Zontae Hooks - THINGS FALL APART
The title of my book is THINGS FALL APART. The author of this book is Chinua Achebe. The genre of my book is Historical drama. The setting of the book is in Africa. The place of the story is the tribe in Nigeria. Umuofia was the name of the village where Okonkwo and his family lived. The time of the story took place in the 1900s.
The major characters in things fall apart are Ezinma, Ikemefuna, Nwoye, Mr. Brown and Okonkwo. Ezinma is Okonkwo’s eldest daughter and Ekwefi’s only child. Ikemefuna is fifteen years old and he is from a neighboring clan, Mbaino, who is given up to Umuofia as a sacrifice for killing one of the women of Umuofia. Nwoye is Okonkwo’s eldest son and he resembles his grandfather
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Kiaga. Unoka is Okonkwo's father. He is a talented musician, he is lazy and irresponsible. Ojiugo is a wife of the protagonist, Okonkwo. Obierika is Okonkwo's best friend and also a respected man in Umuofia. Chielo is a priestess in Umuofia and he is a widow with two children. Agbala is the Oracle the prophet of the Igbo. The last character is Mr. Kiaga. He is a Christian African and he heads the congregation in …show more content…
He is a boy taken prisoner by the tribe as a peace settlement between two villages. Ikemefuna is to stay with Okonkwo until the Oracle instructs the elders on what to do with the boy. For three years the boy lives with Okonkwo's family. Then the elders decide that the boy must be killed and the oldest man in the village warns Okonkwo to have nothing to do with the murder because it would be like killing his own child. Okonkwo helps to kill the boy despite the warning from the old man. Shortly after Ikemefuna's death, things begin to go wrong for Okonkwo and when he accidentally kills someone at a ritual funeral ceremony, he and his family are sent into exile for seven years to appease the gods he has offended with the murder. While Okonkwo is away in exile, white men begin coming to Umuofia and they peacefully introduce their religion. As the number of converts gets bigger the foothold of the white people grows beyond their religion and a new government is
In the novel, Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is a sympathetic character and unsympathetic character in regards to his family relationships with his adopted son, Ikemefuna, his daughter, Ezima, and his father, Unoka, as a result of he appears to genuinely care about his family; but, the pride within himself prevents his expression of such pride and concern openly.
It challenged his identity by losing his high title in the clan due to the change in the village as well as new customs. He responded to the clash of cultures by attempting to encourage others to fight in his mission to get rid of the Western influences in the Ibo community. Because he failed to do so, he lost hope and refused to accept the new culture which caused him to hang himself. The conflict between Okonkwo and his clan’s decision to change their way of living was portrayed through characterization and plot development. Achebe gives the people of Africa a voice with Okonkwo’s character who stayed true to his roots. In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe reveals to us Okonkwo’s response as the cultural collision of the English and Ibo challenged his sense of
Things Fall Apart chronicles the rise and fall of Okonkwo in the village of Umofia, Nigeria. The struggle between change and tradition is spurred by the arrival of Christian missionaries. With the Christian missionaries are followed by British colonizers. This new political and religious order will upset Okonkwo's social order. He works extremely hard throughout his life to achieve his status and be a better man than his father, Unoka. However, like his father he doesn't completely fit into the community. ...
Ikemefuna, an adopted son of Okonkwo, died by the orders of the oracle and by the hands of the villagers of Umuofia. Okonkwo accompanied Ikemefuna in his last hours, walking towards the outer boundaries of the village. Okonkwo took part in Ikemefuna's murder, even though another village elder warned him to not be part of the killing. Okonkwo's slash ended his adopted son. The oracle gave the villagers specific commands of how Okonkwo should not participate in Ikemefuna's death, but Okonkwo defied those directions. Defying the oracle means defying the deities the village worships. These reasons left Okonkwo's actions unjustified.
Ikemefuna, is one of two of Okonkwo’s son, and Nwoye’s brother, he does not have a biological relationship with Okonkwo or Nwoye. Ikemefuna was an offering by the people of Mbaino to Umofia for the killing of Ogbuefi Udo’s wife. The elders did not know what to do with Ikemefuna, so they gave him in the meantime to Okonkwo.
Okonkwo is often described as being similar to characters in Greek tragedies. Okonkwo knew that the end of his clan was coming, and that they would do nothing to prevent it from happening. He took his life out of desperation. He had struggled his whole life to become a respected member of his community, and suddenly his world is turned upside down and changed forever because of an accident. Okonkwo sees that he is fighting a losing battle, so he quits. Suicide was one of the biggest offenses that could be committed against the earth, and Okonkwo?s own clansmen could not bury him. Okonkwo?s death symbolizes the end of patriarchy in Umuofia. The last page of the book is from the point of view of the white Commissioner, who notes that he wants to include a paragraph on Okonkwo?s life in his book entitled The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of Lower Niger. Okonkwo?s struggles, triumphs and defeats are all reduced to a paragraph, much like his culture and society will be reduced.
