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The Causes and Effects of Violence
The Causes and Effects of Violence
The Causes and Effects of Violence
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n the book Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe a theme that is used is violence always leads to consequences. Okonkwo is the main character and he lives in a place called Umuofia. Umuofia holds a powerful clan that are skilled in war and has very distinct rules and ethics.Okonkwo rose from pretty much nothing, to a high position. Missionaries come into the village and change pretty much everything which leads to some crazy stuff happening. Violence towards women and unnecessary violence in general are both in depth themes. Every time someone in the book does something violent, it always has a consequence. One of the themes that refers to violence leading to consequences is violence towards women. "He walked back to his obi to await Ojiugo …show more content…
Okonkwo did have a temper and when someone made him mad Okonkwo would let them know by violence. Okonkwo almost all the time had a punishment or consequence to his violent actions. “All was silent. In the center of the crowd a boy lay in a pool of blood. It was the dead man’s sixteen-year-old-son, who with his brothers and half-brothers had been dancing the traditional farewell to their father. Okonkwo’s gun had exploded and a piece of iron had pierced the boy’s heart…” (120) After Okonkwo kills the boy, he gets in a lot trouble and gets sent away from the clan to another place. Even though it was an accident it will haunt him for the rest of his life. Some things don’t happen on purpose but it was still thought of as an act of violence by the clan so that’s why he was punished and exiled. "Okonkwo’s machete descended twice and the man's head lay beside his uniformed body." (pg. 126) Okonkwo killed a messenger of the church and later kills himself out of guilt and sadness. His consequence was brought on by himself because he was the one that was guilty of the act. Even though no one else punished him he definitely felt bad and killed himself because he was so
“They will take him outside Umofia, as is the custom, and kill him there. But I want you to have nothing to do with it. He calls you his father. (57)” This quote explains that Ogbuefi expresses concern for Okonkwo, because the Oracle explains how it would be wrongful of Okonkwo to kill Ikemefuna. “Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak. (61)” This quote portrays that Okonkwo completely disregarded what Ogbuefi and the Oracle cautioned him about, because he was too concerned about his status of what others thought of him. “At last the man was named and people sighed “E-u-u, Ezeudu is dead.” A cold shiver ran down Okonkwo’s back as he remembered the last time the old man had visited him. (121)” At this point in the story, it appears that Okonkwo is starting to realize his wrongdoings, primarily because he takes religion and his spiritual life very seriously, in regards towards the Oracle. Okonkwo begins to lose trust within his family, especially with Nwoye. (As mentioned in the previous paragraph.) In the beginning of the book, Okonkwo relied on Ikemefuna to help Nwoye become more masculine and tough. After Ogbuefi warns Okonkwo about taking part in the murder, Okonkwo thinks about what could happen to him once the gods find out. Once again, Okonkwo lets his emotions
Within the Obi tribe, Okonkwo is an important man, who has risen from nothing to a man of great wealth and social status. Okonkwo is obsessed with masculinity, and he has a very narrow view of “manliness”. Okonkwo's relationship with his dead father is the root of his violent and ambitious conduct. He wants to rise above his father's legacy of laziness, which he views as weak and therefore feminine. This drive and fierce pride made him a great man, but they are also the source of all of his faults.
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.
“Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way. You become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, and brave by performing brave actions.” -Aristotle.
In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Obierika and Okeke bring a peace to the community and themsel and religious lives around them, while Okonkwo and Enoch strike fear and confusion into the communities around them. Okeke and Obierika are from two different worlds but their balanced character makes them similar to one another. Okeke is of Igbo descent but has begun to work as a translator for the Christians.
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.
Throughout Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe emphasizes that Africans are not the savages that were portrayed in Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. However, in “Principle and Practice: The Logic of Cultural Violence in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart,” David Hoegberg shows how sometimes cultural violence in Igbo society doesn’t agree with other parts of their culture, weakening Achebe’s argument. While Hoegberg points out the contradicting practices of Igbo cultural violence and their morals as a flaw in the Igbo society, he fails to note that all cultures have some sort of contradiction within them. Even with contradictions, cultural violence still serves to benefit the Igbo society by causing cultural change.
