Language And Cultural And Societal Identity

The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe discusses the rise of an Igbo chieftain who came from great poverty to power and the eventual loss of Igbo traditions, rites, and the influence of his clan through his eyes due to western imperialism and colonialism. The intended audience for this novel is very broad, but if we tried to define it would primarily be people who have not experienced the Igbo culture and westerners or people who speak English. In this essay I will be focusing on the last six chapters: chapters 20 to 25. These chapters highlight the loss of power and customs of the Igbo people who have succumb to colonial rule. I fell Achebe is rhetorically effective and

A proverb can be defined as “A short popular saying, usually of unknown and ancient origin, that expresses effectively some commonplace truth or useful thought.” From Okonkwo’s dominance in the beginning of Things Fall Apart, to the fall of the Igbo culture, proverbs are a recurring topic. Throughout Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe repeatedly uses proverbs and aphorisms to portray different characters and build a bridge between African and Igbo culture and the reader. With this stylistic Igbo language, Achebe is able to utilize speech to convey spirituality and cultural values, character development and demonstrate the eventual collapse of Igbo society.

There is a Mexican man that enters with the rest of his family. They eat beans, rice, flour tortillas and etc. The family does there every day routine, the dad wakes up at six- thirty to go to work in his truck. The children go to school and the mother stays at home. The things a person does in their all has a reason which goes all back to culture. Culture is what makes up everyone different from one another. Texts such as “What is Cultural Identity?”, “Where Worlds Collide” and “Two ways to Belong” supports that depending on one’s culture it effects one perspective on the world and others.

Preconceived ideas about one’s culture often arises from stereotypes passed down from generation to generation. It is those stereotypes which shape one’s way of thinking, without being educated properly. In the novel Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, misunderstood culture is what drives the story of a small African clan called the Umuofia and the life story of Okonkwo, a fearless warrior and farmer. An in-depth look into pre-colonial African culture helps the reader discover and understand an unbiased point of view of a world one may not understand. In doing so, Achebe uses imagery as well as strong narration to describe the cultural norms and activities that the Nigerian tribe undergoes in everyday life. Through this he offers a nonbiased point of view, and communicates and accurate picture of pre-colonial African culture to a western reader.

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

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, highlights the tradition of Igbo people through many rhetoric devices. Achebe uses the devices to vividly describe the impact of the tradition, as well as the challenge of tradition. Achebe exemplifies the significance of the tradition through detail, dialogue, and proverbs. The detail used in the novel solidifies the many factors that are involved in the tradition, such as the food served during an important occasion when Okonkwo gives a feast to the people of his mother’s land, Mbanta.

The novel “Things Fall Apart” written by Chinua Achebe, is a tale based on the traditional beliefs and customs of an Ibo village during late 1800’s Africa. Through the telling of this story, we witness the remarkable depth of Igbo culture through its functions of religion, politics, judiciary and entertainment.

In Chinua Achebe’s novel, “Things Fall Apart”, she reveals the struggle of finding oneself while rejecting cultural norms in order for an individual to grow. Throughout the novel, Achebe uses literary devices to elaborate on the challenges and traditions the Igbo people experience . These devices consist of analogies, parables, and word choice. Initially, Achebe describes the changes that the elders are noticing about the younger generation; they claim they don't value leadership and seniority.

Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart” chronicles the life of Okonkwo, a strong man whose existence is dominated by fear and anger, and the Ibo tribe, a people deeply rooted in cultural belief and tradition. As events unfold, Okonkwo’s carefully constructed world and the Ibo way of life collapses. The story of Okonkwo’s fall from a respected and feared leader of the Ibo tribe to an outcast who dies in disgrace dramatizes his inability to evolve beyond his personal beliefs, affecting the entire Ibo tribe beyond measure. The “things” that fall apart in Achebe’s novel are Okonkwo’s life – his ambition, dreams, family unity and material wealth – and the Ibo way of life – their beliefs, culture and values.

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” In Achebe’s award winning novel, “Things Fall Apart,” he wants the reader to learn that we need to take away experiences from the past in order to keep the Ibo culture alive. The story is told through three generations of a family, Unoka (the grandfather), Okonkwo (the father), and Nwoye (the son), who are all a part of the Ibo culture. By comparing the lives of Unoka, Okonkwo, and Nwoye, Achebe tries to secure a platform of understanding- of believable and symbolic characters, Achebe builds empathy in the western reader.

Language, culture and individual personal attributes are all things we consider when describing what identity is and how it is influenced. Culture influences many aspects of an individual's life such as traditions, belief systems, norms, personal values and more. A language is a form of expression, it also reveals a person's origins such as what country they are from. Both culture and language shape a person's identity and can make an individual feel as though they belong. Translations by Friel not only does a great job of demonstrating the importance of language and cultural identity but also shows how easily both can be stripped from a society.

In Things Fall Apart, proverbs are mainly used in the development of the important characters. Through proverbs used in character development, Achebe shows the distinct similarities and differences between the protagonist, Okonkwo, and two other important characters, Nwoye and Obierika.

Both Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Obi in No Longer at Ease represent departures from two worlds, left in a kind of limbo which offers no way out and no salvation. Okonkwo rejects the new religion of the Christian missionaries, even though it is evident that the ancient customs which he wants to continue to practice are out of favor. Obi rejects both the ancient customs (one should not marry an osu) and the modern principles (one should not take bribes) in order to try to reconcile the varying aspects of his life which are in conflict with one another. Thus, the titles of both works reflect the condition of a decaying tribal African culture which suddenly collides with the decaying culture of a Western world. It is no accident that Achebe chose a phrase from the Irish poet W. B. Yeats' "The Second Coming" it is a poem which encapsulates everything the novel seems to say about the modern world, whether it is Western or African: something is lacking "the centre cannot hold." This paper will analyze the problem of center which could not hold in Achebe's Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease by putting two significant lines from the novels into context and explaining their importance.

Thing fall apart, by Chinua Achebe, is a novel about life of a young man from Nigeria, Okonkwo, who end up falling within the Ibo culture. Achebe writes this essay to emphasize and illustrate life in modern Africa, where people mostly connects to not educate during the 1890s. In the novel, Achebe demonstrates Okonkwo as a tragic hero, opposite to his father, he is famous and respecting by everyone, he “was still young but he had won fame as the greatest wrestler in the nine villages” (8). Even though everyone is considering Okonkwo as the “child” who “could eat with kings”, he is also weak and stressful deep inside. He is afraid of failing and being useless, he is ashamed towards his father’s death, and indeed he “was possessed by the fear of his father’s contemptible life and shameful death” (18). Sadly, one can’s escape its fate, Okonkwo ends up become a victim of his bravery, his hardworking, and his successful.

Proverbs are wise sayings that address the heart of the discourse in any given context, truthfully and objectively. In Africa and in Nigerian cultures especially, they are considered the reliable horses, which convey meanings to their destinations or hearts of the listeners. This study investigates aspects of the meaning of proverbs in the work of a Nigerian author, Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. It is contended that meanings of Nigerian proverbs can be worked out within the semantic, referential, ideational, stimulus-response, realist and contextual theories. Types of meaning and proverbs are addressed and situated within the two works. It is advanced that proverbs play significant roles in clarifying, exemplifying, underscoring and