Throughout history, there have been many instances of people struggling to identify and cope with change and tradition, and this is no different in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
Through most of the novel, Okonkwo, his family, and the villagers all experience this struggle. As the missionaries continue to live in the Evil Forest, they repeatedly gain village converts as a result of the Igbo beliefs constantly being proven inaccurate. Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye converts because of confusion in what his people believe, and Okonkwo changes drastically as a person because of the missionaries’ arrival and actions. There are many themes evident throughout Things Fall Apart, but one of the most prominent is the struggle between change and tradition, in the sense that some people change, but others don’t; that clearly takes a toll on
Okonkwo uses fear to keep his other children in the Igbo culture. He fears that if his family converts then there won’t be anyone to remember him when he dies. At the end of the story, Okonkwo reaches his breaking point; “They came to the tree from which Okonkwo’s body was dangling and they stopped dead” (Achebe 127). With everything changing around him, he reaches his breaking point and hangs himself, even though it goes against the Igbo tradition. Throughout Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, struggle between change and tradition is one of the most relevant issues. The Igbo villagers, Okonkwo, and his son Nwoye all experience this problem in many different ways. The villagers have their religion defied, Okonkwo reaches his breaking point and Nwoye finally finds what he believes in. People have struggled to identify and cope with change and tradition throughout history, and will continue to struggle with this issue in the
When I read Things Fall Apart, I had a clear mind of what a life could be like Okonkwo’s. For the rest of the reading, a question was contacting me in different places of the novel. Okonkwo was an angry man in front of his Nigerian tribe and changed when Christian missionaries came to the Ibo village; also, I responded to the book, and my personal applications to a different culture were related to a missionary trip that was a powerful one back in 1956 in Ecuador.
Set in Africa in the 1890s, Chinua Achebe's ‘Things Fall Apart’ is about the tragedy of Okonkwo during the time Christian missionaries arrived and polluted the culture and traditions of many African tribes. Okonkwo is a self-made man who values culture, tradition, and, above all else, masculinity. Okonkwo’s attachment to the Igbo culture and tradition, and his own extreme emphasis on manliness, is the cause of his fall from grace and eventual death.
Imagine if you would, to be in another culture, and someone who is unwanted, unwelcome has come into it and has caused it to crumble. You and your family are plunged into failure and your life is falling apart. These people, the missionaries, arrived from England to colonize Africa during the colonial period. There were many problems faced by the native people, most of whom were not about to drop all of their beliefs to adopt a foreigners customs. Such beliefs existed in the protagonist, Okonkwo, and are the roots of the challenges faced by Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart, in which the author, Chinua Achebe, writes of the challenges to Okonkwo's sense of identity. Western ideas have clashed with his sense of family, his ideas of gender, and position of leadership within the clan, which influences and forms the meaning of the book.
It challenged his identity by losing his high title in the clan due to the change in the village as well as new customs. He responded to the clash of cultures by attempting to encourage others to fight in his mission to get rid of the Western influences in the Ibo community. Because he failed to do so, he lost hope and refused to accept the new culture which caused him to hang himself. The conflict between Okonkwo and his clan’s decision to change their way of living was portrayed through characterization and plot development. Achebe gives the people of Africa a voice with Okonkwo’s character who stayed true to his roots. In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe reveals to us Okonkwo’s response as the cultural collision of the English and Ibo challenged his sense of
Throughout the book Things Fall Apart, three main topics help Achebe get his argument across to the reader. First, Okonkwo’s rough relationship with his family. Evidence from the book support that Okonkwo did abuse his wives and children. Whether this was acceptable or not at the time, the result of his actions led to major distrust within Okonkwo’s compound. In addition, Ogbuefi Ezeudu cautions Okonkwo about Ikemefuna through his interpretation of the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves. Ogbuefi Ezeudu talks with Okonkwo the night before he was planning to kill Ikemefuna, explaining that what he is doing is wrong. Yet again, Okonkwo’s paranoia gets the best of him. This event fueled the fire for Nwoye’s distrust for Okonkwo, as well as his wives. Achebe’s third argument conveys that the spread of Christianity throughout the region and Okonkwo’s fear of change led him to hang himself. Nwoye was drawn to the new religion almost as soon as it arrived in the Ibo villages. However, he knew that his father was refusing to accept it. Thus, Nwoye moved back to Umofia to enroll in the Christian school set up by Mr. Kiaga. Okonkwo was also supporting the mob that burned down the first church, in efforts to drive the Christians away from Mbanta. Though proven unsuccessful, Okonkwo shot and killed one of their messengers. This allows the reader to infer
Okonkwo is often described as being similar to characters in Greek tragedies. Okonkwo knew that the end of his clan was coming, and that they would do nothing to prevent it from happening. He took his life out of desperation. He had struggled his whole life to become a respected member of his community, and suddenly his world is turned upside down and changed forever because of an accident. Okonkwo sees that he is fighting a losing battle, so he quits. Suicide was one of the biggest offenses that could be committed against the earth, and Okonkwo?s own clansmen could not bury him. Okonkwo?s death symbolizes the end of patriarchy in Umuofia. The last page of the book is from the point of view of the white Commissioner, who notes that he wants to include a paragraph on Okonkwo?s life in his book entitled The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of Lower Niger. Okonkwo?s struggles, triumphs and defeats are all reduced to a paragraph, much like his culture and society will be reduced.