Planet Earth harbors seven billion independent human minds, living seven billion independent, equally complex lives. Even more impressive, each mind contains unique perspectives and opinions. With so many different minds interacting, conflict between individuals’ perspectives and opinions becomes inevitable. Unfortunately, no single perspective, held by a single mind or a group of minds, dominates as the correct perspective. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the meeting of different cultures creates conflict between perspectives, in which both parties assume righteousness but neither is entirely correct. Though Okonkwo may draw a readers’ sympathy for his role as the tragic hero, the author’s sympathy sits with Obierika, who is positioned between the missionaries and Okonkwo as the most humane balance of the two cultures.
...side made him suffer. He did it to himself. If he wasn't so caught up on the idea that if you weren't violent and brave then you were a woman, perhaps he would still be alive at the end of the novel. He takes his own life because he realizes everything he has done to be that powerful leader he has always wanted to be was a waste. When he comes back from exile, everything is different. He realizes that the people in the village don't need him. They are content with change and adapting to a new way of life, unlike himself. They don't want to go to war and have bloody battles like he does. Okonkwo realized his village was able to survive without him. By Okonkwo taking his own life, he proved his misery and the idea of him being truly weak at heart was affirmed.
The concept of a tragic hero is one of the most notable and widespread literary tropes, having been in existence for over some 2000 years. As defined by Aristotle in his Poetics, a tragic hero is someone who undergoes a struggle far more potent than deserved. Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, exhibits a tragic hero through its protagonist, Okonkwo. Achebe achieves this status through his tragic flaw of excessive pride, his ultimate demise caused by said pride, and his ability to evoke fear and pity within the audience.
In the book “Things Fall Apart”, evidence of a social structure was apparent within the Igbo community. This rigid social structure served as a purpose to balance the life of the people within the society, as well as promoting the downfall of the clan. The social structure was important in keeping a centralized society and preventing any sign of corruption within their clan. The social structure had advantages in keeping a balanced and equal society, supporting a division of labor, providing a surplus of food, individual huts, a communal society, and the development of some kind of government. In contrast, this social structure led others to reject to cooperate with the new religion and aided the lack of unity among the people. It also promoted a more patriarchal society, the inferior rank of women, and the lack of strong bonds between family members.
It is another to sympathies for a man who believes he is powerful and respected by many when in reality, he is feared by his own family and that is another reason that leads Okonkwo to his downfall. He started positive, motivated but down the line, Okonkwo treats his wives and children very harshly. When the author mentioned, “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children” (pg.13). This is not power but a weakness when Okonkwo uses power to rule his own house, detaching himself from the emotional connection with this family rather than being frightening to live with. The sign of “gentleness” as like his father means weakness to Okonkwo even with his own family. Especially his wives, when the narrator demonstrated the lack of emotion to his wife, “Okonkwo was provoked to justifiable anger by his young wife, went to plait her hair at her friend’s house and did not return early enough to cook the afternoon meal… He walked back to his obi to await Ojiugo’s return. And when she returned he beat her very heavily. In his anger he had forgotten that it was the Week of Peace…But Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half –way through, not even for fear of a goddess” (pg.29-30). Okonkwo does not even fear the goddess and the Week of Peace and ends up beating his wife to show that he owes
The Importance of Things Fall Apart & nbsp; & nbsp; The novel "Things Fall Apart", by Chinua Achebe, was an eye-opening account of the life and eventual extinction of an African tribe called the Ibo. It focuses on one character, Okonkwo, who at a very early age set out on a quest of self-perfection. Coming from a family ruled by a man who was lazy and inconsistent with everything he did, Okonkwo vowed to never accept the fate of his father. Okonkwo and his family have suffered through many hard times in their lives, but usually managed to come out on top. Through terrible crop seasons and bad judgement calls, Okonkwo usually prevailed, until the day came when he was faced with a situation that could not be resolved by his strength and character alone.
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.
David Carroll writes, of the novel Things Fall Apart, "This incident is not only a comment on Okonkwo's heartlessness. It criticizes implicitly the laws he is too literally implementing..." (Carroll) The incident that David Carroll refers to is the death of Ikemefuna. Ikemefuna was a young boy who was handed over to the village of Umuofia as compensation for the murder of one of that village's citizens. He is handed over to Okonkwo, a great man in the village, to whom he gives every affection. The brief life with Okonkwo and death of this innocent young man, and the life of Okonkwo himself, is a microcosm of life in Umuofia. Inconsistencies, brutalities, and conflict abound in even the highest of Umuofian life. And as Ikemefuna is led off to be murdered by the man he calls father, "the whole tribe and its values is being judged and found wanting" (Carroll).