achebe 1). The traits that gave him that status are believed to have come through both his fear of failure and desperation to succeed (Achebe 4). Unoka, Okonkwo's father, was unsuccessful in the nine villages which led to Okonkow's lack of respect for him and those who do not work hard in the community (Achebe 1).

“Things Fall Apart,” by Chinua Achebe, is a story that takes place during the colonization of africa by European powers, and follows the adult life of Okonkwo. The village that Okonkwo calls home, Umofia, has a rich history and culture. A large part of their culture is how the two sexes are treated differently. Men are much more revered than women. The roles assigned to men and women greatly impacted Umofia’s society because of women’s required subservience, the treatment of women, and the unchangeable tasks assigned to each gender.

Normally, a successful hero arises from a rough past. However, Chinua Achebe wrote a story that contrasts with the usual pattern of a hero’s life. The novel Things Fall Apart centers on a man named Okonkwo, a clan leader in the village of Umuofia. From Okonkwo’s tragic hero qualities and struggle with his son and culture, readers can learn several qualities to consider and to avoid. A tragic hero is defined as a person who experiences a disastrous fall after accumulating high titles.

Have you ever met a father and son that have very different perspectives on life? Well this is the exact issue that comes up in the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Okonkwo and his son have been raised in very different households, with extremely different circumstances. They also have conflicting ideas when it comes to religion. This makes the white man’s arrival a crucial time in the pair’s relationship.

In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, he uses language to elaborate the African cultures and traditions before European colonization occurred. Chinua Achebe was born and raised in a village of Nigeria. Therefore, he has a high understanding of the African culture. This novel takes place around the 19th century in Nigeria. During this time, it was a male-dominated society, women were excluded and marginalized. Men were seen as the superior gender. They were illustrated to be strong and powerful. Women on the other hand were seen as useless, but without them, the Ibo society would fall apart.

The language an individual uses reveals both the individual’s present mindset and the development of that individual. In return, the individual a language is spoken through reveals the values of him and his society, although the two are not necessarily interconnected. Thus, the use of language can have cohesive and alienating effects. In Chinua Achebe’s multidimensional novel Things Fall Apart, great emphasis is placed on the expressive power of language, especially through its use by certain characters. In this novel, Achebe uses Okonkwo, the novel’s protagonist and influential clan leader, as a vehicle essential to the development of the theme of language. More specifically, Achebe guides his readers through a story in which a powerful and

In the book, Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe presents the main character, Okonkwo, to us as a tragic hero. We watch Okonkwo progress through the book, and observe as his tragic flaw leads to his ultimate downfall. Obierika, Okonkwo’s best friend, always stands by Okonkwo and serves as Okonkwo’s voice of reason as they face the British colonization of their villages. The way Achebe presents these characters to helps shape the overall theme of the novel: the interpretations people have of one another’s culture can lead to their downfall when they clash. More specifically, the misinterpretations the Igbo tribe had of British intentions led to their downfall when the cultures clashed in Things Fall Apart.

History is written by the winners, as it has been for a long time, but Things Fall Apart is one of the few retellings that is written from the from the losers’ point of view. In this novel, the Ibo people in Nigeria have a working society, with rules, religion, and relative peace. Then, at the turn of the 19th century, missionaries come/came to the land with their contrasting religion and Western culture. Obierika, a clan member of the village Umuofia, must decide whether to join the missionaries, or to fight against them. However, In Chinua Achebe’s Thing’s Fall Apart, Obierika responds to the collision of Western ideas into Ibo culture with cowardice, because the missionaries and their Western culture were intimidating, influential, and had

Since the initial use of the literary device of tragic heroes, various renowned works of modern literature have implemented it. There are two types of tragic heroes Greek and Shakespearean. A Greek tragic hero is defined as a character of noble or high standing, who is destined for suffering, downfall, or defeat, due to forces outside of his control. A Shakespearean tragic hero is defined as a character of noble or high standing, who attempts to do the right thing, but in doing so “misses the mark” and does the wrong thing, ultimately bringing about his downfall. In many modern novels the existence of a tragic hero can be argued. An example is the postcolonial novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The novel follows the struggles of a

Achebe’s Things Fall Apart moved me in a way that had once been unreachable by non-Western literary works regarding the state of foundation in the pre-colonialization period of Africa, and of course the subsequent rule from European powers. It is clear that Achebe sought to paint a truer picture of the sophisticated culture and traditions embedded in tribes that had only been smeared by Europeans who were solely after conquest, commerce, and Christianity.

Things Fall Apart is a novel of a man whose life is dominated by both fear and anger. Okonkwo was very well known throughout nine villages and even beyond. As a young man he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze, the cat. Amalinze was the great wrestler who for seven years was unbeaten from Umuofia to Mbaino (Achebe, 1994, p. 3). Drums were beaten and the flutes sang and the spectators held their breath, Amalinze was a wily craftsman but Okonkwo was as slippery as a fish in water. Okonkwo fame grew rapidly as he had taken down the cat. Everyone now looked up to him and saw him as fierce warrior of the clan (Achebe, 1994).