How Does Achebe Present The Conflict In Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe once said, "the world is like a mask dancing...if you want to see it well, you do not stand in one place," (Goodreads). Renowned for his novel Things Fall Apart, in which he responds to the stereotypes of the British who conquered the continent of Africa in the era of New Imperialism, Achebe explores Igbo culture through many aspects of daily village life. Contradicting the racism employed by whites in the 1890s in order to justify slavery in earlier history, Things Fall Apart offers a new fresh perspective into the lives of ordinary villagers of the Igbo tribe in Nigeria, before they are taken over by the British. Just as the whites in Europe, the tribe applies their own religion, customs, beliefs, and language to their lives. Through this lens the reader is able to extract a deeper meaning of the powerful message Achebe communicates by penning the famous novel.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a story about personal beliefs and customs, and also a story about conflict. There is struggle between family, culture, and the religion of the Ibo, which is all brought on by a difference in personal beliefs and customs of the Igbo and the British. There are also strong opinions of the main character, Okonkwo. We are then introduced to the views of his village, Umuofia. We see how things fall apart when these beliefs and customs are confronted by those of the white missionaries.

In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe employs imagery, symbolism, and themes to reveal the story of Okonkwo. Throughout the novel he weaves in these things to really tell us the tale.

This is an example of the difference in personal beliefs among family. Some may say that the book is about the differences in beliefs between the Africans and the colonizers, but it is more than that. It is clear that it was Okonkwo's personal beliefs and not necessarily the views of the people of Umuofia which guided him in what he did. One of these is his reliance in the strength of anger. Although he felt strongly in the beliefs and customs of the Ibo people, there are several occasions in which Okonkwo made a decision to disobey the customs in order to live out his own personal beliefs. For example, in chapter four, Okonkwo is yelled at by Ezeani, the priest of the earth goddess, for beating his wife during the sacred week of peace. Okonkwo did not feel remorse for his actions and probably thought of it as a sign of strength and manhood. Okonkwo was always worried about being seen as weak. One good

The focus of the individual is prominent in Things Fall Apart, a tale of an almost anti-social being in a world dominated by change.  Achebe's main character, Okonkwo, is the window to the dramatization of social, economic, and political change of the nation known as Nigeria.  The focus of the narrative is the struggle of a strong and well respected individual to maintain his own life course, and to differentiate this outcome from the end result of his lethargic father's life.  The story embodies the ideal of embracing the individual's goals and aspirations to yield an outcome

Lastly, the missionaries drive Okonkwo to violence and brutality through the mere presence of them in Umuofia. For example, Okonkwo ‘trembles with hate, unable to utter a word’ (204) as they integrate Christianity into his village. Thus, Okonkwo’s hatred and closed mind with his son, his community, and the missionaries drive him to mental stress, causing his life to turn into bad struggle and savagery. Firstly, after Nwoye shows disloyalty towards his father, Okonkwo disowns him. He tells his other children the ‘great abomination’ Nwoye is and how ‘he is no longer his son or their brothers’ (172). This dispute within the kinship is due to Okonkwo’s resistance to embrace his son's beliefs and admiration for Christianity. His unwillingness to see through the ‘betrayal’ of his son leads to division in family, hurting his mental state. Furthermore, the people within his village create angst in his life as well. With all the change in Umuofia, Okonkwo develops a new outlook on the men and people, seeing them as weak and frail. To illustrate, he exclaims that ‘he mourned for the clan’ and ‘mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had unaccountably become soft like women’

Fall Apart” as the protagonist, Okonkwo, reveals himself as a proud man but also a symbol of his

When I first began reading Things Fall Apart, it helped me understand about the Nigerian culture. This novel is a post-colonial novel written by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe in 1958. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, one of the first to receive global critical acclaim. The novel follows the life of Okonkwo, an Igbo leader and local wrestling champion in the fictional Nigerian village of Umuofia who is afraid to share his feelings for fear of being thought as weak and he had to protect his reputation. He is a brave man, but stands alone a lot with his decision to fight. He believes everyone in the tribe has turned into women when they do not want to fight, but deep down he is just like them, but afraid of how people will now view him. When he starts to become violent he accidentally kills a man and is forced to leave his tribe. When he is allowed to

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

He is upset that his youngest wife went to get her hair braided instead of making dinner. As a result of this, he beats her. It is pretty typical for him to beat his wives, but this was during a peace week which is not okay. He also attends a funeral and unintentionally shoots and kills the man’s son. Achebe states “Okonkwo's gun had exploded and a piece of iron had pierced the boy's heart”(124). This was obviously wrong, and it definitely did not help Okonkwo. He knew he was not good with guns, but he continued to use them. Due to his actions, he is sent away to his motherland for seven

“At night the messengers came in to taunt them and to knock their shaven heads together(195/2).” It shows that the leaders of Umuofia were for their first time humiliated and were stripped of their power once they had become arrested. This could lead the leaders to also be afraid of the white men, making the clan more scared since they're seeing their tough leaders being scared to do anything against the white men. “You drove him to kill himself, and now he will be buried like a dog…(208/2).” Okonkwo was bullied to kill himself. All due to the new religion that has affected his people. When Okonkwo was humiliated in the guard room, he had for the first time in his life he felt weak and powerless which is what he had feared the most. With nothing left to lose he had taken his own life, which in his mind was a woman thing to do for a man. He had died a free man.

Chinua Achebe, the author from “Things Fall Apart,” chose to end his novel in a poignant way of the people ’s -- Igbo and colonists -- pasts and their perspectives on significant events in the novel, to show that things fall apart for everyone. The colonists try to make up for their pasts; Achebe’s insight of both of the cultures, and the presentation of Okonkwo’s awareness, and how serious his death was. With a sudden realization of Okonkwo’s behavioral twin, the District Commissioner.

At first glance, Things Fall Apart by Achebe, may seem like a bona fide innocent novel. When a reader further analyzes the novel, one can identify the true meaning of the text, the meaning that the author has tried to portray. Throughout the text, Achebe uses multiple literary devices to effectively portray the idea that although people are not open to change, change will still happen and life as we know it will be different than what we experience today. Such is the case multiple times when Okonkwo is analyzed as a character, and is most prominently seen as the white Christian’s come into the villages.

‘Things Fall Apart ' is the novel written in 1959 by the Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe. The novel itself is ironic, tragic and satirical where the author at most describes the conflict between the traditional society of Umuofia with the new customs brought by the white people. Another theme of the novel is contributed through the protagonist, Okonkwo, who struggles to be strong, masculine, respected family man, rather than his father, Unoka - weak, effeminate, lazy and poor.

Okonkwo detested his father and despised his laziness. Okonkwo was motivated by his father’s laziness to become a tough guy. Okonkwo feared that he would be useless to his father and to the tribe “He wore a haggard and mournful look except when he was drinking or playing on his flute,” (Achebe 2). Okonkwo sees hard work as a masculine trait. He works hard and insists to those around him also have the same work ethic that he once had. He beats his wives and children to make them realize that he is in control and will always be in control. His oldest son Nwoye seems to have the same traits like his grandfather, Unoka, which apparently Okonkwo is not very happy about. “He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough money to eat. People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back,”(Achebe