Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Analysis of Chinua Achebe's things fall apart
Consequences of european colonization of africa
Analysis of Chinua Achebe's things fall apart
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Analysis of Chinua Achebe's things fall apart
European colonization of Africa was thought to be an expedition to make the native people cultured and civilized, and yet their story is often left untold. Even when the invading people’s intentions are good, the chaos and social destruction they cause can be irreparable to the cultures they infiltrate. Chinua Achebe demonstrates this through the tale of the Ibo culture which must go through drastic changes with the introduction of a strange religion with even stranger people. In his book, Things Fall Apart, Achebe narrates a historical story through the eyes of a fictional character as he watches his community collapse. With the story made into three parts, Achebe takes each section and uses it to build up the Ibo culture then slowly pull …show more content…
Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart, is split into three parts; each part of the book shows a different side of the culture and customs of the Ibo people through the eyes of Okonkwo, the main character. Okonkwo is first characterized to be an angry, ambitious man who wants nothing more than to leave the embarrassing shadow of his late father behind. At first, readers may develop a dislike of Okonkwo because of his harsh words and actions delivered to people like his wives and children, things that very few people in today’s Western society would've even dream of doing or saying. Yet through this quote, “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo wasn't a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.” (Achebe 13), the reader is drawn into Okonkwo’s faults and is able to relate to him. In this way, Achebe begins to humanize the foreign Ibo culture. As Part 1 continues, Achebe describes in detail the various customs and events that characterize the Ibo culture and more specifically, the clan of Umuofia where the book takes place. Stories are told and events are described, all while making Umuofia a more relatable but seemingly far away place. For example, …show more content…
Achebe also wrote Umuofia to have an entire week of peace, described as “‘...we should observe a week in which a man does not say a harsh word to his neighbor. We live in peace with our fellows to honor our great goddess of the earth...’” (Achebe 30). Through this week of peace, a Western reader’s mindset of the early people of Africa being part of a warring, uncivilized culture is changed and one may realize that this is a forward thinking peace that does not exist in most modern day societies. The peaceful side of the Ibo culture is shown, even if Okonkwo and Umuofia are known throughout the book as being harsh and battle loving. Even with all this evidence of the Ibo culture being similar or complementary to the culture of a Western society today, Achebe acknowledges that all cultures have their faults. Although the point is to show the good aspects of an African group that very few people realize, the Ibo culture is not sugarcoated to appease the reader. Many times there are customs and cultural norms that the characters think to be perfectly normal and humane, but one in modern day would consider them to be savage and cruel.
Culture makes us who we are. Each individual has their own culture from their experiences in life and is developed from societal influences. The various cultures around the world influence us in different ways which we experience at least once in our lifetime. There are occasions, especially in history, where cultures clash with one another. For instance, the English colonization in Africa changed their culture. Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart, portrayed this change in the Igbo people’s society, especially through the character Okonkwo in the village of Umuofia; the introduction of Western ideas challenged him. In the novel Things Fall Apart, the author Chinua Achebe introduces to us Okonkwo whose character’s response to the
Everyone sees the world just a little differently, and perspective can often stand as something which sets people apart. Controversy abounds in the world, and many people do not see eye to eye, especially when cultures clash, as they do in Things Fall Apart, a novel about the African Igbo culture. This novel by Chinua Achebe tells the story of the village Umuofia, a place which stands untouched and unmarred by the hands of Europeans. In the end, the Christian Europeans and the African natives clash, resulting in a changed world for the people of Umuofia. In Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, the Igbo people are portrayed as civilized in that their way of life seems just to them, but to an outsider, their decisions seem peculiar which is due to the fact that a foreigner does not know the culture as intimately as those who are a part of it, which establishes the importance of perspective and an open mind in viewing other cultures.
