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Things fall apart by chinua achebe-topic
Things fall apart by chinua achebe-topic
Things fall apart by chinua achebe-topic
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Do people really change based on their past? We should believe they do. Chinua Achebe, wrote the novel, Things Fall Apart. This novel takes place in an African tribe with a village called Umuofia.The main character, Okonkwo, has a hard childhood. Later in his life he becomes very wealthy and has a big family. Okonkwo makes some big mistakes, but we can believe he learned from them. In the end of the book, Okonkwo kills himself after he kills a Christian missionary. Okonkwo killed the Christian missionary because he was trying to convert the people in his clan, to Christians. Okonkwo was so furious he had to get justice for his clan, so, he decided to kill the Christian missionary. On one hand, we can say Okonkwo was not learning from his mistakes. On the other hand, one can say Okonkwo was learning from his mistakes. We can think Okonkwo did learn from his mistakes because now he cares …show more content…
about his family more, he thinks about his actions before they occur, and he now has a more sense of compassion. One can think Okonkwo does change by learning from his mistakes because he now cares about his family more. The following quote describes how much he cares for his daughter, Ezinma, now. “Go home and sleep,” said Okonkwo. “I shall wait here,” (Achebe, pg. 108). This quote demonstrates how Okonkwo runs after Ekwefi and his daughter, after Chielo (a servant to the oracle, a religious figure in their local tribal religion) takes Ezinma. The old Okonkwo would never run after his wife if she makes a stupid decision like that. In the novel, a man from another village kills another man's wife. In exchange, we take a boy from their village, whose name is Ikemefuna. The elders of Okonkwo's village tells him, he will be taking in Ikemefuna as a son. In another passage in the novel, Okonkwo becomes very fond of Ikemefuna. Okonkwo probably thought he could never love Ikemefuna as a son, but he does. “That boy calls you father,” Says an elder to Okonkwo (Achebe, pg. 57). Ikemefuna loves Okonkwo also but, Okonkwo can never admit he likes Ikemefuna, for the sake of his reputation. This following quote observes how Okonkwo cares about whom his daughters marry. “But I shall be happy if you marry in Umuofia when we return home,” explained Okonkwo (Achebe, pg.173). Okonkwo tells this to his daughters right before they go back to their own village. He wants a man who he can trust, who believes in the same beliefs as him, to marry his daughter. Okonkwo loves his family, and now has a more sense of compassion for them. Okonkwo now thinks about who his actions affect and why he will demonstrate that action. Okonkwo does nice things for people now. “He had no appetite. He only ate to please her,” (Achebe, pg. 199). This quote informs us that Okonkwo is eating to please someone else, not himself. Okonkwo used to kill someone even if they just looked at him wrong. Now Okonkwo is less violent than he used to be. I think Okonkwo realizes that fighting gets you into more fights then out. Okonkwo accidentally shoots a kid at a funeral. For Okonkwo's punishment, he is exiled for 7 years. After Okonkwo kills the Christian missionary, we can assume he knows he will be killed or another 7 years in exile. Okonkwo wouldn't want to put his family through another exile, and if he were to be killed, he was getting it over with. One can say Okonkwo kills himself to save the trouble of his family. Okonkwo used to have a lot of fights, now he has sympathy for others and his family. Okonkwo now has a greater sense of compassion, then he did as an adolescent.
