Masculinity In Things Fall Apart Essay

According to oxford dictionary humanising means making something more humane or civilised , the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is about a life of a man the protagonist Okonkwo. He is a strong man in the village of Umuofia, but is ashamed of his father’s failure. Okonkwo is powerful and successful. He is a farmer of yams, the main crop of his region in Nigeria. Okonkwo appreciates his tribe’s tradition and culture and would not change it whatever happens . Okonkwo believes that masculinity is one of the many branches to success. He doesn’t care about what his actions are only if they match masculinity. Chinua Achebe succeeds his goal of regaining the dignity of the Igbo tribe; through honouring traditions, describing multiple perspectives, showing that Okonkwo has human characteristics by having the fear of failure.

When the christian missionaries came they had no idea of their beliefs or their way of thinking. However, when Mr. Brown came he was pretty clever. He gradually changed the traditions of the igbo tribe. For example, when Mr. Brown says “the leaders of the land in the future would be men and women who had learned to read and write” (page 160). This proves that Mr. Brown is most influential among the christian commissionaires. He fakes that he is honouring their traditions even though he only does that as a plan to develop a new tradition and have a reason to do that. The Igbo tribe honoured their language as their top priority. To illustrate, on page 6, “among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.” The igbo language is very important. For that the christian missionaries decided to communicate in the igbo language instead of having to teach them english. This is a great way that Achebe used to regain the dignity of the Igbo