...Has your view on life or personality ever drastically changed after an influx of new ideas or knowledge? During Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, an exotic group of foreigners introduce their religious beliefs, and many of the Ibo clansmen are quick to desert their traditional faith in favor of the new and exciting alien religion. As a consequence, many of the new converts gain a new sense of identity within themselves. Due to the introduction of Western ideas and the cultural collision that follows, Nwoye becomes confident, extroverted, and overall, a more upbeat and optimistic young man. Before the arrival of the missionaries, Nwoye’s lives his life in a dreary and lackadaisical manner, similar of that to Unoka, his grandfather....
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...Things Fall Apart “Unlike his father he could stand the look of blood.” Okonkwo could not stand his father for he was a debtor and a liar for he said, he will pay the debts he owed back but never did he do this. He then borrowed more and more money from the people putting him so far in debt that he would surely die before paying it. Okonkwo looked at his own father as a piece of scrap that meant nothing to anyone no one cared about Unoka. “Okonkwo's father.” Unoka being the man he is, Okonkwo feared nothing more than to be like his father, he feared it so much that he actually became abusive. “Okonkwo ruled his house with a heavy hand.” Okonkwo has to be aggressive to his family because he fears being like his father. If Okonkwo shows...
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...When was the last time you got in trouble for something minor? You would never in a million years think that something like that would lead to your ruins would you? Okonkwo gets himself into this exact situation, Okonkwo is a strong, prideful village man who loses everything that he has worked for all his life. He struggles through a series of events to maintain his status and dominance, unfortunately, he does not succeed and ends up committing suicide. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo’s prideful behaviors and reckless actions led to his downfall, but still, the Christian missionaries would have inevitably aided in Okonkwo and his clan’s demise. Okonkwo’s prideful behaviors is one factor that led him to his doom. When Okonkwo...
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...Okonkwo's struggle to be a man, show no weakness, no emotion to the people he loves, and his struggle to be nothing like his father reveals and developes a theme to Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Okonkwo dissapproves and hates everything his father standed for, so one day at a meeting Okonkwo being intolerant of failures (men with no titles, whom are also called women) tried killing a man's spirit at a meeting for contradicting him. “Without looking at the man Okonkwo had said: This meeting is for men. The man who had contradicted him had no titles. That was why he had called him a woman.” Okonkwo's pride is then turned into embaressement and pitty, because “The oldest man present said sternly that those who palm kernels were cracked for them by benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble....
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...Ralph Ellison had once said “Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” These powerful words can easily compare to the novel Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe. This book takes place in eastern Nigeria around the 19th century, and it explores the Ibo culture at an astonishing depth. The readers get placed into this world in order to learn what it's really like living in this time and place, while allowing them to also be educated on the social norms of this civilization. Throughout the entire book the protagonist, Okonkwo, and the Ibo culture both face major events and go through a whirlwind of obstacles that eventually lead up to the collapse of each other. To illustrate the story of Okonkwo and this culture, Chinua...
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...Franklin D. Roosevelt said that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” In the Ibo villages, strength and masculinity are prized traits. This novel tells about the story of one man Okonkwo, a strong and masculine warrior, who faces several life changing obstacles in his life. In spite of those characteristics Okonkwo has a deep fear of becoming like his father, Unoka, who was lazy, irresponsible, and weak. Furthermore, he also fears Nwoye, his son, turning out like Unoka. Fear not only consumes Okonkwo, but also his village of Umuofia, which causes them to be unable to have the courage to fight against the white missionaries. The Ibo culture’s fear of weakness comes from their insecurity of their strength and masculinity which is the cause for destruction and failure in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe....
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...No matter where you're at there will be some form of government. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart the Igbo government is shown throughout the book. Though the novel the Igbo tribe show their different laws,offenses, and how they execute punishments. The Igbo people don’t have a form a government but they are very religious, and most of their decisions are help determined by their gods and beliefs. Okonkwo is one of the characters in the novel that knows what happens when you do something to disrespect the gods. The igbo culture also has punishments when one of their people commits a crime. In the novel, Chinua Achebe shows how traditional Igbo leadership, kept laws, and punishments throughout the tribe. There are leaders for the different...
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...Every person has faced fear at least once in their life. Fear of death, rejection, and the worst, failure. This fear is plainly shown in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart through Okonkwo’s hamartia that moves him towards his eventual demise. Achebe proves that living solely by fear of failure will create the very thing one’s life is motivated to destroy. Okonkwo’s fear of failure manifests itself in five distinct ways: Fear of following in his father’s footsteps, fear of becoming feminine, fear of losing religion, fear of discrediting his family name, and fear of disgracing the Ibo gods. These fears accumulate under the fear of failure that acts as Okonkwo’s hamartia, motivating him to commit suicide at the conclusion of the book. Achebe begins Things Fall Apart with a lengthy description of Okonkwo’s past, including his lazy...