This next quote exhibits how much Okonkwo loves and cares for his daughter, Ezinma. “I wish she were a boy,” thought Okonkwo within himself. She understood things so perfectly (Achebe, pg. 173). A woman can’t rule a household, according to Okonkwo and his clan. If Ezinma were a boy, she could run a household and be a proud son. Okonkwo would never imagine his daughter being in charge of a house. Although Okonkwo has changed and he has more compassion for his daughter. Okonkwo also respects, and treats, women better now. When Okonkwo was exiled to 7 years to his mother's land, he grew more respect for the women in his life. Okonkwo will also never love Ikemefuna as a son. But Okonkwo changed and he does love him as a son. We can say Okonkwo kills himself because he is angry at the Christian missionaries, so he commits suicide to make an example of how much they believe in their religion. One can think after Okonkwo being so violent, when he was a young man, he realized there is more to life than
violence. No one knows why Okonkwo killed himself, but we can think he did it because he changed. “Okonkwo sprang from his bed, pushed back the bolt on his door and ran into Ekwefi’s hut,” (Achebe, pg. 76). Okonkwo executes this action when he and Ekwefi think Ezinma is dying. Okonkwo cares so much about Ezinma, more than he ever thought possible. One can say Okonkwo kills himself so his family won't have to be exiled again. “A bond of sympathy had grown between them as the years had passed,” (Achebe, pg. 172). The bond between Okonkwo and Ezinma is a loving father- daughter bond. I’m sure it is really hard for Okonkwo to let go of Ezinma when he thinks he has to kill himself. We can say Okonkwo thought it would be easier, and best, for everyone if he just killed himself. We can't think it was easy for him to commit suicide to try to help his family. One can think Okonkwo did change because he cares for his family more, thinks about his actions, and he has a more sense of compassion. We can think Okonkwo loves his family more now, he also cares for them more. Okonkwo is also less violent and he thinks about his actions. Finally Okonkwo has a more sense of compassion and sympathy for his family and friends. By looking at how Okonkwo changed, we can get an understanding of why people do the actions they perform. Okonkwo used to be violent and not care about anything. Now that Okonkwo has changed, he has more problems. He deals with family issues, rather than leaving it to the women. One can think Okonkwo cracked under the stress and killed himself in the moment. One can also think Okonkwo thought it would be best for his family if he died. Although in the long run, we can't think Okonkwo really thought about committing suicide. However we can think he would regret his decision.
Perhaps the best example of women holding power in this novel is the priestess Chielo. She is one of the spiritual leaders in Okonkwo’s town. She has the respect of the entire village, not just the women. Her authority extends so far that at one point in the novel she takes one of Okonkwo’s children in the middle of the night to a religious site. She is free to do as she pleases. Okonkwo recognizes her authority and doesn’t put up a fight. He ends up following his wife and daughter to the religious site, but doesn’t interfere. Another example of women in this society having important roles are their jobs as teachers. They teach their children the importance of community and other life lessons by telling their children stories. Okonkwo treats many of the women in his life differently. He is secretly very fond of one of his daughters and wishes she had been born a boy. This
He was in great conflict with the ideas of the white men and the missionaries. Okonkwo saw that their beliefs had not only changed the daily life of the Ibo, but it also changed the people themselves: “He mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women” (Achebe 183). The author uses strong diction to compare the men before and after colonization. This quote also portrays Okonkwo’s opinion towards the cultural collision. He values strength and masculinity immensely because of his fear of appearing weak like his father Unoka. When he describes that the men of Umuofia changed to be soft like women, this shows how much he dishonors the Western ideas and how it has taken over the village. He made an attempt to get rid of the Western influence by urging the tribe to fight like men, but they refuse to. He was determined and still attempted to furthermore encourage the people of Umuofia to revolt against the new culture. He realizes that his attempts to return the village back to the way it was before were futile. He knew that Christianity was tearing his people apart, but knew he was incapable of making change to help his people. Okonkwo then starts to feel hopeless and abandoned by his clan, which causes him to commit suicide by hanging himself: “Obierika… turned suddenly to the District Commissioner and said ferociously: ‘That man was one of the greatest men
The protagonists Okonkwo and Obierika from Things Fall Apart are very similar to Rodrigo and Father Gabriel from The Mission. Both groups have similar viewpoints on their respective situation. Okonkwo and Rodrigo are both very action orientated and don’t think rationally about their actions or the consequences these actions will have; whereas Obierika and Father Gabriel almost have the opposite standpoint, rather opting for no action.
