Things Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe

Imagine living in a world of perfect paradise, where no one disturbs you or takes away your freedom of thought. You’re living in pure harmony and feel as if your life is going to be peaceful forever. But what if one day someone comes along and changes your world, taking away your custom beliefs and changing your culture. What would you do? In the novel Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, the character Okonkwo, an indigenous member of the Ibo tribe, comes in conflict with the European settlers as they try to convert his tribe to Christianity. Even though many people choose to convert to this new system, Okonkwo, along with a few friends, respond adversely to this foreign settlement as they attempt to restore order in their native village. As the Europeans bring their religion, messengers, and government into the tribe, the outcome of Okonkwo 's response, causes him to bring his identity into query when he realizes that things that were formerly common, will always collapse in the end.

Change is a natural process that triggers the evolution of human societies; it is the continuous eradication of traditions that are replaced by the new. Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’ (TFA), a novel written in 1958, explores the gradual transformation of the Ibo culture as a result of colonialism and also the attitudes the people of Umoufia developed when exposed to foreign ideologies; the change was either accepted or resisted. Peter Skrzynecki’s ‘Crossing The Red Sea’ (CRS) and ‘Feliks Skrzynecki’ (FS) from the Immigrant Chronicle, a poetry collection published in 1975 depicts the evolution of the Australian society due to factors including migration, assimilation and different perceptions. These forces of change contributed to the

Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart, once said: “A man who makes trouble for others is also making troubles for himself”. This concept can be seen in the development of Okonkwo as a character throughout the book. Creating plenty of trouble for others, but ultimately creating the most trouble for himself is possibly the plot for the entire book. Generally, the creation of trouble is not a value that is appreciated in any culture, especially in Umuofia. Okonkwo breaks many of the boundaries and social norms within his culture; his tendency to be immature and unaccountable combined with being very self-concerned and the defiance of elders creates an interesting mix adjacent to the cultural standards.

Okonkwo sees women as weak and dependant on men. He believes that having sympathy and any other emotion besides anger is effeminating. Okonkwo frequently uses “woman” as an insult. When contradicted at one of the village meetings by another man he says, “This meeting is for men.” (4.1) Okonkwo believes calling a man a women will “kill a man’s spirit.” (4.1) It is easy to see that Okonkwo’s harsh reaction shows he has insecurity. He sees letting himself be contradicted as feminine and verbally strikes back in order to dispel any doubts about Okonkwo’s masculinity. This scene is near the beginning of the novel, thus there is little to show how significant this foreshadowing is to explaining Okonkwo’s character.

Chinua Achebe depicts a head strong warrior, Okonkwo, who holds his beliefs to be self-evident despite the evolution taking place right in front of him in ‘Things Fall Apart’. Since Achebe never clearly paints Okonkwo as purely good or evil, Okonkwo can be viewed as morally ambiguous because his brutal actions come from a place of hurt and he is gung-ho on his culture’s traditions. Moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole because Achebe is communicating all people fight an internal battle between good and evil.

“His whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate then the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of forest, snd of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in the tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these. It was external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.” Okonkwo tortures himself into being a dominating man, mortified by being anything like Unoka ( his father). “Down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness.” Perhaps Okonkwo is so angry and dominate, because he could never truly learn to love himself. Due tot he fact he could never really love his father or anything his father loved. Since Okonkwo doesn't show emotion (weakness) he has no other way of representing/upholding himself, so he is aggressive. By doing so Chinua Achebe sets the whole theme of the novel, of how okonkwo has a fight within himself to become a man he thought he would never be. Yet now that he is this man, he must keep the traits he has aquired over the years to remain the man and person he has

A character with a tragic flaw is one who consistently makes a particular error in their actions and this eventually leads to their doom. Okonkwo, a perfect tragic character, is driven by his fear of unmanliness, which causes him to act harshly toward his fellow tribesmen, his family and himself. He judges all people by how manly they act. In Okonkwo’s eyes a man is a violent, hard working, wealthy person and anyone who does not meet these standards he considers weak.

Social rank and relative wealth play great roles in determining a person’s life in Umuofia society. Sometimes a man with sheer force of will cannot change his future through hard work. One of the main conflicts in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is the clash between Okonkwo’s determination to succeed, his free will, and fate – which seems to have less appealing things in mind. Okonkwo’s will plays a major factor in determining his future; he chooses to kill Ikemefuna with his own hands, he chooses to kill a government official, and in the end, he chooses to take his own life. However, the pre-destined conditions of his life, his father’s failures, and a series of unfortunate circumstances ultimately lead to Okonkwo’s downfall.

