Things Fall Apart

Perhaps it becomes clearer how much of an accomplishment it is to stay oneself in unforgiving circumstances when it is shown how it can feel like it is best to just give up. At the beginning of Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is a stern man who had to support himself from a very young age, and through his tireless work, rises up the ranks to become one of the greatest man in the Igbo village of Umuofia. Okonkwo, because of the lazy and carefree nature of his father, Unoka, has very rigid, harsh beliefs about strength and responsibility. During and after his seven-year exile from Umuofia brought on by an accidental killing, he notices a slow change coming about with the arrival of Christian missionaries from Britain, looking for converts. Eventually, the church established there becomes large enough to threaten the Umuofian religion and disrupt the villagers’ lives. Okonkwo’s identity is closely tied to his life and status in Umuofia, and the ideals

Furthermore, Okonkwo’s fear of being weak and resembling his father, forces him to act without compassion, and he suffers the “loss” of his son, Nwoye. Like Unoka, Nwoye is effeminate and sensitive. After Ikemefuna dies, Nwoye notices that he feels the same as when he saw twin babies left to die in the Evil Forest, “Then something had given way inside him [Nwoye]” (62). Nwoye is an innocent child who is baffled by the cruel rituals of his clan. He loses respect for Okonkwo and the traditions of his clan. He is unable to forgive his father for killing his adopted brother and unable to forgive his clan for allowing Okonkwo to do so. When the missionaries come to Umuofia Nwoye is intrigued by Christianity, a better way of life, where he feels relief. Strict and inflexible, Okonkwo is angered by Nwoye when he finds out that he converted to Christianity, because Nwoye abandoned their ancestors and he thinks the missionaries are effeminate. Later, Okonkwo tells his five other sons of Nwoye: “You have all seen the great abomination of your brother. Now he is no longer my son or your brother. I will only have a son who is a man, who will hold his head up among my people” (172). Okonkwo disowns his eldest son, Nwoye, because he betrays the clan. Okonkwo’s inability to be compassionate and understanding, drives Nwoye away, and he loses his eldest son.

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’

The novel "Things fall apart" by Chinua Achebe describes the social and cultural traits of a culture based on the principles of labor and masculinity, conformity and kinship and finally on solid juridical system.

Okonkwo’s eldest son, Nwoye, awfully reminds Okonkwo of his own father, and Okonkwo fears Nwoye will turn out to be like Unoka when he grows. Okonkwo’s obsession with enforcing masculinity into Nwoye leads to Nwoye slowly breaking apart from Okonkwo and finally joining the white missionaries in Christianity. Nwoye does not understand the justifications for why specific rituals must take place, like throwing away twins or sacrificing someone innocent in return for a death and turns to the Christian faith for a new perspective and culture. Nwoye desires greatly to separate from his father just as Okonkwo had wanted and in the end his own son, Nwoye, too wants to be different from his father, Okonkwo. Okonkwo is not satisfied with the way Unoka and Nwoye play the role of father and son, but he himself was seen as dissatisfactory by Nwoye and Unoka.

Why is cultural change for some people difficult and why does it drive some insane? Change can just about happen anywhere and anytime. Sometimes these changes can be helpful to a community or just down right hurt a community. Cultural change can sometimes be invasive and have some serious consequences if they tried to get rid of that religion either that be peacefully or with violence. Okonkwo's reaction to cultural change will not be like others reactions as Okonkwo will tend to be irrational due to his personality traits and his thinking.

The villagers did not see those who had converted as their own anymore. They were now outsiders. Okonkwo tried to lead the villagers against the Christians as wanted them to stand up to the Christians and the missionaries. He was not able to convince them to bring down the missionaries and the new faith. This caused him a lot of grief because he thought that the missionaries were trying to being down their traditions and values. Because Okonkwo was a very strong member of the tribe he could not stand for this. He had to show his power to the missionaries and their followers. Okonkwo felt so strongly about this that he ultimately disowned his own son saying, “You have all seen the great abomination of your brother. I will only have a son who is a man, who will hold his head up among my people. If anyone prefers to be a woman, let him follow Nwoye now while I’m alive so I can curse him. If you turn against me while I’m dead I will visit you and break your neck” (Achebe). This shows the power that Okonkwo had over the people of the village. His threats are so harsh and violent, he could scare the village people into obeying him, except for his son. Nwoye was attracted to the religion and was ready to leave his family and his village because he liked the