Okonkwo has murdered, beaten, and cast off those he loved throughout his life. He remained stubborn and violent until his last days, and yet through his internal struggle, and sparse, yet endearing loves Okonkwo is still perceived to be morally indefinite. Okonkwo may not be considered by western culture to be a good person, but viewing his life in its entirety, it is almost impossible for one to attach a completely negative label to him. By telling the story of Okonkwo's life, Chinua Achebe, creates a dynamic and morally ambiguous protagonist while addressing the moral issue of Christian evangelism in Africa.
Throughout the book, Okonkwo is shown to be very headstrong and generally mean towards the majority of people he interacts with. He puts an overemphasis on the need to be manly, and this ruins some of the relationships that he is in. Okonkwo cannot tolerate laziness, and everything that he doesn’t do is deemed to be a female trait. Most of his life is dictated by his internal fear of becoming what his father was, a poor, lazy, “disgrace” of a man. From early on in the book, we see how his father affected his way of life. While his father sat idle and never had successful crops, Okonkwo was the exact opposite. Okonkwo became a very strong, wealthy and well respected man in the tribe. Along with the fear of becoming his father, Okonkwo has a problem with displaying his emotions to others. Since Okonkwo believes many emotions are feminine, he tends to act in very brash ways. This can be seen how he treats his family. He rules with an iron fist, almost dictator like, and even threatens their lives multiple times. Even though his outward emotions tend to be mean, deep down he still feels love and attachment like any other human being. He loves his daughter enough to follow after her when the priestess takes her, and he is shown to be genuinely worried about her safety. He also is shown to enjoy the company of his “adopted” son Ikemefuna. Even though he feels these emotions, Okonkwo always chooses to express the more masculine emotions. Lastly, Okonkwo is dedicated to his tribe, and follows all of the clan’s laws. He wants to be respected so he must do as the elders and ancestors before him have dictated as law. He takes every punishment that is doled out to him, and never questions them. He even leaves all he has for seven years because he shot a boy, which was not even his doing.
As you see, Okonkwo was a deprived man after hearing about the whites expanding their beliefs and customs to Umuofia. Being unable to contain it, he had no choice but to give in. Okonkwo wanted to go to war and fight the invading Europeans, but he soon realized that he was the only one hungry for war. “I shall fight alone if I choose” (Achebe 201). Being the only one seeking for revenge, he had no choice but to behead the head messenger who was trying to end a clan meeting. Letting the other messengers escape, Okonkwo’s visual was the truth. “He knew that Umuofia would not go to war” (Achebe 205). Everything that he stood for was now distant. His once powerful and running clan was now weak and resistant to fight off enemies. What was the point to live when everything else had failed him and he could do nothing to resolve it? He struggled with the changes occurring in the tribe. He was known as a very strong and honorable tribesman, but when the whites arrived promoting Christianity and other tribe members began to change as a result, even his own son, he could not bear the change. While viewing the others as weak, like his father, he tries to remain strong against change however he is the only one. Killing the messenger was the last attempt to try and save the tribe from the influence of the white man. Seeing the others not join in his action, he loses hope and in desperation ends his life
Things Fall Apart is, then, fired by a will-to-power, a desire to repossess one’s own past or history as it really was, or might have been, than to passively accept and depend on patronizing and condescending western representations of that past or that history. The literary mode of production is, then, itself a site of conflict or contention, with diametrically opposed or multiple varied modes of writing and writing and reading “co-existing” “contrapuntally”, in a “dialectical”, thesis-antithesis-synthesis “fashion”. In the beginning are the word, logos, and all the rest follows from that originary moment. Small wonder, then, that the district commissioner, at the end of Things Fall Apart, hopes to confirm and reconfirm, through a process
Chinua Achebe: An Ibo professor famous for his novel, “Things Fall apart.” A theme used extensively throughout the novel is the theme of imbalance. Through the use of characterization and symbolism, Achebe shows that imbalance can lead to conflict, death, and destruction. Achebe demonstrates that imbalance can lead to conflict using characterization. The following quote is from chapter 23, when the District Commissioner calls for the leaders of Umuofia, “‘An Umuofia man does not refuse a call,’ he said.
