The Culture And Traditions Of Africa

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

In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, it is shown that the African people had their own complex culture before the Europeans decided to "pacify" them. The idea that the dignity of these people has been greatly compromised is acknowledged in the essay "The Role of the Writer," which is explanatory of Achebe's novels. A writer trying to capture the truth of a situation that his readers may know little or nothing about needs a sense of history in order to appropriately address the topic. It is not enough "to beat" another writer to the issue. Writers should make the attempt to express a deeper understanding. Without proper mental investment in a written work, the

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

Prior to Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, Africa had been viewed as a one dimensional entity, opposed to the amount of diversity it contains. Africa is the second largest continent behind Asia. This massive size, and varying terrain must encompass people as diverse as the landscape. These people can not be deduced to a stereotyped term of being “African”, because each African does not fit the preconceived image of what an african is. It is not a country it is a land mass with people, animals, and vegetation, that differ by all the many regions. This outline that has been constructed of what makes up an African is due to underrepresentation in the media. Achebe demolished this notion for his readers, by creating a world the reader can

Culture is the characteristics of a group of people defined by language, cuisine, religion social habits music and art. There are many different types of culture including western culture, eastern culture, African culture and many more. Culture is influenced by the groups of people that make up the country (Zimmermann, 2012). The term culture was first used by an English Anthropologist named Edward B. Tyler. It was first mentioned in 1871 in his book named ‘Primitive Culture’. He stated that culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. Since then culture is the main focus of anthropology.

Chinua Achebe was educated in the West, though he hails from an African tribe. His exposure to both African and Western thinking gives him a unique perspective on the colonization of Africa, which is argued to be barbaric by some, but beneficial and necessary by others. In “Things Fall Apart,” Achebe perspective comes through as he masterfully describes a pre-colonization African tribe, and how colonization percolated through it. His authentic accounts of the positives and negatives of both tribal society and colonization leave the reader to answer the question of whether imperialism was morally justifiable or not.

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.

From the 1500s to the 1700s, African blacks, mainly from the area of West Africa (today's Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Dahomey, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Gabon) were shipped as slaves to North America, Brazil, and the West Indies. For them, local and tribal differences, and even varying cultural backgrounds, soon melded into one common concern for the suffering they all endured. Music, songs, and dances as well as remembered traditional food, helped not only to uplift them but also quite unintentionally added immeasurably to the culture around them. In the approximately 300 years that blacks have made their homes in North America, the West Indies, and Brazil, their highly honed art

This chapter in Africans and Their History by Joseph Harris presents some of the roots of the stereotypes and myths about Africa in the past and for the most part are still held today. Harris discusses how the “greats” of history, geography, and literature starting a path of devaluation of Africans that writers after their time followed. Harris also denounced the language that these “greats” used to describe and talk about Africans. He asserts that this language inherently painted Africans as inferior and subhuman.

Stereotypes, harmful as they may be, exist for a reason. Just as every good lie has a kernel of truth, so does every stereotype. The danger in stereotypes is not in their truth, but in how they become the only portrayal of a group or faction of people. Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay “How to Write about Africa” addresses the singular portrayal of Africa as typically executed by Western authors. While “How to Write about Africa” is clearly intended as a scathing criticism of Western authors’ failure to portray Africa as anything other than one long set of stereotypes, several of Wainaina’s pointed jabs make appearances in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, such as the idea of the emotionally distant, abusive African warrior. Achebe includes stereotypes in his novel while simultaneously defying other Western conventions to demonstrate the complexity of his story, illustrating the point that, while stereotypes may appear, they are certainly not the only aspect of Africa.

History is an extraordinary mix of truth and fiction. The dichotomy that is bred from different historic al perspectives opens the eyes of those who study history to the semi-fabricated nature of much of humanities past. For most of recorded history, events have been recorded and retold through the eyes of the victors. Only recently have people had the opportunity to view both sides of issues. The Western practice of free speech has allowed both victors and victims to tell their tal es. A glimmering example of differences in historical opinion pertains to the colonization of Africa by Europeans. For years the commonly accepted notion about Africa was

This paper reflects the novel “Things Fall Apart” written by Chinua Achebe in 1958. Achebe gives an overview of pre-colonialism and post-colonialism on Igbo, detailing how local traditions and cultural practices can “fall apart” in some scenarios through some introduced, externally created hassles elevated because of colonization. The protagonist named Okonkwo mentioned in the story is a proof showing the lifestyle of the tribe. My main objective and focus is to lay emphasis on Africa specifically the Igbo society, before and after the arrival of the Europeans in Umuofia community; the results of their arrival concerning Igbo culture, thus leading to the clash of cultures between the two categories. I will also draw on post-colonialism with respect to globalization.

The novel, things fall apart was set in the late nineteenth century which was a period of conflict and drastic change in Africa, where indigenous societies clashed with imperialistic European powers. The author, Chinua Achebe adds this tension of the historic British colonial expansion to present another dimension to Okonkwo's tragedy. Achebe challenges ethnocentric views of Africa through his use of language throughout the novel. The author also includes themes of Cultural relativism by introducing the Ibo’s traditions and language.

     Before one starts to outline the traditional religion in Africa, one must first explain the way Africa is as a whole. Without the knowledge of the past combined with knowledge of culture, one would have a very vague, if any, understanding of traditional religion.

In my reading of Things Fall Apart, it has better informed me of a culture that I did not know of before, and by reading it helped correct some broad misconceptions that I previously held of the people and their cultures of Africa. Reading the novel also gave me another perspective on the effects of imperialism/colonialism by the Europeans on the Africans. I believe Achebe has succeeded in enabling the West an opportunity to have them "listen to the weak" (Achebe interview), but whether or not Western society decides to listen will come down to the individual within the society--if they do choose to listen to the call of the "weak." In this essay I will share