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Things Fall Apart Right

Decent Essays

Why is it that we only listen to one side of the story? The first person or side you listen to, you end up agreeing with. What if the other person was right? In the book, “Things Fall Apart”, there is two sides to the book. The europeans (white people) come in and try to colonize the village. Okonkwo has a terrible thing happen to him when his adopted son is murdered. During the funeral of the adopted son, Okonkwo shoots and kills a little boy, getting exiled to his mothers homeland for seven years. There, he learns about the white people and their religion, which is the end of the Igbo people. The white people jail the Igbo leaders until the village can come up with ransom money. They talk about going to war with the white people, but a court …show more content…

The way the book was written, they don’t give reasoning to the other side.In “Things Fall Apart”, the white people come to the villages simply to seek for the villagers to convert to christianity. Whether that was their actual intention or not, the book makes it seem like the white people came to intentionally destroy the villages with their european colonization. The villagers would always talk about the white people like they are mythical creatures.”And these white men, they say, have no toes.” (Achebe, 59) Not only did the villagers have conflict with the white people, they had conflict with each other inside the village, even within themselves. The village was peaceful and content, everyone followed traditions and everyone was family to each other. When the white people came, the villagers move away from tradition. They go to the new european styles, which is better and new. Since the villagers would go against tradition, the village destructs from within. “The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peacefully with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay.Now he has won our brothers and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” (Achebe, 135) With that quote, we can see that the villagers had conflict with each other and with the white men. The way the quote was written, it is blaming white …show more content…

Not saying that couldn't be true, but the white people could have come over thinking they were trying to help. In, “Things Fall Apart,” the story is written in third person about the villagers, not the white people. Automatically people reading the story are thinking that the white people are bad, but in reality, they could just be trying to help. I'm sure it could just be a misunderstanding. I guess some people could take the book, or even this essay as racist. The book is just showing one side of the story. “So they killed the white man.”(Achebe, 106) If you were to just read that quote, you would think the villagers were bad. Actually reading the book, they say that the white man was going to cause destruction in the village. There's different point of views to religion. You don't truly know who is right, you just have beliefs. You can't ever be sure why people do things in the name of God or Gods. The white people have a point of view that the villagers are sinners for practicing a different religion. “We have been sent by this great God to ask you to leave your wicked ways and false Gods and turn to him so that you may be saved when you die.” (Achebe, 111) With that quote, you can see that the white people's view is that they have falsified Gods. To the villagers the white people are breaking the tradition of their

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