William James, a famous American philosopher, once stated, “The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives”. This quotation effectively illustrates how change in one’s attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs can alter the environment in which one lives. This concept is clearly demonstrated throughout the novel Things Fall Apart, authored by Chinua Achebe, by establishing a connection through the development of its characters and the change in traditional African tribal villages seen in the Nineteenth Century. It will be established how various characters demonstrated by the author throughout the novel exemplify how change in one’s attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs can alter the environment in which one lives addressed by William James’s quote above. First, by analyzing Achebe’s development of Okonkwo’s character through his initial character description and the emergence of outsiders, it is evident that he is portrayed as an old fashioned character that is less responsive to change. Secondly, through examining Nwoye’s character, Okonkwo’s son, it becomes apparent that the youth in the novel are more open-minded, easily persuadable and more adaptive to societal changes. Lastly, uncovering the meaning behind the arrival of European missionaries, it becomes apparent that Achebe defines this group as being a “disease”, poisoning the society in which Okonkwo lives. The author look’s at individuals as being critical and influential figures in shaping the environment to which they belong, beginning with Okonkwo.
In Things Fall Apart, Achebe is able to express this embarkation with his division of the novel into two parts. The first part introduces Okonkwo along with his family’s beliefs and their origins, religions, etc. However, in the second part with the arrival of the Christian missionaries, the seeds of colonialism take root within the Ibo tribe and Okonkwo’s family, particularly in his son Nwoye. At the beginning, the missionaries are calm and peaceful. However, as time goes on they start to undergo their mission and start to denounce the Ibo’s gods as “false gods, gods of wood and stone.” At first, many are appalled and find their preaching laughable, but as they continue to thrive, people such as Nwoye begin to reach out. Because Nwoye is unable to forgive Okonkwo for his betrayal in killing his adopted brother, he converts to Christianity in an attempt to get back at his father for his crime. In addition, the missionaries’ hymn about brothers living in “darkness and fear,...
Chinua Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart, is a story about a society on the verge of a cultural change. The main character, Okonkwo, is driven throughout the story by fear and a drive for success. He relied on the village of Umuofia to stay the same because he used the structured culture to feel safe and appreciated. He lives in a constant state of fear because he wants to find his own meaning in life. When the structure of Umuofia began to change, Okonkwo found himself incapable of adapting like the rest of the villagers. He was determined to live a life that could not survive the changing world, and his dreams crumbled down. Throughout the novel, Achebe demonstrates that the lack of being able to adapt to change will leave you lost in society.
Two passages from the story Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, provide the reader with a more profound understanding of Okonkwo, and his son Nwoye. The two do not have a good relationship and it becomes worse as the story progresses. Throughout the book the two become increasingly distant and it is apparent that Okonkwo is very disappointed in his son. After the death of Ikemefuna, Nwoye begins to question many aspects of his life, especially religion. As the Christian missionaries spend more time with the members of the village, Nwoye becomes interested in this new religion. The first passage I have chosen discusses Nwoye’s feelings about Christianity.
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is a powerful novel about the social changes that occurred when the white man first arrived on the African continent. The novel is based on a conception of humans as self-reflexive beings and a definition of culture as a set of control mechanisms. Things Fall Apart is the story of Okonkwo, an elder, in the Igbo tribe. He is a fairly successful man who earned the respect of the tribal elders. The story of Okonkwo’s fall from a respected member of the tribe to an outcast who dies in disgrace graphically dramatizes the struggle between the altruistic values of Christianity and the lust for power that motivated European colonialism in Africa and undermined the indigenous culture of a nation.
middle of paper ... ... Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1958.
Chinua Achebe’s, Things Fall Apart, is a story of a traditional village in Nigeria from inside Umuofia around the late 1800s. This novel depicts late African history and shows how the British administrative structure, in the form of the European Anglican Church, imposed its religion and trappings on the cultures of Africa, which they believed was uncivilized. This missionary zeal subjugated large native populations. Consequently, the native traditions gradually disappeared and in time the whole local social structure within which the indigenous people had lived successfully for centuries was destroyed. Achebe spends the first half of the novel depicting the Ibo culture, by itself, in both a sophisticated and primitive light describing and discussing its grandeur, showing its strengths and weaknesses, etiquettes and incivilities, and even the beginning of cultural breakdown before the introduction of the missionaries. The collapse of the old culture is evident soon after the missionaries arrived, and here Achebe utilises two of the primary missionary figures, Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith, to once again depicts both sides of the Ibo culture between them, with Mr. Brown depicting the sophisticated and Mr. Smith depicting the primitive aspects.
In Chinua Achebe 's classic novel "Things Fall Apart," the development of European colonization 's lead to extreme cultural changes, leaving a lasting impact on the Igbo village of Umofia in West Africa. In the novel, Achebe displays the impacts of European colonization in both critical and sympathetic terms to provide the reader with both positive and negative factors of Imperialism to develop an unbiased understanding of what the Igbo culture and society went through. While addressing the hardship 's of life by showing the deterioration of Okonkwo 's character, the cultural and traditional changes of society, and the positive and negative impacts of imperialism, Achebe keeps touch on the overall theme of the novel, once a dramatic event
Conflict and Tradition in Things Fall Apart & nbsp;   ; The book Things Fall Apart successfully expressed how Chinua Achebe had succeeded in writing a different story. It pointed out the conflict of oneself, the traditional beliefs, and the religious matters of the Africans. Throughout the novel, Chinua Achebe used simple but dignified words and unlike other books, he also included some flashbacks and folktales to make the novel more interesting and comprehensible. Things Fall Apart was about a man named Okonkwo, who was always struggling with his inner fear although he was known for being a strong, powerful, and fearless warrior.