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Uniqueness of Nigeria culture
Okonkwo's character analysis
Okonkwo's character analysis
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The novel, No Longer at Ease, by Chinua Achebe is a story that seems like it will end with a happy ending, but makes a left turn to on coming traffic. The novel describes Obi Okonkwo’s life and the struggles he faces after coming back from studying abroad in England. The book begins with Obi on trial and it is as if the author already had Obi failing from the start. Since the moment Obi arrives to back to Nigeria, he is confronted with bribes by uneducated Nigerians so they could obtain a job. The novel takes place during the corruption of Nigeria when the Europeans being to decolonize and leave the colonies to the black African Americans and leave them to live their own lives. Obi Okonkwo is given the opportunity by the Umuofian Progressive Union to study law in England on a scholarship, which he has to pay back, and hope that he will soon become in use to them. Obi Okonkwo tries to find satisfaction through different encounters that involve his finances, friends relationships, coworkers and his family.
When Obi came back to to Nigeria he was looked at if
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To begin, Obi’s mother is very ill and their family is not able to live without his support. His family also does not approve of the engagement and wishes to for him to end it with Clara. His mother begs for Obi to call of the engagement until she passes away and if he does not, then she will take her own life. Obi and his mother have a very special bond together and he would never want to hurt his family after he unconditionally hurts her with a razor that was in his pocket. From there on he promised to never hurt her again. Obi’s father also believes that marrying Clara is not a good idea because he believes that it will bring curse upon his family and upon his children. Obi’s mother soon passes away from her disease and he refuses to go to the funeral. Obi sinks into a deep depression and later on he begins to take
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.
Fear is a feeling no one wants to admit they have. A young child, though, will say what they are afraid of, but as one gets older the more they want to be looked as a tough person. Zack Wamp puts it perfectly, no one should be scared or afraid to go into the future, but yet be intrigued into stepping into a new light of knowledge and learning. In Chinua Achebe's book Things Fall Apart he shows the Ibo people and their fear, superstition, response to fear and the British.
Chinua Achebe?s Things Fall Apart is a narrative story that follows the life of an African man called Okonkwo. The setting of the book is in eastern Nigeria, on the eve of British colonialism in Africa. The novel illustrates Okonkwo?s struggles, triumphs, and his eventual downfall, all of which basically coincide with the Igbo?s society?s struggle with the Christian religion and British government. In this essay I will give a biographical account of Okonwo, which will serve to help understand that social, political, and economic institutions of the Igbos.
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is a powerful novel about the social changes that occurred when the white man first arrived on the African continent. The novel is based on a conception of humans as self-reflexive beings and a definition of culture as a set of control mechanisms. Things Fall Apart is the story of Okonkwo, an elder, in the Igbo tribe. He is a fairly successful man who earned the respect of the tribal elders. The story of Okonkwo’s fall from a respected member of the tribe to an outcast who dies in disgrace graphically dramatizes the struggle between the altruistic values of Christianity and the lust for power that motivated European colonialism in Africa and undermined the indigenous culture of a nation.
The Power of Fear Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. The power of fear can lead to one’s destruction. In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, he uses fear to demonstrate the evolution of the protagonist Okonkwo. Achebe uses conflict, irony to demonstrate the influential aspect of fear in his well-known novel, which is examined by Robert Bennett in a literary criticism. Achebe uses internal conflict within his protagonist to demonstrate the power of fear.
William James, a famous American philosopher, once stated, “The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives”. This quotation effectively illustrates how change in one’s attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs can alter the environment in which one lives. This concept is clearly demonstrated throughout the novel Things Fall Apart, authored by Chinua Achebe, by establishing a connection through the development of its characters and the change in traditional African tribal villages seen in the Nineteenth Century. It will be established how various characters demonstrated by the author throughout the novel exemplify how change in one’s attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs can alter the environment in which one lives addressed by William James’s quote above. First, by analyzing Achebe’s development of Okonkwo’s character through his initial character description and the emergence of outsiders, it is evident that he is portrayed as an old fashioned character that is less responsive to change. Secondly, through examining Nwoye’s character, Okonkwo’s son, it becomes apparent that the youth in the novel are more open-minded, easily persuadable and more adaptive to societal changes. Lastly, uncovering the meaning behind the arrival of European missionaries, it becomes apparent that Achebe defines this group as being a “disease”, poisoning the society in which Okonkwo lives. The author look’s at individuals as being critical and influential figures in shaping the environment to which they belong, beginning with Okonkwo.
