Things Fall Apart

Following Okonkwo’s seven year exile, the village Okonkwo once knew has changed due to the influence of Christianity and the influence of the British missionaries and officers. Okonkwo’s initial reaction is to arm the clan against the Colonisers and drive the British people out of Igbo.

The setting of a story is the surrounding of which the story takes place. In Ethan Frome, By Edith Wharton, the setting is in a small town in Massachusetts called Starkfield in the late 1890s. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the setting is in a village in Africa around the time of the 19th century. Both settings are very significant to the story and that if it took place anywhere else it would not be the same. The setting is very important to the story through the elements of social expectation, Geological location, and time period.

Based off the book Things Fall Apart, the videos we watched in class, and the poem “The White Man’s Burden”, the white man’s burden of spreading Christianity was more harmful than helpful. In both the book and the film the African Tribes were already fully functional as a whole. They had systems in place such as forms of government, art, social systems, and economic systems. After the whites came to convert them, things started to fall apart and become chaotic.

I believe the title “Things Fall Apart” mostly comes from what happens towards the end of the novel. In the novel “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo’s life is what is initially falling apart. When this happens he is also taking his whole tribe down with him and they are suffering as well. His tribe is known as the “Igbo tribe”. However, there are other reasons, many reasons, for Okonkwo’s life and tribe to fall apart and here are just three.

Okonkwo was a great clans member to the clan of Umofia. Through the acts of European expansion, Okonkwo and many like him felt the influence of colonization. “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe tells the account of Okonkwo’s life and the beginning of European expansion into Africa. This paper will explain the story of Okonkwo’s interactions with Europeans, and how they affected the African people.

The world is filled with many different types of societies and cultures. This is due to the fact that many people share dissimilar beliefs and ideas, as well as diverse ways of life. People lived under different circumstances and stipulations, therefore forming cultures and societies with ideas they formulated, themselves. These two factors, society and culture, are what motivate people to execute the things that they do. Many times, however, society and culture can cause downgrading effects to an assemblage if ever it is corrupt or prejudiced. Society and culture not only influences the emotions individuals have toward things like age differences, religion, power, and equality but also the actions they perform as a result.

“A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people” (“Mahatma Gandhi Quotes” 1). The culture of a certain tribe, clan or group of people is not found written anywhere but it is found in the knowledge of its people because that is what they’ve grown up to learn. To them that is the only way they know. In Chinua Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart, the people of Umuofia keep their culture close to what it was when it was discovered by their ancestors. The only changes that they made were made to fit the community as time had changed since their ancestors had been alive. However, their beliefs and morals remained relatively the same because that is what they have been taught for as long as the Ibo tribe has been around. These beliefs are all they know and they all live by them. Throughout Achebe’s piece, it is evident that he wants to emphasize the distinct Ibo culture in this book. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe stresses the importance of culture to a community by using cultural aspects such as, the Ibo language, their religion, and the traditions of the Ibo people.

Conflicts are a part of life that will happen at some point. In “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe the characters of the story go through many conflicts. The conflicts of Nwoye, Obierika and Okonkwo demonstrate the important cultural values of the Igbo tribe. Nwoye’s conflicts give examples of the cultural values of the igbo tribe. On page 54 Achebe announces “That was the kind of the story the Nowye loved.

Conflict happens everyday to everybody. People have conflicts with nature, the weather, themselves, and even each other. Conflict is a daily part of our lives and we must learn how to react to it. This reaction could mean success or failure dependent on the circumstance. Most people have one of two reactions to conflict, they turn and ignore it or they jump at the sign of conflict.

Culture plays an important role in society, it is what makes a people unique. In the book Things Fall Apart, author Chinua Achebe wrote the book using proverbs and traditions of the Ibo to reveal the uniqueness and wisdom of the culture, which ends up getting interfered with another culture.

In the novel “All things Fall Apart” By Chinua Achebe. One of the Characters Okonkwo was a determine, strong man. He showed in this story how his faith and humanity was tested. Okonkwo can to face many challenges while dealing with his village. I feel Okonkwo stood up for his family and people.

“Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness” (Achebe 13). In Chinua Achebe’s, Things Fall Apart, the character of Okonkwo is driven by fear. By the time Okonkwo becomes a young man, he is proud, well-known, and respected. When the introduction of Western ideas occurs, Okonkwo is unable to adapt his ways of functioning in the world and loses the respect he has from many Ibo people.

The book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe features Okonkwo, who is a man that is facing an internal issue with himself and the surrounding people. Throughout the book, he is facing conflict dealing with the upcoming consequences of things he has done to dishonor himself and the life lessons he would learn. He seems to be the ideal man at first with his life together and almost perfect, but soon things would begin to fall apart as he realizes he is becoming his worst nightmare. Okonkwo was unable to adapt to the new changes When Okonkwo was first introduced in the novel, he was shown as a well-respected and hardworking, but he can also seem ruthless and will take action without considering the consequences.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe takes place in a small fictional village called Umuofia, Nigeria. The people of the community (Igbo) have very strong religious views and are extremely devout to the Oracle Agbala. Because of their respect and fear of the Gods, the community has many superstitions. Some of these include their fear of “ogbanje”-wicked children that die at an early age and are reborn. Also, when twins are born they are left to die in the woods.

Chinua Achebe’s critically acclaimed novel Things Fall Apart, tells the story of Okonkwo a leader of Umuofia, a village in now present day Nigeria (west Africa). Throughout the novel we see their unique culture and traditions; how it is soon destroyed by missionaries who came to colonize them in the late 1880s. How the colonization of Western Africa left its community in ruins. Colonialism's effects on Okonkwo. For example, it separates him and Nwoye.