Committing to a clan requires devotion, however to oppose a clan can validate one’s defiance which can lead to destruction. One can ponder the question if it is at times worth it to be mutinous even with the awareness of the possible detrimental consequences? In Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart” the protagonist Okonkwo emphasizes on the eminence for his son Nwoye to not only honour their clan but to demonstrate manliness and command power. Nwoye’s conversion to Christianity brings shame to his father and the Umuofia clan, however his morals overshadow his desire to conform to the societal interdependent needs thus making him more open to new cultures. Nwoye has resentment towards his father for killing his brother Ikemefuna, Christianity

In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Achebe introduces the reader to the Ibo society in the village of Umuofia and presents the villager’s perspective on British colonization in Nigeria. He ultimately wants to prove that the African people were not stereotypical barbarians that the British assumed before coming to Africa. When Achebe introduces Nwoye in the first few chapters, Nwoye is seen as a lazy and feminine boy who is expected to live up to his father’s high expectations. But as the story continues, Nwoye evolves into a strong and confident teenager when the missionaries arrive in Umuofia, bringing him hope and strength. Due to the culture clash from British imperialism in Nigeria, Achebe is able to show the significance of individuality through Nwoye’s character change that progresses throughout the book.

1. The book Things Fall Apart and the film The Gods Must Be Crazy has similarities and differences between them. One of the similarities is tension was created within the tribe due to Western cultures and influence. In The Gods Must Be Crazy, when the bushman encounter the coke bottle, they though that it was the Gods that sent it since it fell from the sky. In the beginning, the coke bottle help the tribe in many different ways such cooking, building, or making music because they never seen a coke bottle before and what it was originally use for to hold coke.

Okonkwo’s self value is dependent with the things that society judges him on. Many of the clan’s outcasts to grasp Christianity. Christians value the refuge from the Igbo culture

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a novel about a man in West Africa. It tells about his triumphs and trial ultimately leading to his demise. It explains how the “white man” came into his country and took over. It show you how the “white man” mad things fall apart.

Imagine living by a specific set of rules that have made sense, and then being told, by a group of people you have never met, that it’s not a good way to live by. In the book “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo and his village face this threat by a group of missionaries from Britain, where they come to colonize their lands. The Igbo people are torn between sticking with their own beliefs or if they should convert to the suspicious people’s traditions. This leaves the clan split on what is best and no one knows what makes sense and what is just a fallacy. Chinua Achebe accurately shows how big of a problem change is when it threatens a person’s tradition. Where do the people draw the line between enough change and it becoming a problem?

This scene contributed to the meaning of the novel by showing how just one act will change everything. Okonkwo fought to kill the missionaries and defended his clan and their beliefs. However, he fell into disappointment when he found that no one backed him. Everyone was in an uproar instead of preparing to fight. Okonkwo saw that Umuofia had changed and felt sorrow. He found that the men who were once strong and brave were now weak and scared. The clan was hopeless. The messengers who ran away will possibly come back with more men and Umuofia will end up like Abame. Finding it pointless to stay in a place in which there was femininity in men and in which his beliefs were abandoned, Okonkwo killed himself. This scene portrayed not only the destruction of Okonkwo, but the destruction of the entire clan. The missionaries brought change and successfully converted some Ibo to Christianity. Eventually, everyone will be Christian because no one was brave enough to confront the missionaries and defend their religion. Change and the clash of cultures caused things to fall

Okonkwo is a strong and confident man who has vowed to never be like his father Unoka. His father was lazy, unsuccessful and carried no titles. The relationship between Okonkwo and his father motivated Okonkwo to gain titles and become successful inside the clan. In this sense, Okonkwo has gained many titles, has three wives, and respected by the clan. Okonkwo chose to feel that identity in the clan was most important, and through this he had become a presence in the clan, noticed by the elders. However after the arrival of missionaries, who had come to convert the clans to Christianity, Okonkwo’s view is completely contradicted by the missionaries. Okonkwo had grown accustomed to members of the clan being ranked by certain tiers, while the