The Negative Effects Of Globalization In Things Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe

Throughout Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, the reader follows the story of an Igbo villager named Okonkwo and his large family. He is seen living everyday life throughout most of Part I of the novel, living in exile in another village in Part II, and returning to a very different life during Part III. The reader sees Okonkwo’s every triumph, defeat, and watches as he faces many obstacles along the way. Achebe, having lived in the area where his novel takes place, uses the character of Okonkwo to convey the pervasive and negative effects that globalization and colonization can have on villages such as Umuofia. In Part I of the novel, life in Umuofia is shown at it’s normal level. The reader is shown the different social, cultural, and political structures that govern everyday life in this community. It is for this stretch of the novel that Okonkwo seems

Not only is there now a religion challenging that of the Igbo people, but there is even a basic governmental system being set up to try and rule and regulate these villages. Since Okonkwo was absent from Umuofia while this globalization and colonization took place, he is much less susceptible by being influenced by this new powerful culture. He can see that his village is much different from when he left, but is one of the only people upset about this. This is evidenced at the beginning of Chapter Twenty-One, as Achebe writes “There were many men and women in Umuofia who did not feel as strongly as Okonkwo about the new dispensation. The white man had indeed brought a lunatic religion, but he had also brought a trading store…and much money flowed into Umuofia” (Achebe 178). Now there is not only cultural shifts in Umuofia, but there is also economic globalization (Steger) taking place. And the Igbo people, overall, do not seem entirely uncomfortable with these