Things Fall Apart Nwoye Quotes Analysis

Each individual have a different view on others culture that they have experienced as they come and go. Some may love the idea of a new civilization, meanwhile there are some who completely think the opposite. For one, Nwoye was someone who was different apart from the people in the village. He did not judge quickly like Okonkwo instead he observed and heard. As Nwoye became more attentive with the word the missionaries were sharing and went to church. It changed him as a person and his culture. He became the person who he is now and it is better than ever.

Can one benefit from the tearing apart of a culture? There are always those who benefit in the midst of negativity. The Ibo community is torn apart by the Westerners, dividing families and beliefs. Nwoye, a character in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, embraces the European culture, and his cultural identity changes, which conveys that one’s original culture does not determine one’s identity.

Christopher Paolini once voiced, “Anger is poison. You must purge it from your mind or else it will corrupt your better nature.” Okonkwo, the main character from the realistic fiction novel Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, experiences anger quite frequently. Being an important figurehead in his Nigerian clan, he cannot help but be frustrated with his complicated life. His outrage got so out of hand that eventually felt the need to kill himself. Chinua Achebe inserted similes, idioms, and hyperboles into Things Fall Apart in order to illustrate how anger drives people to make decisions that they will regret.

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

Okonkwo took his struggles to the extreme. A boy called Ikemefuna came to stay with Okonkwo and his family. Okonkwo and his family grew close to Ikemefuna and so did he. Nwoye considered Okonkwo his father figure because Nwoye did not have a father. Nwoye became best friends with Okonkwo’s son Nwoye. One day a group of Village elders from all nine villages came to okonkwo’s house and let him know that Ikemefuna was to be killed. The next day they all went out together along with Ikemefuna and as they were walking, one of the men raised his machete and struck him down. “My father, they have killed me!” As he ran towards him. Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak”(Achebe 61) Okonkwo throughout the whole book doesn’t act the way he wants to scared he might be though weak and not manly. Okonkwo blocks off his emotions quite a lot. Okonkwo feels disappointed with his son but he is very proud of his daughter, yet he doesn’t want to admit it to her so he takes it out on her mother. He had wished that his daughter were to be a boy so he can be proud of her and praise her but he does not want to acknowledge a female.

Okonkwo’s oldest son, Nwoye, has to achieve high expectations, to be just like his father. If he falls short of Okonkwo’s near perfection, he will face consequence usually in the form of physical harm. Okonkwo wants Nwoye to be strong, powerful, independent, and hard-working. He must be like is father, and not like his grandfather, Unoka, or his mother. Unoka was an absolute failure in Okonkwo’s eyes, and a terrible father, who did nothing to help the family. Okonkwo is a man and wants his son to be a man too, not womanly like his mother. Okonkwo wanted “his son to be a great farmer and a great man” (33). Okonkwo is “worried about Nwoye....my children do not resemble me...too much of his mother in him” (66). Okonkwo knows that Nwoye resembles more of his mother than him, but also knows that he resembles Unoka too. Both fathers want their sons to be just like them, but do little to ask what they want in life, and neither father will budge on what they want for their sons.

The relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye is very stressful and bitter as Okonkwo has very high expectation for his eldest son. Hence Okonkwo always “sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating” when he was irritated

Why are culture collisions so hurtful? Nwoye’s sense of identity was challenged with the introduction of Western ideas into the Ibo culture. Nwoye started out in the novel as lazy boy, but the cultural collision of the British colonists and Ibo people affected Nwoye to the point of him abandoning his birth culture and to run away to be a missionary. The reasons for Nwoye’s change in their sense of identity included Nwoye’s struggle with identity leads him to embrace the new culture, which ultimately saves him, and illustrates the positive effects colonialism can have on individuals.Ultimately his reaction to the western ideas shaped the work as a whole because of what he did influenced many other people to do many different things.

The last big rains of the year had not come yet. Okonkwo became anxious as soon it would be time to return to his fatherland. He began to dream about all wrestling matches he had won and the bravery of his kinsmen. Suddenly there was a loud noise coming from outside his compound. Okonkwo jumped to his feet to see what it was. Obierika, his good friend was coming to pay him a visit and tell about the change that was taking place within Umuofia.

One family member/character that Okonkwo interacts with is Nwoye. Nwoye is one of the characters that proves Okonkwo is a sympathetic character. An excerpt from the story said, “Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness. At any rate, that was how it looked to his father, and he sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating, And so Nwoye was developing into a sad-faced youth.” Nwoye proves that his father (Okonkwo) is a sympathetic character because Okonkwo wants to spend his time disciplining Nwoye in an attempt to turn

6.“Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded highly, and proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten.” The use of language in the Igbo culture compared to Western culture is very different. In America and most of Europe sentences tend to be direct and focus on getting a point across. The Igbo however, use what we would consider inefficient small talk in every interaction so much so that it is tradition. That is what diffuses tension when Okonkwo’s father Unoka owes money because they talk about friendly subjects, specifically through proverbs, and eat before discussing how much Unoka owes. This helps to create a nonviolent interaction. Although this contrasts to our own culture, it also holds a similarity. Even if it's not

Okonkwo is also incredibly aggressive. He regularly physically abuses his nuclear family and does so to make himself seem more masculine. His violence in order to protect his fragile masculinity goes to the extent that “his wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper.” (2.12) After the missionaries arrive in Umuofia and Okonkwo’s

First, Okonkwo is a controlling gentlemen. He wants to be nothing like his father, him and his father are very different. During the week of peace Okonkwo beats his wife. He beats his wife up because she was braiding her hair instead of

Yam, the king of crops, was a man’s crop” (Achebe, 1994, p.22-23). This proves that there are gender roles in every aspect of the Igbo culture including the growing of crops. It is a man job to do the yams because yams are the main food staple of the Igbo culture. In this culture is a man’s job to provide for the family. The yams also show masculinity because it shows they're not afraid of hard work. Even if Igbo faction are sophisticated in male/ female jobs and partnership others may argue that Igbo faction are

Nwoye is Okonkwo’s eldest son who Okonkwo considers unforgivably emasculate and very much like his father, Unoka. As a child, Nwoye usually receives the brunt of his father’s criticism and remains feeling unwanted. Eventually, Ikemefuna comes to fill that void and Nwoye, in his adoration of his adoptive brother, begins to takes after him. Also In a take strange way, Ikemefuna fills the role of both father and brother for Nwoye, providing him with a peer to share his thoughts and a person to look up to. As Ikemefuna rubs off on Nwoye, Okonkwo begins to find more favor with both of the boys. As a result , the three begin to form an unbreakable bond, or so they thought.