Things Fall Apart Research Paper

A Nation Represents Itself in its literary heroes and villains. Discuss this idea with reference to one text.

Heroes and villains in texts are often used to represent certain aspects and values of the nation they are associated with. The book ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe represents Great Britain through its literary heroes and villains as a powerful force that imposes its beliefs on foreign cultures. The purpose of ‘Things Fall Apart’ is to reveal a more realistic version of the effects of colonisation in Africa in which the people of Africa suffered greatly, this suffering was accentuated by the racist views of the British towards the tribal Black people in Africa. It is also used to affirm the sophistication of the tribal culture

The District Commander is the most pronounced villain in ‘Things Fall Apart’ where despite the fact he sees the damaging effects of the colonisation of Umuofia, he still remains ignorant to their culture, by doing this he makes the conflict worse. The District Commander is viewed as a cruel and unmoving man of Authority to the Africans where he treats the tribal people of Umuofia as inferior beings. Due to his lack of understanding of the barbaric rituals of the Igbo Culture, he views all of them as lesser savages. The most important scene that supports these ideas would be in Chapter 24 just before the end. Where upon finding the dead body of Okonkwo, the District Commander merely viewed the incident as another interesting example of the primitive behavior behind the tribes of Africa. One of his only thoughts conveyed to the reader during this situation is “The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make an interesting read.” This quote from the book clearly represents the British attitude to the Igbo culture with no attempt made to understand the cause of event. Where instead he simply viewed it as an act due to guilt of Okonkwo murdering the messenger however, this was not the case. Within the quote the Commander makes no mention of the events before the death of the messenger as if fit is an unwarranted attack of savagery. This example of a British villains presents Great Britain as an ignorant and callous