Cosmopolitanism

Before the arrival of the white missionaries in the land, the people uses to get along fine. Then the British set the clan in fire, with some people wants to follow the tradition beliefs and other converting to Christianity. Surprisingly, the colonialist life creates the constant fear in one mind that he is existed in two distinct society. Each one of them is pulling the opposite direction, and that person will be forced to choose one or the other (Patrick 27. Print). That is the conflicting circumstance that Okonkwo faces in the novel Thing Fall Apart, he could not let his clan or his forefathers land to be subjected to stranger and rule by a distant person that he will never see in present his lifetime. Even though, some people in the tribes want to be part of the British empire, they still want, “their white rulers to rule from the expectation of their traditional villages”

The Internet is playing a very important role in the evolution of digital technology, but although it has seen remarkable growth over the last few years, its dispersion remains highly asymmetric. It is widely believed that the so called information age will bring radical change and improvement, and countries all over the world are busy with constructing the necessary infrastructure, the "information superhighways," in order to meet the challenges of the information society of the twenty-first century. Kwame Anthony Appiah’s essay “Making Conversation” tell us about human’s conversation

“He had a large barn full of yams and he had three wives. And now he was going to take the Idemili title, the third highest in the land” (12). Okonkwo was a successful man in his culture and lands far beyond Umuofia. He was prideful of what he had accomplished from a very young age, his culture meant everything to him as he had made his way to the top. He had everything he ever needed, the honor, he was a warrior, and he had made it to the top from absolutely nothing that his own father did for him. Sadly, towards the end of the book, Okonkwo had broken clan rules on purpose and killed himself. “Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwo’s body was dangling, and they stopped dead.” (Achebe 207). In this quote, it explains that Okonkwo had hung himself on the tree killing himself even though it went against everything he believed in; bravery, customs, and masculinity. Okonkwo’s personal pride was his response to the cultural collision because he was to stubborn to change his culture. He had shown resistance but also went against the clan rules. Okonkwo’s response to the colonizers shapes the meaning of the work as a whole by his suicide signifying things falling apart since it was the first time he purposely had broken the clan law. This shows that he had been struggling with any type of change in the book and finally he couldn’t adapt to any change. He was a

In Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo and Mr. Brown are very different people with different beliefs because of their past experiences and fears. Okonkwo is very self conscious and fearful that he will fail. He has also grown up in Umofia, where people are not often punished for beating their wives. That causes to believe that women are less than men and that violence is the answer to problems. Mr. Brown is very sure of his speaking skills, and is willing to hand over some control to other people. He has grown up without a lot of violence, and believes that education, equality, and peace it the answer. The fundamental differences between Okonkwo and Mr. Brown’s core beliefs as to how society should run derive from Okonkwo’s fear of

In the book “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, we see the effect the white missionaries had on an African tribe and the antihero Okonkwo. The main character Okonkwo is a tragic hero. Achebe depicts Okonkwo as a Shakespearean hero with a tragic flaw, that tragic flaw is the fact that he will do anything in his power not to be a weak man like his father Unoka. Okonkwo did what he did because he hated his father and would do anything in his power to be the exact opposite of his father.

Okonkwo’s story portrays the major differences between African culture and the idea that the Western society had on the African culture. Okonkwo is native to the Umuofia tribe and represented this oversized human being who with holds no emotion. All this makes Okonkwo seem very unrelatable and unfriendly, but this is what makes his relationships with the characters in the book so entertaining. For example, Okonkwo had a very negative connection with his father that affected him so much that it brought him to the point where it changed his life and is also the reason why he is so strict with his kids. With the introduction of these missionaries into the tribe, it completely changed the way the tribe acted and ended up bringing Okonkwo to a point where he had to pay the ultimate price. It was all because they couldn’t get along.

