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Poetry comparison analysis
How to compare and contrast poems
How to compare and contrast poems
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The Second Coming Compared to Things Fall Apart
The book Things Fall Apart , by Chinua Achebe , is very similar to the poem , The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats.
Seeing the line “Things fall apart” in the poem , Achebe makes an outstanding association. At this point in time he says to himself, “I should name my book Things Fall Apart, It will show the main idea of the book.”
One of the many coinciding concepts between the two is the daunted apprehension of both the poem and the book. In Things Fall Apart it seems like whenever the main character, Okonkwo, gains hope things happen to fall apart . The contents of The Second Coming told of a chaotic world and a base that could not hold because of it’s own inner conflicts. In Addition to the synonymous feeling both the book and the poem give, they both expose a great shift from and old era to a new era. The Second Coming reveals an apocolypse. Yeats shows this change by describing the conversions our world, as a global community, made throughout history. Key lines that refer to these changes in time are “Turning and Turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer”. These lines refer to the constant adjustments we have to make and also the fact that we cannot go back in time . Chinua Achebe also reveals a major shift by describing Umuofa as it was in the beginning. In describing Umuofa as it was originally he makes it easier to catch sight of the major changes throughout the story.
Another coinciding idea in both pieces is the sacrifice of something to avoid changes that come along . Okonkwo ends his life as a last resort . In doing this he feels that he saves his honor and heritage . He also kills himself to dodge the pain and suffering that Christianity brought to his culture . “The Second Coming” warns us of an apocolypse . The apocolypse is the end of civilization in our world . What makes the poem so synonymous to the book is that in either case it is not possible to stop the changes from happening .
A fourth coinciding idea in these two literary pieces is the loss of control of a higher power over a lower power .
"Party Divisions of the House of Representatives*." Party Divisions. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
Brown, Alanna Kathleen. "Pulling Silko's Threads Through Time: An Exploration Of Storytelling." American Indian Quarterly 19.2 (1995): 171-179. Academic Search Premier. Web. 6 Apr. 2014.
In the book “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe certain themes are present in the the
ABSTRACT: Polanyi and Blaga are two centennial philosophers who could be compared. They both are philosophers who have abandoned the attempt to analyze science as the form of culture capable of complete objectivity and the language solely in terms of its referential force, to make representational knowledge impersonal and to split fact from value.
According to Andrew Herman, “Each year, 14,000 die from drinking too much. 600,000 are victims of alcohol related physical assault and 17,000 are a result of drunken driving deaths, many being innocent bystanders” (470). These massive numbers bring about an important realization: alcohol is a huge issue in America today. Although the problem is evident in Americans of all ages, the biggest issue is present in young adults and teens. In fact, teens begin to feel the effects of alcohol twice as fast as adults and are more likely to participate in “binge-drinking” (Sullivan 473). The problem is evident, but the solution may be simple. Although opponents argue lowering the drinking age could make alcohol available to some teens not mature enough to handle it, lowering the drinking age actually teaches responsibility and safety in young adults, maintains consistency in age laws, and diminishes temptation.
Things fall apart. It is life things eventually fall apart. Achebe named his book about a man learning from his failures and his punishments becoming a better man because his life is falling apart. Achebe named his book Things Fall Apart which is an allusion to the poem “Second Coming” which is about an end of the world scenario. He used it as an allusion to make a connection between Okonkwo’s life “ending” from his point of view and the second coming end of world scenario of the Christians.
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. First Anchor Books Edition. New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 1959. Print.
Although Achebe conveys many different themes in his writing Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe expresses the importance of tribal beliefs in African Culture.
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1958. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, Expanded Edition, Vol. 1. Ed. Maynard Mack. London: Norton, 1995.
The book, Things Fall Apart, is a story written by Chinua Achebe, who has written to this story to inform the readers about not just Africa, but about all the different African cultures; like, Umuofia, Mbaino, Mbanta, and so many more. Achebe is reminding us this because the British view each and every culture as the same, not differently from village to village like they are.
The above passages were taken from the end of chapter three, part one. After finishing reading this book and then going back through it, I found these passages very ironic in regards to how the story eventually ended. Okonkwo believed that because he was such a fierce fighter, he could conquer anything life threw at him. However, it was his fierce, proud, fighting attitude that was his demise in the face of uncontrollable circumstances in the end. Okonkwo believed that war and brute fighting would fix everything. He was a proud and stubborn man constantly struggling to improve his standing in the tribal community. Okonkwo also had intense pride for his tribe and way of life. He believed it was the right way of life and not to be questioned. Everyone was supposed to fear war with Umofia due to their fierce warriors and greatness in battle. When the white men not only did not fear them, but openly threatened the tribal way of life, Okonkwo prepared to handle the situation the only way he knew how. He wanted to got to war against the new white invaders, chasing them from tribal lands and ending the threat of different ways of life.
Wasserman, Julian N. “The Sphinx and the Rough Beast: A Linguistic Struggle in Chinua Achebe ’s Things Fall Apart. � Understanding Things Fall Apart: Selected Essays and Criticism. Ed. Solomon O. Iyasere. New York: The Whitson Publishing Company, 1998.
Okonkwo takes his life as he sees himself a lone warrior in a society of weaklings. This isolation is truly imposed by his decision of how to handle the conflicts which he encounters. His unitary channeling of emotions, cultural inflexibility, and tendency to seek physical confrontation are compiled into a single notion. The idealized vision of a warrior by which Okonkwo lives is the instrument that leads to the climax of Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart: Okonkwo's demise.
Jobes, Karen H. Letters to the Church: A Survey of Hebrews and the General Epistles. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2011.
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York, New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1994.