Important Quotes From Things Fall Apart

He explores the use of proverbs, figures of speech and aphorisms to demonstrate the significance of their spirituality, social construct and hierarchy. As well, he displays the character transgression in Okonkwo, and how his mental decline foreshadowed his unfortunate future. Paralleling unfortunate futures, language and communication barriers between the Igbo and the European missionaries led to the collapse of the Igbo culture and the grave ultimatum; Okonkwo’s death. With all three in mind, proverbs are a very important aspect of the Igbo language and can demonstrate numerous societal customs and tell a story with few words. An appropriate quote that displays the importance of language, especially in Igbo culture is, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” - Nelson

The Igbo people’s language is saturated with proverbs which allows the language to sustain a sophisticated way of communication. This shows they should be considered to be a civilized culture because the use of proverbs mean their language is advanced enough to be able to support the usage of metaphors and figurative talk. For example, Achebe states, “Okoye said the next half a dozen sentences in proverbs. Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten” (Achebe 10). This shows that the Igbo people stress the use of proverbs, a complex use of their language, to express their ideas and to communicate with others. Another example is when Okonkwo was justifying his role in killing Ikemefuna to Obierika. Okonkwo says, “The Earth cannot punish me for obeying her messenger, A child’s fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam, which its mother puts into its palm.” (Achebe 64). This shows that Igbo’s use of complex proverbs and language allow for the people to prove their points and their arguments. This shows the culture is civilized because the Igbo language is used in it’s complexity to explain points of views and argument effectively, which is a sophisticated part of day to day communication. The use of language in the Ibo culture allows for the people to communicate and express their ideas in complex ways,

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

In the novel Things Fall Apart, the use of violence in Ibo culture was fairly frequent, especially among the men in the village. In the Ibo village of Umuofia, it was obvious that the men rule the household with a heavy hand, meaning if they felt a beating was necessary they would carry it out with full force. In chapter four of the novel, Okonkwo’s youngest wife decided to plait her hair at a friend’s house. When she did not come home early enough to cook the afternoon meal and failed to ask another wife to feed her children, Okonkwo decided to take it upon himself to give her a hefty beating. The fact that it was supposed to be the Week of Peace did not stop him. The reality that the men take it upon themselves and are expected to control

Boko Haram are motivated by a Jihadist version of Islam and is believed to be believers of the one true interpretation of the (Brinkel & Ait-Hida, 2012, p. 16). Their ultimate goal to create a true Islamic state in Nigeria directly associated with Sharia law. (Chothia, 2015, p. 5). The group has maintained their secrecy and the authorities have yet to be captured by law enforcement. Boko Haram is seen to have many basic views including their religious motivations, political downfall, and their extreme actions taken on the people of Nigeria. Boko

“Until the lions have their own historian, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” This quote can be applied to many different situations throughout history, but in the context of the novel, Things Fall Apart, the quote refers to renowned Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, recounting the story of the Ibo people and their oppression. Achebe assumes the role of the lions’ historian by exhibiting the richness of the Ibo culture and showing its destruction by the colonialism of the late nineteenth century.

A powerful quote was once said by Heidi Wills. “We can choose to be affected by the world or we can choose to affect the world.” In the novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo has only experienced the land of Umuofia, but he decides to take action to “affect the world”, even though he’s only in a microscopic part of it. One example of him doing this was Ikemefuna, a boy that he got from another tribe, looked up to Okonkwo like a father figure. However, when the tribe agreed to kill Ikemefuna, and the boy was crying out for his father to help him, Okonkwo helped join in the killing, making him affect the killing instead of just watching the killing. Also, when he decides to affect the world, violence is used, a major change occurs in the book for the

Things Fall Apart Major Essay “Never good enough… Never perfect enough… Never powerful enough… Never successful enough…” (Brown 25). The fear of never being good enough, also known as scarcity, exists in every human being in the world. Everyone is terrified of feeling inferior to the people around them.

