Things Fall Apart Foreshadowing Analysis

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Fear is universally known as an intrinsic destroyer. Chinua Achebe, author of the novel, Things Fall Apart, emphasizes the impact of fear in morphing an individual’s character.Achebe uses many different literary devices to stress the importance of fear in shaping and changing a person. Achebe demonstrates the importance of fear in order to exhibit how fear drives people to actions that they normally would not perform. This explains many aspects of Okonkwo’s destruction.
Throughout the novel foreshadowing is utilized to emphasize the theme of how fear can drive people to do things that they wouldn’t do otherwise. In the case of Okonkwo, fear of weakness drives him to be violent and angry. Starting in the exposition of the book, foreshadowing …show more content…

Okonkwo resents his father because of his weakness and apparent failure; therefore, he worked diligently to ensure that he would become everything his father was not. Ironically, his first born son, Nwoye, developed much like Unoka, despite Okonkwo’s rash efforts to steer his son to model himself. Fear of being perceived as being weak and different drives Okonkwo’s rejection and anger towards his son when he becomes a Christian. Achebe states that after Okonkwo heard of Nwoye’s association with the christians he attacked him: “Nwoye turned round to walk into the inner, compound when his father, suddenly overcome with fury, sprang to his feet and gripped him by the neck,”(Achebe,151). Without his accumulated fear of weakness and judgement Okonkwo may have not acted as rashly to Nwoye’s new found faith. However, due to Nwoye’s resemblance of Unoka, his father, Okonkwo’s rationality is clouded by fear and resentment. As a father, Okonkwo can not accept, nor understand how he beget such a “degenerate and effeminate” son. Through this use of irony, Achebe once again emphasizes Okonkwo’s gripping fear and how it drives him to anger and otherwise unjustifiable

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