As wise John Berger once said,“Never again shall a single story be told as though it were the only one”. A “single story” is the story of a culture that we learn from stereotypes and conspiracies developed throughout time in our society. In “Things Fall Apart”, Chinua Achebe defies the single story of African culture while still tying their native language in to show the importance between a physical differentiation of culture, and the similarities with morals and values they have in common. Through gender roles and proverbs used in the language of this book, we have a cultural insight of Nigeria through a new set of eyes given to us by Achebe that detures us from the single stories that we were taught to by our society.
“The white man had indeed brought a lunatic religion…” (153) thought Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. In the novel, the main character Okonkwo and his son Nwoye experience sudden changes in their village from the arrival of white men. They once began their lives in their native Ibo village of Umoufia. After Okonkwo commits a murder by accident, he is forced to be exiled to Mbanta for seven years. During the years of his exile, Okonkwo hears about white men missionaries appearing in Umuofia, who later come to Mbanta. The missionaries have promoted Christianity in both villages and some of the villagers even converted from Ibo culture to Christian. Finally, after the seven years, Okonkwo and Nwoye return to the new Umuofia, where little Ibo culture remains. Okonkwo and Nwoye react to the changed village differently. They have dissimilar perceptions about the influence of the white men because they had distinct life experiences that shaped their own views on life.
All throughout history, we see this dichotomy between tradition and modernity. On one hand, we have tradition, the force living perpetually in the past and refusing to change. On the other hand, modernity leaves tradition behind in favor of progress. These two concepts, much like oil and water, dare to divide but coexist as a debatable founding solution. Not only are the themes Western ideas, but they have been present and are found in literature all around the world, from China to Africa.
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
Throughout history, there have been many instances of people struggling to identify and cope with change and tradition, and this is no different in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
Right from the beginning of the story, readers are made to see Clara as a very educated young woman and strong-minded, though she is not portrayed as very intellectual. Unlike Obi, Clara is bound tightly to her tradition. Achebe portrays Clara's strong attachment to her tradition,to offer an index to the culture of class society in Nigeria. As the story goes on, Obi notices Clara's unhapinness as they drive through town and asks her what is wrong. After several attempts of trying to get her to answer, Clara replies saying,"I can't marry you." And explains saying," I am an osu." The fact that Clara says she "cannot marry" Obi because of her ancestry, does not only show her strong respect for her culture but also, her strong attatchment to her tradition. On hearing this, Obi screams "Nonsense!". The exclamation mark suggests Obi's strong dissaproval of the point Clara raises and also emphasizes his resentment. Here, Obi is portrayed as 'very' angry to bring out the fact that, he has fallen in love with a woman who can never be a part of the social class he belongs to...
No Longer at Ease The story explores the conflicts in Obi Okonkwo's life. He is a young man from Eastern Nigeria who has to develop his career in the midst of all his problems. He is pressurised by the men of his tribe, the Umuofia Progressive Union, not to forget his traditions and to pay his dues to they helped him to be educated. He is also faced with the conflict of adhering to the Christian principle his father Isaac Okonkwo, a staunch Christian, raised him with and the seduction of the so-called “evil Western influences” on the younger Nigeria generation. Moreover he falls in love with a woman, Clara, who is considered by tribe to be from a cursed family.
Dedication is the quintessence of African literature. Well, for the most part of the advancing measures going on recently, most people however regard this questionable. The centre of attention in this discussion is not to engaging in fighting the argument out. Having four literary Nobel laureates in the precedent two decades, that is, Wole Soyinka, J.M. Coetzee, Idris Mahfouz, Nadine Godimer modern African literature has reached acceptable and respectable standards that should be appreciated and respected. On one occasion when a writer hails the coveted Nobel Prize for his or her literature works culture assumes an implication that is accorded to it. It is because of this reason that it is paramount to reconsider the contemporary custom of African literature (Jussawalla, 1992).
According to David Whittaker, Achebe’s work “proved to be an immensely influential work for African writers, becoming the progenitor of a whole movement of fiction, drama, and poetry, which focused on the revaluation of Africa’s history and cultures, and on representations of the culture conflicts that has their genesis in the colonial era.” This novel became a pivotal point of realization not only for Africa, but also for the world. All at once the world, afraid of what change may bring, pushed the same question to the back their mind: “What if we have it all wrong?” Suddenly, the culture of Africa was influencing the culture of America, Asia, Europe, Australia, etc. Achebe’s novel was a catalyst in the process of nationalist renewal and decolonization of African culture as a whole (Whittaker). A principle in this novel’s thematic course is the inter-generation conflict faced by not only the village as a whole, but also, on a microscopic level, in Okonkwo’s household. As the culture in Umuofia begins to shift, the predecessors of the current generation heavily rely on the cultural norms initiated by their father’s fathers. While tradition should be honored in a society, it should also be modified; this concept is not fully grasped by the older generations of