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...One way CHinua Achebe uses details conveys tone in the novel “ Things Fall Apart” is when he says, “If a child washed his hands he could eat with kings. Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands and so he ate with kings and elders.” At first glance this doesn't seem like much of a sentence, but it carries a strong meaning. The phrased ” washed his hands” is what Okonkwo had to do. His father died with a bad reputation and achieved nothing. Okonkwo had risen above that and became a great man all on his own. He earned respect from the entire village and was able to eat with the most important people of Umuofia. This shows a sort of strong motivational tone . Another way the author uses details to show the tone is from this entry: “He...
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...In part one of Things Fall Apart there are father and son relationship between several characters in the novel, Okonkwo and is father Unoka and the other relationship is Nwoye and his father Okonkwo. In the novel the relationship between Okonkwo and Unoka was very unique. This led the reader to understand why Okonkwo was the character he was. It is shown from earlier chapters that Okonkwo and his father, Unoka, share many differences but their relationship also owns an underlying message. The author of the novel, Chinua Achebe, included the following saying: “When the mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth.” The saying translates into that a child will have a behavior similar to what his guardians show. How ever Okonkwo show no respect for his father. This is revealed from the quote “he had not been found of his father” (21) Unoka is a very sensitive man and is appreciative of the nature among him. Okonkwo is a total opposite of his dad. Okonkwo always wants to show his power and how he rules his family with an iron hand. Even though Okonkwo has to live with his fathers shame on his name they end up being quite similar based on how they choose to go about conflict....
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...Outwardly, he is very callous. He is impulsive when vexed. Inwardly, he can have a sympathetic heart. There are some good characteristics about him, but there are also a few unfavorable attributes. For the bad qualities, he acts insensitive towards people. Even to his wives, he can be harsh. There are occasions in the story where Okonkwo abuses his wives as punishment for mistakes they make. One instance of Okonkwo’s abuse took place when his wife, Oijugo, went out to get her hair done without making dinner. When she returned, Okonkwo beat her for what she did. His brutality is a quality that makes him look like a completely bad person. Okonkwo tries his hardest to be the person that his father was not, which can be a good thing but it can also be a bad thing. He frequently does not show empathy towards people. He does not want to be weak, so he does the complete opposite and acts as if he does not care whatsoever. His perseverance to...
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...it out on page 182, “From the very beginning religion and education went hand in hand.”. Thus Whoever aimed at learning how to read and write or be part of the new government / economic organizations set up by the Missionaries was likely (if not forced) to convert. But the second and most important reason is that this new religion offered an alternative to: 1. Those who were rejected by the clan according the traditional rules. Among them we can quote: * The efulefu (or “worthless man”) whose “word was never heeded in the assembly of people” and who did not have any title (Page 143) * The osu (or “outcasts”) who were excluded by the other member of the clan and wore “long, tangled hair” (Page 155) 2. Those who have lost things or people because of the ancestral rules such as: * Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son and who turned aside from the traditions that made him loose his friend (and almost brother) Ikemefuna as well as his twins siblings (Page 147) * Nneka, Amadi’s wife who saw the twins of her four pregnancies thrown away in the bush and joined the Chuch which accepted twins (Page 151) 3. Or simply those convinced by the new Church’s power * For instance those who joined the Church when they saw that nothing happened to the church despite its construction in the Evil Forest (Page 149 to 151) Some...
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...Years of stereotypes set by European colonizers still plague Africa today. During colonial times, Europeans spread their deframing single-story of Africa out for the rest of the world to hear. As time passed, people began to view Africans as inferior and apelike rather than as actual human beings. In his book Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe tells the story of Okonkwo, a well-known and respected leader of Umuofia, as he watches his village fall apart after meeting the Europeans. Achebe contradicts imperialistic stereotypes of Africa by depicting Africa as civilized; the Igbo have their own religion, customs, and government. Religion constitutes a significant part of the Igbo culture just as it is for many other civilized cultures. As a young boy, Okonkwo’s father...
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...Women's right in the world has not always been important. Igbo women are referred as weak, frail, and unimportant in the Igbo culture and many other cultures around the world. Achebe demonstrates in Things Fall Apart that women are not treated like the women in our culture. Women are not as important as men. Although women bring new life, women do not get proper treatment. Wives are beaten by their husbands, the punishment of their husbands only occurs in the Week of Peace, such as when Okonkwo beats his second wife for not making him dinner one night. When women are treated equally, the Earth Goddess is responsible, for being the judge of mortality and creation. The roles of women are not as far-reaching as the men in the Igbo culture. The most significant act of women is the Role of Priestess. Acknowledged in the novel as Chika. To all the...
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...It doesn’t matter where someone is in the world, each country controls their people using laws and punishment, but they are all different in some way. There were a total of 19 different tribes throughout the Igbo tribe. Each tribe had a different social structure in some way, but they all had the same laws and government. Every tribe had the same government structure of how things were done in the tribe. Things Fall Apart shows the power that each tribe has and how they use that power throughout the tribe. In the novel, Chinua Achebe shows how the traditional Igbo kept law, order, and punishment throughout their tribes. Things Fall Apart shows us how the Igbo have laws and where they come from. The tribes do have similar laws, but they...
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