The scene I chose to illustrate appears in chapter 25, page 147. The text says, “Then they came to a tree from which Okonkwo’s body was dangling, and they stopped dead.” I chose to draw the image of Okonkwo’s dead limp body hanging from a tree because it is a great example of the books name, Things Fall Apart. This dramatic ending summarizes all of the disjointed things in Okonkwo’s life. Throughout the book, things kept on going wrong for Okonkwo, getting kicked out of his village, the Europeans coming and spreading their religion, his son Nwoye joining them behind his back, and many more unfortunate happenings. All of these situations led to the unexpected ending of Okonkwo taking his own life. Therefore this is my favorite scene in Things

“He [Okonkwo] had a slight stammer when he was angry and whenever he was angry and could not get his words out quickly enough, he would use his fists” (Achebe 3) This quote from Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe shows that Okonkwo is strong, but also haf flaws. Although Okonkwo has many strengths, he is quick to anger and displays his anger in violence. Okonkwo shows his strength in his success, and his manliness. Okonkwo has a lot of money: “...he was not a failure like Unoka.

Throughout Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, it is made very apparent how much the main character, Okonkwo, values manliness. Despite the fact that Okonkwo lived quite a few centuries ago, his story still shares some similarities with the way men today are pressured to be masculine. Okonkwo’s desire to be masculine affects him by causing him to be violent towards his family, view women as lesser than him, and produce a view that men shouldn’t have emotions. In the end, this desire causes his downfall, eventually causing him to take his own life.

In modern cultures and societies, it is difficult to bring a community together if everyone is of different heritage, color, religion, and practices dissimilar traditions. If everyone is of different ethnic characteristics, then the customs they practice will set them apart, but if everyone in a community is of the same ethnicity, then their customs will hold the community together peacefully. In Things Fall Apart, the Ibo community, and many other African tribes, demonstrate the idea of an intertwined community because of traditions. The Ibo public is so closely and peacefully held together by their cultural traditions and practices. However, when the European colonizers came in, they conquered the Ibo by setting them apart so much that the

Rise and fall, highs and lows, peaks and bases. These words can be used to describe a number of things. In history, it can represent times of strength and weakness of a culture, person, empire, or country. Cultures face many obstacles that can lead to success or to their destruction. During the European colonization movement, many cultures were faced with the threat of extinction. When a culture is faced with colonization people’s beliefs, customs, and way of life are challenged. Colonization also brings internal conflict which is used to weaken the old culture and make the implementation of the new culture easier. In the book Things Fall Apart the author, Chinua

Each individual culture; Unoka, Okonkwo and Nwoye’s culture, and the factors; Christianity and the white man, in the end, lead back to the mother culture of the culture, Unoka’s culture. No matter how hard they try to deny and avoid the mother culture, they still end up with the same traits, beliefs and customs as the mother culture does. In the novel Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe draws on three generations to demonstrate the progress and change the culture undergoes. Unoka, Okonkwo and Nwoye are symbolic of three successive generations and therefore, each represents a part within a culture. The parent generation shapes the child generation’s views

Despite Nigeria’s growing economy, the nation still has a startling percentage of citizens living in poverty. For children, the choice became easy: to survive and support their family or to get educated. Boko Haram’s radical ideals of religion’s role in society, conformed gender roles, and tradition have not only destroyed families and communities but they continually add fuel to the fire – destroying the newest generation’s only chance at a better life. The jihadist group has an infamous reputation not only to burn down schools and villages but to kidnap school children, especially girls, and educators. The most notorious event in Boko Haram’s cruel initiative against Western Education was when it captured 276 school girls, 60 of whom managed to escape now fear to return back to school as alike with many girls who have been directly affected by the group. Boko Haram, through its violence, aims to control the northeast through crippling fear and wants to clearly establish a message: it will stop at nothing to see western education abolished.