Essay about Things Fall Apart Literary Analysis

In the novel, Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is a sympathetic character and unsympathetic character in regards to his family relationships with his adopted son, Ikemefuna, his daughter, Ezima, and his father, Unoka, as a result of he appears to genuinely care about his family; but, the pride within himself prevents his expression of such pride and concern openly.

This is a story of rage and fear mixed with cutting-edge wisdom, self-introspection, and self-destruction. After the death of Ikemefuna, his adopted son, Nwoye, his biological son has taken the way of the invader's religion, abandoning his tribe.

During the course of the novel, it appears as though Achebe is prejudiced against women. However, in his crude remarks quoted in the novel by Okonkwo, Achebe is actually praising the female race. After Okonkwo accidentally kills a young boy, he is banished to his motherland. He takes this banishment as a direct insult to all of his values. During Okonwo's stay in Mbanta, one of his many wives has a child. Uchendu, Okonkwo's uncle, forces him to name the baby, Nneka- "Mother is Supreme." When Okonkwo refuses to call his baby a name that contradicts his strongest beliefs, he laughs out loud and asks why anyone would say, "the mother is supreme." Uchedu explains something that makes Okonkwo have more appreciation for his home in Mbanta. Uchendu states:

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.

Okonkwo strives all of his life to become a stronger, more powerful, and a successful individual. He wants to do this because his father was a slack and lazy person who lived most of his life in debt and had no titles to his name. People often looked at his father as a women figure for the few achievements he redeemed. Okonkwo never wanted to be like his father and it eventually got to the point where he became fearful of becoming like him. Achebe uses the power of fear as a theme of to show how much it can devastate one’s

This story maintained a constant theme of conflict. Nwoye, lives in perpetual fear of his father. Okonkwo constantly chastises his son and finds a fault with everything he

He is very different form his father and in some way reminds us of Unoka who was a total opposite to Okonkwo. He is the black sheep and the scapegoat of the family, before Ikemefuna is in the house that becomes like an older brother to Nwoye and teaches him to be gentle but successfully masculine at the same time “ Nwoye’s mother was very kind to him. Treated him as one of there own children” (27) “ Nwoye … became quite inseparable form him” (28). Okonkwo approves of Nwoyes actions and stops the beatings. Although Nwoye is now a “real man “ he still misses his “feminine ways” for example music and the act o conversation.

Chinua Achebe shows the reader the change of Africa as seen by the main character of the novel, Okonkwo. Okonkwo has the hardship of living in an ever-changing society. It is thru Okonkwo that the reader is able to visualize a society of immense cultural standing, and not as European colonizers would say, a society of savages. The main theme of culture is present in all areas of the novel, which helps to show to the reader all of its underlying themes, themes of tradition and themes of religion. Achebe sees the themes of culture, tradition, and religion in one bright light and European colonizers see those same themes in a totally different, somewhat snobbish dim light. However these themes are viewed, one thing is certain, change is on the horizon.

Even though the novel depicts a societal conflict between colonizers who attempt to impose change and tribesmen who reject that change, Achebe avoids stereotyping the colonizers as “bad” and the tribesmen as “good.” The protagonist, Okonkwo, is portrayed with little sympathy. An angry, callous man, he is shown to act outwardly only in violence. Growing up, his father was a weak, effeminate man, and Okonkwo aspired to be everything his father was not: “He was ruled by one passion—to hate everything his father had loved, one of these was gentleness” (13). Even though his motives are established, Achebe does not attempt to justify the selfish and detrimental actions of Okonkwo. On the contrary, Okonkwo’s uncle Uchendu is rendered as a selfless, compassionate, and wise old man. When Okonkwo is banished from his tribe, Uchendu receives his nephew with open arms and helps him re-establish his life. “As soon as Uchendu saw him with his sad and weary company, he guessed what had happened, and asked no questions” (129). By showing both undesirable and appealing characters, Achebe offers a reputable and non-biased portrayal of his native people to unfamiliar American audiences.

Achebe’s essay “An Image of Africa” analyzes the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. He dissects the false representation of the african people and the bias in his book. In “Heart Of Darkness,” Conrad feels that the people of Africa are undeveloped and they are savages; he looks at all their culture and tradition and only sees it as uncivilized, he has no appreciation for their beliefs. This relates to Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart, because Conrad’s views represents the white colonist and their feelings towards the africans. The colonists did not respect their culture or their gods. Okonkwo is well-respected by his tribe, he is extremely traditional and values his culture. The colonists are a threat to that because they do not understand or respect the African ways, they want to change it and convert them to Christianity. Okonkwo has a need to stand up for his culture and his beliefs, he feels he has to be able to prove that he is a strong and powerful man. Okonkwo worries that if he does not protect his customs, he will be seen like his father: cowardly and feminine. He has been haunted by that fear his whole life, “It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father. Even as a little boy he had resented his father’s failure and weakness, and even now he still remembered how he had suffered when a playmate had told him that his father was agbala”(Achebe 12). His need to distinguish himself from his father and protect his people are what drive him to make do things like kill Ikemefuna and the messenger. Things fall apart for Okonkwo because the other villagers do not have the same passion and drive as him. The

The Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a straight to the point story, embedded with interesting elements that capture readers’ attention. In my view, when I read the story, I found many interesting things about the theme of the book. But The Masculinity Okonkwo was what captures my attention. The story opens up to a Traditional Igbo lifestyle, a theme which is highly stylized from its ritual to the actions performed for certain ceremonies. Most of the action Igbo tribe has been an attempt to show respect to the gods, for example, when ikemefuna became sick and his stomach swelled up their traditions says that he take them to the evil forest and kill him. The story also seems to focus on gender,

Many people have their own culture, wouldn’t you agree? Some feel more strongly about their culture than others. Culture is something that is a large part in everyone’s life. It determines who you are and how you handle situations. When two cultures interact with each other and start mixing up, it results in something called a cultural collision. A cultural collision can be seen as a good thing or it can become something negative within both cultures. In the novel, Things Fall Apart culture is used everywhere. Culture is the main topic that is introduced throughout the novel. The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Nwoye has a huge part in the cultural collision that is occurring, between

Okonkwo, as presented by Chinua Achebe in the novel Things Fall Apart, wished to be revered by all as a man of great wealth, power and control--the antithesis of his father. Okonkwo was driven by the need to exhibit utmost control over himself and others; he was an obsessive and insecure man.

Okonkwo fears for his disturbingly weak son, Nyowe, and teaches him with his stories- "masculine stories of violence and bloodshed." (p. 53) But Nyowe prefers the stories of his mother- stories which teach wisdom rather than action. Nyowe knows that it pleases his father to listen to his stories, but it is apparent that Nyowe is a thinking person. As Nyowe absorbs the shock of Ikemefuna's death, we feel the first break in the solidarity of the clan. ."Nyowe knew that Ikemefuna had been killed, and something seemed to give way inside him, like the snapping of a tightened bow." (p. 61) Nyowe is forming his own impressions of the rituals of his society.

Through the narrator’s thoughts, the theme was initially found. For example, in the text, Achebe states, “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness. It was not external but lay deep within himself lest he should be found to resemble his father” (Achebe 13). The narrator’s thought allows the reader to determine that all