To begin, Chinua Achebe helps build up the self-confidence and spirit of his people by strongly emphasizing and reflecting on the accomplishments of the Igbo society. Achebe begins to describe the superiority and adornment of the Igbo people when he introduces us to the Protagonist of the novel Okonkwo. He describes his arrival to a neighboring village by saying that, “Okonkwo of Umofia arrived at Mbaino as the proud and imperious emissary of war, he arrived with honor and respect” (Achebe 12). Achebe chooses to describe Okonkwo in such a way so that to emphasize how strong the Igbo society once was. For Achebe, Okonkwo is a metaphor of the success of the Igbo people, the things in which the Igbo excel in are also seen in Okonkwo, in this case they were strong, disciplined, and most important ...
Chinua Achebe presents the culture of Umuofia throughout his novel, Things Fall Apart. Achebe describes the culture’s specific traditions, rituals, and norms. Everybody in the clan has to abide by the clans regulations or else they are punished or ridiculed. In the clan, gender plays a major. Men have to act manly and brawny, and the women have to be able to cook, clean, and tend to the men’s children. Power, also plays a huge role amongst, the men; men must grow the most yams or be a great fighter in the clan in order to gain power However, this can develop a conflict between the people who are either discontent with the norms, for those who cannot fulfill the norms, and for those who become obsessed with the norms. Achebe claims that cultural norms and traditions shape the culture and its people, but these
Achebe negates the idea of Eurocentricism. He shows that Europe isn’t the center of the world. He also shows that Africa isn’t the red headed stepchild of the world either. While Africa may have some faults, it is far from being uncivilized and the home of savages. The Africans had their own government and religion. Achebe brings up the point that if Europe hadn’t tried to divide up Africa, they would have been better off. He shows this point when Okonkwo killed himself. He is symbolically saying that if the Europeans hadn’t come into Umuofia, Okonkwo wouldn’t have killed himself and wouldn’t have lost hope in his tribe.
ages are an important part of almost every culture. One of these cultures is the Igbo, who reside in the southeastern parts of Nigeria. The Igbo like many African cultures experienced the wrath of colonialism causing a drastic change in their cultural rituals and beliefs. In the novel “Things fall apart” by Chinua Achebe, the Igbo clan and their culture starts falling apart as interactions with colonists began and many start adapting the new ways of the Christians. The novel touches on Igbo marriages in the pre-colonial era. In the Igbo culture, marriages are an important bond between not only the bride and the groom but their families as well. Weddings often consist of a long planning process. During the ceremonies, many people play active
Located primarily in the southeastern portion of Nigeria, the Igbo or Ibo people are an interesting group consisting of roughly 18 million people (“Igbo” Junior). Igboland is a place that is rich in cultural history and has many interesting aspects. The Ibo culture follows many traditional customs that can be seen in the short story “Marriage is a Private Affair.”
Before the arrival of the Europeans, Achebe did a excellent job portraying how the life of Igbo was before they were forced to oppose their own culture. To support this theme, Achebe included detailed descriptions of social rituals within each family, the justice system, religious practices and consequences, preparation and indulgence of food, the marriage process and the distributing of power within the men. Achebe shows how every man has an opportunity to prove himself worthy to achieve a title on the highest level, based merely on his own efforts. One may argue that the novel was written with the main focus on the study of Okonkwo’s character and how he deteriorates, but without the theme that define the Igbo culture itself, we would never know the universe qualities of the society that shaped Okonkwo’s life. The lives of the Igbo people was no different to the actual lives of the Ibos people back in the early days of Africa. Just like in Things Fall Apart, in actual African tribes there was never a ruler. “Very interesting thing about these villages is that there is no single ruler or king that controls the population. Decisions are made by including almost everyone in the village” (AfricaGuide). Using the theme, Achebe educated readers on by mirroring real African life in her
Upon an initial reading of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, it is easy to blame the demise of Okonkwo’s life and of the Umofia community on the imperialistic invasions of the white men. After all, Okonkwo seemed to be enjoying relative peace and happiness before then. He did have a few mishaps; one of them resulted in him being exiled for eight years. Nonetheless, he returned to his home town with high spirits and with prospects of increased success. However, everything has changed. The white men have brought with them a new religion and a new government. Okonkwo’s family falls apart. The men in his village lose their courage and valor; they do not offer any resistance to the white men. Consequently, Okonkwo kills himself in disgrace and Umofia succumbs to the white men. However, the white men are not the only people responsible for demise of Umofia. The Igbo culture, particularly their views on gender roles, sows the seed of their own destruction. By glorifying aggressive, manly traits and ignoring the gentle, womanly traits, Umofia brings about its own falling apart.