It is intriguing to the reader to try and place Okonkwo in a type of “evil” or “good,” although it is not at all an easy task. The fact that Okonkwo is so vague in his motivation makes him ambiguous to his readers. His low self of steam, is his fear of failure and his weakness. He is a man dominated by anger that struggles with his emotions, and works to resist his basic human need for his sadness expression. His characteristics are powerfully human, and because they are so believable, he is exceptionally identifiable to the reader.

In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart the protagonist, Okonkwo is a broken man, caught in emotional paranoia. Throughout the book he tends to see certain things from a cynical point of view, and ultimately is blinded by constant moral conflict. Acting on his reflexes, he find himself in many situations in which he believes something that the majority of the culture does not. He sees everything from an angle that is secluded from almost everyone, yet he does not seem to realize that. Okonkwo acts off of his raw emotion, which is greatly seen in the later chapters. He is not helping or saving the culture from the white colonizers, and he in fact is only fueling the fire of division between the two parties. He never accomplished anything to ‘save’

As a story about a culture on the verge of change, Things Fall Apart deals with how the prospect and reality of change affect various characters. To some extent, Okonkwo’s resistance of cultural change is also due to his fear of losing societal status. Long scorned, these outcasts find in the Christian value system a refuge from the Igbo cultural values that place them below everyone else. The tension about whether change should be privileged over tradition often involves questions of personal status. Okonkwo, for example, resists the new political and religious orders because he feels that they are not manly and that he himself will not be manly if he consents to join or even tolerate them.

Okonkwo’s life revolves around a vicious circle. “He was a man of action, a man of war. Unlike his father he could stand the look of blood”. (10) Early on in the novel we are enlightened on how Okonkwo is ashamed of his father Unoka’s weakness and that his goal to be the opposite of him. Spurred by resentment Okonkwo is driven to want to be masculine and powerful and instil these values upon his son.

In Things Fall Apart, we are introduced to Okonkwo, a great warrior and an influential clan leader. Okonkwo acquired his position through hard work and the desire to not be like his lazy father. He constantly tries to avoid being like his father, so he operates under the philosophy that one cannot be a man if they are lazy. This philosophy leads to discontent with members in his family and community who act lazy or woman like. Therefore he develops a quick temper against them.

Okonkwo has a tragic flaw, dark downfall, but does not recognize his flaw as the cause of his downfall. This conveys the theme that one’s insecurity will lead to their demise, regardless of their intent. First, Okonkwo’s flaw is his insecurity rooted in his need for masculinity. Okonkwo fears the idea that “he should be found to resemble his father” and was a “man of action, a man of war. Unlike his father he could stand the look of blood” (13, 10). Given how Okonkwo’s father was a man of no wealth or status, he was seen as feminine. Refusing to resemble his father, Okonkwo becomes a strong, masculine man. Additionally, Okonkwo’s downfall was the result of multiple events that threaten his masculinity. Okonkwo’s first major offense was killing Ikemefuna out of fear of weakness despite being told to “not bear a hand in his death” (57). Additionally, the crime that forced Okonkwo into exile is when his “gun had exploded and a piece of iron had pierced the boy’s heart” (124). Furthermore, Okonkwo’s need for power causes him to kill a messenger as his “machete descended twice and the man’s head lay beside his uniformed body” (204). As a result of his need to appear masculine, Okonkwo makes one foolish decision after another that culminate to his downfall. His refusal to not kill Ikemefuna was done out of fear of seeming weak, his crime that sent him to exile was deemed

In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe there are a lot of characteristics that are considered male and female. In the story, which is about a man named Okonkwo. Okonkwo is a Nigerian man , who is a yam farmer, and for no reason wants to be labeled as anything other than manly. See in the Igbo society everything is gendered to male or female even the crops. The yam is consider the king of the crops, so it is no wonder why Okonkwo is a yam farmer. In this book it tells a story about a man who falls to his own destruction, all because he was trying to avoid being looked upon as a man with feelings. In the Igbo culture woman are treated as second class and servants in most cases. Her service is to her man first. The women are only good for the men to use as needed. They are viewed as a males possession. The woman are not allowed to do much of anything. They are responsible for cleaning, cooking, and some farming, when allowed to do so. They are to care for their husbands and their homes first and for most. If a man were to fall short in this area towards a woman, he could be dishonored as a man. You can see here in the text where it says, “No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man” (Achebe 45) this how women are thought of as second class citizen. To me this makes for the distinct characteristics of a masculine male and a soft, submissive