3. The interaction seen between Marlow and the African native on page 46 feels different. In past interactions, we have seen Marlow portray the natives as prehistoric, primitive, and unearthly: “this suspicion of not being human…they howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces...ugly” (32). Marlow frequently dehumanizes the natives and makes them appear as savages. However, in this scene, he gives a more humanized description of the African than he normally would: “his eyes shown with an amazing luster…I had to make an effort to free my eyes from his gaze.” Marlow is captured by the death of this man and is unable to look away, and thus, he has a more sympathetic reaction. For
Okonkwo sees his father’s gentleness as a feminine trait. He works hard to be as masculine as possible so that he will be the opposite of his father and overcome the shame his father brought to his family. Okonkwo deals with this struggle throughout the entire book, hiding the intense fear of weakness behind a masculine façade (Nnoromele 149). In order to appear masculine, he is often violent. In his desire to be judged by his own worth and not by the worth of his effeminate father, Okonkwo participates in the killing of a boy he sees as a son, even though his friends and other respected tribe members advise him against it. (Hoegberg 71). Even after the killing of Ikamefuna, Okonkwo hides his feelings of sadness because the emotions are feminine to him. He goes so far as to ask himself, “when did you become a shivering old woman” (Achebe 65), while he is inwardly grieving. The dramatic irony of the secret fears that Okonkwo has will open the reader’s eyes to how important gender identity is to him. This theme is also presented among Okonkwo’s children. He sees his oldest son, Nwoye, as feminine because he does not like to work as hard as his father (Stratton 29). When Nwoye eventually joins the Christian church, Okonkwo sees him as even more feminine. On the other hand, Okonkwo’s
Within the novel ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe published in 1959 the main character Okonkwo who lives in Nigeria native to the indigenous Igbo people, experiences the clash between the European colonial government and the culture of his people. Okonkwo a wealthy warrior of Umuofia who still suffers from the actions of his actions that prevented him from being in a higher position. Okonkwo accidentally kills a clansman son which is forbidden and he and his family is exiled for seven years, but while away other villages are destroyed by the colonial white men. The author Chinua Achebe included the issues of culture, race relations and trade set in the 1890’s. These topics were things that possibly changed the way Nigeria thrived during that time period.
Janie in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart struggled to find her true love, one that would let her be free to do as she pleases. This idea of a liberated woman was alien to the men of Things Fall Apart, surely women without the guidance of men would lead to a bleak and dark future. Janie’s second husband, Joe Starks, introduced her to the rough reality of life as a woman around the early 1900’s. Women during this era were expected to obey their husbands at all costs.
the novel things fall apart by Chinua Achebe he has a main character okonkwo which is a leader of the village umuofia and he has a son nwoye, and ikemefuna (a child given to him from another village) and and two daughters Ezinma and Obiageli while also having three wives. The theme of this novel is change/religion,because of this there are many differences that appear and killings. The village of umuofia was in Nigeria and in that land there was only igbo religion. In umuofia there was a strict way of doing things, everybody had their roles to play in everyday living and special occasions.
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart focused on the story of Okonkwo, a wealthy and respectable warrior of the Umuofia clan. The novel in itself is a story of cultural beliefs and customs. Achebe, having both African and European background and experiences, did not portray the Africans as barbaric (unlike Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness). In fact, he celebrated them by showing a detailed picture of their culture like the stories Nwoye’s mother tells him, or the song Ikemefuna sang before his execution.
The poem by Yeats conveys that things are falling apart and that “the center cannot hold” (Yeats). This applies to the African society in Things Fall Apart. At the beginning of the novel the society is pure and untouched. Throughout the book great changes influence the people. Christian missionaries come to the villages and threaten the African way of life and religion.