Redefining The Tragic Tragedy Of Chinua Achebe 's Famous Things Fall Apart

Traditions is a representation of the history, beliefs, and language of a group of people or country. Traditions usually have a symbolic meaning due to the origins in the past. Unfortunately, most traditions aren't as positive as they should be. There's really negative traditions that can sometimes effect the people and the way they think. The people can sometimes become very narrow-minded or depending on the customs and traditions, they'll become violent. In the book Things Fall Apart Umuofia's traditions have a negative effect on the people, specifically Okonkwo. Okonkwo happens to be a respected member of the Umuofia clan. Okonkwo's wealth and High-ranked position in the community makes him very powerful. On the other hand his extreme

In Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the characters Ikemefuna and Obierika are used as “foil characters,” and reveal pertinent traits of Okonkwo’s true nature. The traits of Ikemefuna and Obierika contrast the traits Okonkwo, and allow the reader greater insight into Okonkwo’s fear of emasculation and his trepidation for the transformation of Igbo culture. Both Obierika and Ikemefuna accentuate the abhorrence Okonkwo has for becoming epicene and opprobrious like his father. Obierika also is skeptical of the Igbo culture in that he questions aspects of Igbo traditions and rituals, for he feels a certain degree of change may benefit their society. Furthermore, Ikemefuna’s character also reveals not only Okonkwo’s fear of emasculation, but

Women in the Igbo society are not as respected as men and they are treated badly. In order for the men to prove their power, and look manlier they tend to mistreat their women by beating them. In the novel Okonkwo beats his wife. However, he beats her at a time where he was not allowed to because it was the week of Peace; moreover, he did not care and kept beating her just because she did not cook, and instead went to do her hair. “He walked back to his obi to await Ojiugo’s return. And when she returned he beat her heavily. In his anger he had forgotten that it was the Week of Peace. His first two wives ran out in great alarm pleading with him that it was the sacred week. But Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through,

“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.

In novels, there is always a certain character or group of characters who are portrayed as bad or evil. In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, the group of characters representing bad or evil are the Christian missionaries. The villagers see the christian missionaries as intruders to their village, trying to bring a new religion into the village of Umuofia. The english settlers were introduced to have arrived in Umuofia in chapter seventeen, when Obierika, Okonkwo’s closest friend, visited Okonkwo, two years after he was given his exile. The Christian missionaries are represented as bad or evil in Things Fall Apart because they are trying to teach the people of the village a new religion.

All throughout history and even still today, inequality has been a huge problem for our society. In the novel, Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe conveys the idea of gender roles as wrong and extreme. Men and women have been driven to act differently and expected to be a certain way; affecting the society as a whole. Things Fall Apart unveils a theme of do not take anything for granted because one day it could all be gone. Women are treated differently because for as long as time has been recorded men have been superior.

In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Achebe narrates the complicated life of a man named Okonkwo. Okonkwo is a man that fears weakness and failure while always striving to be great. This fear of failure was instilled in him by his father's lack of fathering. Okonkwo’s dad was in deep debt and was unsuccessful. This picture of his father is what Okonkwo strived not to be. Okonkwo was a very successful man and to great pride in all that he had learned. He had three wives and many children which was a social status of that time. Okonkwo’s passion to not end up like his father, ultimately was what caused him end up like his father. His impulsive and materialistic behavior puts blinders on his life's vision and leads him to become someone

In Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart, the protagonist Okonkwo plays the role of a tragic hero destined to fall from his valuable titles. Okonkwo works away from poverty to a successful man. Along the pathway to successfulness, Okonkwo is self-made, and he can not allow anything to get in his way. Okonkwo is a son of a lazy debater, which causes him to possess the fear of never to be associate with humility and happiness. Okonkwo with his characteristics preordain for misfortune, led a prosperous life, though a tragic flaw of pride and wrong decisions stole him of his fantasized life.to a fierce warrior and successful farmer of yams that consider him to be a rightful owner of the role for a tragic hero, as well as the characteristics in the story, Things Fall Apart and in literature. In literature, Okonkwo classifies as a

A tragic hero is a character that is both protagonist and antagonist, throughout the action they make as a person. According to Aristotle 's definition of tragic hero, he explains a tragic hero as a character that has noble stature and greatness. The character must have high status position, but also have nobility and virtue. In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo the fierce warrior who is well known in his tribe Umuofia, connects to a tragic hero. Even though Okonkwo does not embody noble stature, since he has greatness, fatal flaw, and he recognizes his downfall, he meets Aristotle’s concept of a tragic hero to a certain degree.