The novel "Things Fall Apart" examines African culture before the colonial infiltration. Achebe's novel forces us to examine the customs and traditions that make up an informal culture. At times we may find some their practices appalling, but Achebe makes us realize that the traditions and customs are what essentially hold the Ibo together. Achebe wrote 'Things Fall Apart" with the intention of changing the common view of African culture. He wrote the novel from an insider's perspective, revealing that African culture was not solely based on barbaric and mindless rituals. Achebe reveals the affects of the colonial infiltration on African societies. Through his novel he examines how colonization disturbed the unity and balance of a once strong cultural society.
A single story is told of American Indian groups that portrays them as “savage” people who, if not for benevolent white colonizers, would have gone bereft of virtue or civilisation. Single stories, like those told about pre-columbian America, are dangerous. When a place is given only a single story, a a perspective becomes a definition and creates incomplete prejudices about many people and many, vastly different, stories. The folly of the single story are not limited to the West, for example, history shows pre-colonial Africa in a solely negative light as an unaccountable, primitive land saved from its inherent darkness by European colonizers In his novel, Things Fall Apart, Achebe challenges history’s single story of Africa by telling the tale of Okonkwo, a strong tribesman living in the the Igbo clan of Umuofia whose complex life and culture are stereotyped and stigmatized by European Colonizers. Throughout Things Fall Apart, the novel disputes the single story of early Africa by representing the complexities and advancements that existed without European influence of an indigenous African group called the Igbo, including the Igbo people’s advanced conversation skills, their ordered justice system and their strong
In the novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Achebe attempts to restore the dignity and self-respect of the African people. The novel is primarily set in the pre-colonial Igboland society which is a deeply organised society with a deeply entrenched belief system and social hierarchy. According to Achebe, this novel is a response to the portrayals of Africans in colonial novels as unsophisticated, uncultured and undeveloped. Therefore, this essay will show that Achebe attempts to undo those perceptions and restore the dignity and self-respect of the Africans by showcasing the beliefs, traditions and daily lives of the Igbo people as being meaningful and deeply considered. This can be seen in the episodes where Okoye visits Unoka to discuss
In 1958 Chinua Achebe published his first and most widely acclaimed novel, Things Fall Apart. This work-commonly acknowledged as the single most well known African novel in the world-depicts an image of Africa that humanizes both the continent and the people. Achebe once said, "Reading Heart of Darkness . . . I realized that I was one of those savages jumping up and down on the beach. Once that kind of enlightenment comes to you, you realize that someone has to write a different story" (Gikandi 8-9); Achebe openly admits that he wrote Things Fall Apart because of the horrible characterization of Africans in many European works, especially Heart of Darkness. In many ways, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart can be seen as an Afrocentric rebuttal to the Eurocentric depi...
Things Fall Apart seems a simple novel, but it is deceptively so. On closer inspection we see that it is provocatively complex, interweaving significant themes: love, compassion, colonialism, achievement, honour and individualism. Achebe employs devices such as proverbs, folktales, rituals and juxtaposition of characters to provide a double view of Ibo society and the central character, Okonkwo. The traditional Ibo society is a complex one: ritualistic and rigid yet in many ways surprisingly flexible. The child is valued more than any material acquisition yet the ...
A tale that takes place in Nigeria, Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe, follows the customs and cultures of the Igbo people. Much of the novel focuses on Okonkwo, an influential leader in Umuofia, who had a strong impact in the clan’s people sticking to their beliefs. His presence in Umuofia comes to a halt when he is exiled due to the accidental killing of his fellow clansman. It is after this that we slowly begin to notice the history of Umuofia slowly disintegrate upon the arrival of the white man. Colonialism was a vital part in the downfall of the culture present in Umuofia that existed prior to the white mans’ arrival; as the old beliefs and traditions were being abandoned for the new customs that were brought in.