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Elements of culture in things fall apart
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In Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, the powerful egwugwu cult sheds light on the connection between religion and government in Umuofia, while highlighting the traditions of the villages that keep the community together. In chapter 12 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster states that “actions can also be symbolic” (112). Hence, Enoch’s unmasking of the egwugwu represents not only the death of Ibo gods and culture, but also the fall of a unified community. The Ibo people base every decision in their life on the decisions of gods and divine beings. Religion and government are so interconnected within Umuofia that men of status must impersonate divine beings, egwugwu, in order to hold court and make decisions. Only
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.
These Ibo people are already afraid of the British due to them killing the Abame tribe, but now they are coming into their other villages and say that "their buttocks" are going to build some building so they can worship a God they have. To top it off one of the new Christians, Enoch, taunts the egwugwu, or spirits. Even if someone doesn't believe the same as another they should not make fun of their beliefs. Enoch knocks off one of the egwugwu's masks off essentially killing the "spirit". This fear of the British increased, because now one of their own has killed a "spirit" that could possibly enable a curse on them or crop. "Enoch had killed an ancestral spirit, and Umuofia was thrown into confusion."(186) After all this rage against the British has already happened on of the Ibo's own people has caused Umuofia into fear and
In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Obierika and Okeke bring a peace to the community and themsel and religious lives around them, while Okonkwo and Enoch strike fear and confusion into the communities around them. Okeke and Obierika are from two different worlds but their balanced character makes them similar to one another. Okeke is of Igbo descent but has begun to work as a translator for the Christians.
“Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way. You become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, and brave by performing brave actions.” -Aristotle.
The Igbo and Christians hold contrasting views about the spiritual world, which cause strain. The Christians believed that there was one God manifested in three individuals. When a Christian missionary and his translator arrive in Mbanta they talk to the Igbo people about the Christian faith because they view the Igbo conceptions of gods as wrong. The narrator states, “He told them that the true God lived on high and that all men when they died went before him for judgment” (Achebe 111). The narrator says that the missionary tells the Igbo people that the authentic God dwells above and that every man who died went in front of him for discernment. Chinua Achebe shows that the Christians refused to see the similarities between Christianity and the Igbo religion because they saw the Africans ...
“He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.” This quote by Chinua Achebe describes the self-inflictions when a person purposely goes after another. This goes hand-in-hand with the Nigerian author’s magnum opus, Things Fall Apart. For the duration of the book, Achebe uses subtle events to create amplifying changes. He uses Okonkwo’s relationship with others, his learning about the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves. Achebe also uses Okonkwo’s fear of change for the Ibo regarding to the missionaries and their spread of Christianity through the region. Creating universal and relatable characters, Chinua Achebe warns people of rash actions and their effects over time.
Generally, most people their decisions through before they act. For the Igbo people, their gods serve as the people’s conscience;
Nigeria has a rich culture stemming from the many civilizations that inhabited the land. In the novel Thing Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe brings light on to the great Igbo people, a society Nigeria hosted for centuries. The tale follows a man named Okonkwo as he tries to make amends for his father 's failures and a name for himself within his village. This path leads Okonkwo to become reckless and unreasonable. Through this, readers are exposed to the village’s judicial system, revealing that the clan’s laws based off sexism, superstitious nature, and deep religious ties.
Crime is another main theme in the novel. In the Igbo tribe, crime is an offense towards the gods of the land which can also bring bad luck to the land. When a member of the clan commits a crime, the member can be exiled, or can serve some form of punishment or make sacrifices to avoid bad luck. In chapter thirteen, Okonkwo accidentally kills Ezeudu’s child during Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s funeral. This crime gets him exile from his clan for seven years. After his return to Umoufia, Okonkwo kills a white man and commits suicide because he lost faith in his clan to fight back and take back their land from the missionaries. Okonkwo breaks the greatest abomination of their tribe, which is to kill oneself. His body is deemed evil and bad for the land. Since Okonkwo commits a crime of killing himself, his clan decides not to bury him.
Within every man is a story to be told; one that is evolving day by day and night by night. Each new experience births a fresh reaction that represents a strand of generational DNA. As the chain of events progresses, two things may occur. An individual may follow in path of this genetic pull or dislike it so much that he/she may stray far away from it. In the case of Okonkwo, it was the latter.
In the book “Things Fall Apart”, evidence of a social structure was apparent within the Igbo community. This rigid social structure served as a purpose to balance the life of the people within the society, as well as promoting the downfall of the clan. The social structure was important in keeping a centralized society and preventing any sign of corruption within their clan. The social structure had advantages in keeping a balanced and equal society, supporting a division of labor, providing a surplus of food, individual huts, a communal society, and the development of some kind of government. In contrast, this social structure led others to reject to cooperate with the new religion and aided the lack of unity among the people. It also promoted a more patriarchal society, the inferior rank of women, and the lack of strong bonds between family members.
The Igbo “hero” similar. He is brave. He is physically strong. But he rules over the women in his household, and he must be seen as “masculine”. This is where the issues of the Umuofia tribe stem from; with first-class citizens fitting these requirements, an outcast group begins to emerge. Some women are abused by their husbands, some men are seen as weak or lazy, and some don’t agree with society’s expectations that the weak should be eliminated. In a society where abuse of the less powerful is acceptable, I am not surprised that so many are indignant about their way of life and are quick to flee to the Christians. Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son, for instance, disagreed with many of the society's standards. He was abused both physically and emotionally by his father. He didn’t believe that twins should be killed. After being threatened by his father yet again, he finally
The Role of Women in Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart explores the struggle between old traditions within the Igbo community as well as Christianity and "the second coming" it brings forth. While on the surface, it appears the novel narrows its focus to a single character, Okonkno and his inner battles, one can read deeper into the text and find an array of assorted conflicts in the realm of human vs. human, human vs. nature, human vs. society, and society vs. society. For the purposes of this paper, I shall focus on the labyrinth of human vs. human and human vs. society in the framework of the role of women in Igbo society and how men assign and dictate these roles. I will also briefly explain the importance of women in terms of motherhood and wifedom. Throughout my research I've encountered numerous papers on the rights women do have in Igbo society, on the importance of women in this society.
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.
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