Conflicts and struggles in a book help capture the reader 's attention. A reader is always has his or her eye out for the struggles a character throughout a book because that is the part of the book that captures the reader 's attention. Although, it is not always about the struggle and conflict, but the optimism the character feels whenever something goes wrong. A reader also wants to be assured that the character will look for the bright side in the situations and the events that happen. Chinua Achebe 's Things Fall Apart showcases a great deal of conflicts and struggles for the characters. Although, the characters in the book who face any struggles or conflicts still try to hold on to the hope it will turn out good in the end.

The society that we live in today is known to be male-controlled and we give no intention of accepting women as the dominating species. In many African societies that exist today, the condition, the amount of pain they endure, and the amount of work they do and yet they receive to hospitality, no respect, and no status. The importance of women is a game changer, it is a scale which balances when women are in the picture and drops when they are not. Unfortunately, women are not appreciated as much as they should be It is a shame, where such a human being is not cared about in any regard even though they are the ones who do the most in day to day activities and work. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is an incredible tome of African composition at its finest that is beautifully describes the Ibo lands and culture in Africa being taken over by British establishment. It very well describes the harsh fragments of being a woman in the Ibo Society and the consequences that come with being a female. The men in Ibo society have been taught from their passed down culture and religion to treat women harshly.

Chinua Achebe is a famous Nigerian novelist in worldwide. Things fall apart is Chinua Achebe’s first novel published in 1958, the year after Ghana became the first African nation to gain independence. And this novel is one of the first African novels to gain worldwide recognition. (Phil Mongredien, 2010) This novel presents people a story of an African Igbo tribal hero, Okonkwo, from his growth to death. The fate of Okonkwo also indicates the fate of Africa caused by the colonization from Europe. Chinua Achebe devoted a large segment of this novel to describe Igbo’s traditions, and because he grew up in a missionary teachers’ family, this novel focuses on the conflicts between Igbo’s traditional customs and Christianity instead of weapons and wars, and show how religion separate and destroy the clan. After reading this novel, the most impressive thing I would like to talk about is the reasons of why the tribe had fallen apart.

Biographical information about the author: Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He had an early career as a radio host, and later became the Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria. After moving to America, he became an English professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Achebe has won numerous awards for his poetry and fiction, including the Man Booker prize and Commonwealth Poetry Price. He currently teaches at Bard College.

True to its title, Chinua Achebe’s tragic story Things Fall Apart follows the collapse of conservative African tradition in the face of European modernism, characterized by the breakdown of communication at both the personal and communal level. Through his novel Achebe explores the theme of alienation in the escalating strain and eventual estrangement of Nwoye from his father and tribe, to expose the deceptive harmony of pre-colonial Igbo society. This is emphasized by the juxtaposition of public principles and private beliefs regarding the superstitious brutality of traditional customs. As Yeats alludes, “the centre cannot hold”, demonstrated when divided loyalties ultimately cause Umuofian society to crumble from within.

Chinua Achebe’s first novel, Things Fall Apart, is a post-colonial novel that details the violent story of the British’s colonization of Nigeria at the end of the 19th century from an African perspective. Published just before Nigerian independence, the novel narrates the fall of the highly respected village leader Okonkwo as well as the destruction of the Ibo culture. Achebe’s use of English, the language of the colonizer, put Things Fall Apart at the center of the great language debate in African literature. Should African writers use English, a colonial language forced upon them by their oppressor, in writing literary works or do they have a duty to write in their native tongue? Can English, a foreign language, properly convey the African experience? In his essay, “The African Writer and the English Language”, Achebe answers these questions and defends his stance to use English. He argues that African writers “should aim at fashioning out an English which is at once universal and able to carry his peculiar experience” (Achebe 433). He refers to his use of English in his writing as a “new voice coming out of Africa, speaking of African experiences in a world-wide language” (433). In his novel, Achebe has been successful in following this theory of English. Through the use of words, rhythm, proverbs, and oral stories of the Ibo language, Achebe has transformed English into a language that conveys Ibo culture and ultimately the African experience.