However,But his culture is changing, the values of manliness are being replaced by the values of the new religion, Cchristianity: “Okonkwo was deeply grieved. And it was not just personal grief. He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who has unaccountably become soft like women”(183). The people of his village are changing, they are no longer the “warlike men” that they once were. He sees how his clan is changing and when he realizes that he can not stop the change, he takes his own life. He cannot not and will not live in a world so different than the one he used to. In the end Okonkwo's manliness is the reason he dies, making it a very fatal flaw

Okonkwo is reluctant to change his beliefs to fit theirs when he fears that in doing so he will become just like his father. Okonkwo’s fear is one of the reasons why he would rather stick to his way of living than convert to theirs. But, according to the book not everyone thought the same way as him. On page 178 It stated, “There were many men and women in Umuofia who did not feel as

In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe tells the story of a man named Okonkwo. It tells his story of his reaction to white men coming to his and surrounding villages. The white men change the way of the Ibo people along with their culture. Okonkwo’s response to the white men was negative, he was already losing his grip with his people before they came. After the white men came and started to change things, like having missionaries convert Ibo people, having the white men build schools, hospital, and the white men starting their own government. Okonkwo lost any chance to show his power and prestige in his village due to the white men.

Okonkwo ‘s sense of identity was challenged with the introduction of the Western ideas into the Ibo culture. Okonkwo started in the novel as a strong warrior, and a successful leader as a person , But the cultural collision of the British colonists and Ibo people affected Okonkwo to the point of that he was a wonderful. He was strong for his children and several wives.(Page 3.) The reason for this is that Okonkwo changed in their sense of identity included that when he was a great and powerful leader he had some upset in his cultural ways just like the Western did also in life. In part one it had stated that Okonkwo never wanted to be like his father a drunk, and a person that would have to borrow money and never pay them back.

In the novel novel Things Fall Apart, the author, Chinua Achebe, wants the character Okonkwo to be viewed as a highly masculine and strict brute. Throughout the novel there are glimpses of the harsh qualities that Okonkwo possesses that start to break. When Okonkwo is exiled to his mother's tribe, he noticed the vast differences between the two. He noticed how feminine and cowardice their actions are, so he starts to easy up and gets a little sense of when to be how he is usually and when to be how the people in his mother's tribe are. Although he starts making changes to how he is as a person, he quickly realizes how weak it makes him look and how weak his mother's tribe is. When the Christians started moving into his mother's tribe, the people of the tribe wanted discuss or compromise with them, but Okonkwo had other ideas. When talking to the council Okonkwo says, “ Let us not reason like cowards… If a man comes into my hut and defecates on the floor, what do I do? Do I shut my eyes? No! I take a stick and break his head” (158). This quote shows how the author wants

Okonkwo believed that tradition always stays and is very important to keep and learn. He tried to embellish that on to his children and pushed and pushed them to be taught how he was and do what the ancestors did. That pushing and not being loving pushed one if his children to the end and his son left him and the family. Now Okonkwo is afraid that everything he’s worked for will be no more. “Suppose when he died all his male children decide to follow Nwoyes steps and abandon their ancestors.” (Achebe 153) In chapter 17 Okonkwo shows fear of his sons leaving everything that he has worked for to teach his children and what was taught to him and in the end he fails and he loses his oldest son who becomes a Christian. Okonkwo also had intense pride for his tribe and way of life. He believed it was the right way of life and not to be questioned. “Okonkwo slept very little that. The bitterness in his heart was now

Okonkwo’s statement mentions how the white man cunningly enter the life of the villager's with a new religion that divided them. Okonkwo also acknowledges how they should of reacted and

There are several major themes displayed throughout the book of Cosmopolitanism, but the theme that stuck out to me was unwillingness to accept different cultures. I believe that if Reverend James Smith would had displayed this trait the outcome of the book would have been completely different. Reverend Smith was a close minded person, and if you did not believe what he believed than he would not respect you and would treat you like you are a nobody. Throughout the book the Reverend is constantly bashing on the beliefs of the Igbo beliefs and customs. When one applies Appiah's idea of being kind to all in Cosmopolitanism to Reverend James Smith in Things Fall Apart, the character changes by treating the Igbo people with respect and kindness.

Beck says that “Cosmopolitanization does not mean uniformization and homogenization. People, their groups, communities, political organizations, cultures, civilizations will (and should) remain different, sometimes even unique. But to put it metaphorically, the walls between them must be replaced by bridges. Those bridges must be primarily erected in human heads, mentalities, imagination (‘cosmopolitan vision’), but also in normative systems (human rights), institutions (e.g. European Union) and ‘domestic global politics’ informed by transnational concerns (e.g. energy policy, sustainable development, fighting global warming, war with terrorism).” [4] But sadly a lot of Americans don’t follow Beck’s beliefs that people with different ideologies