Things Fall Apart, a story by Chinua Achebe, is about a man named Okonkwo who has many achievements and lives in an Ibo village in Umuofia, Nigeria. The beginning of the book introduces the main characters, including Okonkwo and his household. He has three wives and children with each of them. Okonkwo gained fame in his village from a wrestling match, respect from his titles in war, and money from farming; he is a leader in his Ibo clan. His success is driven out of his hatred toward his father who was not a strong man or a good farmer. This causes him great anger and makes him despise all things that his father stood for. The beginning of the novel is rather slow due to much detail written about day-to-day life in the clan,
Perspective is used in Things Fall Apart to give high contrast to issues within the community, which brings out its inner complexity. When differences of opinion are highlighted, these differences show that internal pressure are causing the tribe to break down from within. Ikemefuna’s death is a point of stark disagreement among the Umuofians. Ezeudu tells Okonkwo, “I want you to have nothing to do with [Ikemefuna’s death]. He calls you his father” (57). Although Ezeudu warns Okonkwo about participating in the death of Ikemefuna, Okonkwo decides to kill Ikemefuna himself. Ezeudu’s oppinion that Okonkwo should not be involved with the boy’s death shows the reader a shade of the community that would not have been seen without highligh...
Okonkwo’s desire for respect motivates his quest to preserve the practices of Ibo culture, while Obierika preserves the practices of the Ibo culture with a more humanistic perspective. Achebe uses the differing approaches of Okonkwo and Obierika in maintaining the cultural doctrines of the Ibo people to reveal his sympathy for Obierika over Okonkwo. Okonkwo’s motives for maintaining the customs of the Ibo originate with fear. Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna while “dazed with fear,” drawing “his machete [to] cut him down” because, “he was afraid of being thought weak” (Achebe 61). Though Okonkwo attempts to appear strong to the people of Umuofia, his fearful motivation speaks to a hidden internal weakness. Okonkwo’s focus on eradicating the taint of “his father’s weakness and failure” and his yearning for respect drive him to kill Ikemefuna instead of the more proper motive of simply effectuating what the Ibo conside...
Since his childhood, Okonkwo has always been ashamed of his father, Unoka. Unoka was rarely able to feed his children, which made Okonkwo scared and embarrassed. When he went out into Umuofia, he found that the villagers had very similar opinions towards his father. As...
Nwoye – In the eyes of Okonkwo, his oldest son, Nwoye, is weak and lazy from an early age. He dislikes his father because he beats him so often to make him more masculine. After the death of Ikemefuna, Nwoye becomes very depressed and later converts to the Christian faith, which makes Okonkwo disown him.
Ikemefuna was Okonkwo’s “adopted” son. Ikemefuna and a little girl were taken away from their families in a neighboring village after a man from his village killed a man in Umuofia’s wife. Ikemefuna was given to Okonkwo as a peace offering and he fit in quite well with his new family. Okonkwo’s other sons were greatly influenced by Ikemefuna, and Ikemefuna’s relationship with Okonkwo was closer than that with his biological father. After three years of living with Okonkwo, Ikemefuna was told that he was going home. In reality, the oracle had told Okonkwo that Ikemefuna was to be killed. As Ikemefuna was on his journey “home” his innermost thoughts give his opinion
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a story about personal beliefs,customs, and also a story about an identity confliction. There is struggle between family, culture, and religion of the Ibo tribes. It shows how things fall apart when these beliefs and customs are challenged and how a personal identity changes for a man. The novel concerns the life of Okonkwo, a leader and local wrestling champion throughout the villages of the Ibo ethnic group of Umuofia in Nigeria, Africa, his three wives, and his children. Throughout the novel, Okonkwo is internally challenged and slowly becomes someone that is no longer recognizable by his friends or his family. When Okonkwo faces change, his identity starts to fade.
When Ikemefuna first arrives in Umuofia, he is housed with Okonkwo because Okonkwo is a great man in the village. He had reached his prime and was a man of wealth. Ikemefuna quickly befriended Okonkwo's eldest son and began calling Okonkwo "father." Soon, however, this seeming peace and civility in the village and the life of the villagers disappears. Okonkwo receives a message from the village elders that the boy, the town's innocence, must be killed off. The boy is lead off to the slaughter completely unaware of his fate, and with his "father" in the company of the killers. When a machete is drawn and the black pot atop Ikemefuna's head is cut down, the boy runs to the man he loved as father. It is he who, lacking the courage to confront the others with his love for the boy, draws his machete and...
Okonkwo is one of the respected leaders of his village. When a man from a neighboring village kills one of the women from Okonkwo 's village, a peace settlement requires the son of the man who killed the women to come live in Okonkwo 's village. Unfortunately, a decision is made to kill the boy. After the boy dies, Okonkwo accidentally kills Ezeudu’s son. For his crime, the village determines he must spend seven years in exile to appease the gods.