When The Emperor Was Divine Essay

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Imagine being in a close-knit society. A cultural way of living that is so ever-present in where you live, that it’s really the only way you’ve ever known to carry out your life. Imagine knowing everything that you need for your future, how to prosper, how to lead a successful life within your community. Then, all of a sudden, before you even can process what’s happening; everything changes. In both Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and “When the Emperor Was Divine” by Julie Otsuka, they tell a story of a certain character and how their normal lives and culture are unwantedly changed. Okonkwo and the boy are slowly put under more and more stress due to the sudden changes in their lives, supporting that unwanted change is more negative than …show more content…

In Achebe’s book, Okonkwo would be viewed as a very intolerant person as he comes quick to anger and the slightest misdemeanor could lead to a harsh beating. Okwonko showcases this when one of his wives show up late to make his afternoon meal and “when she returned he beat her very heavily” (Achebe 29). Okonkwo later continues to show examples time and time again of how harsh his character truly is. For the boy, however, instead of anger consuming him, he worries. He thought about his father and worried that he would be too tired to play catch with him under the trees, he worried about his room being taken over by large messy people, and he worried about his father returning bald (Otsuka 549). He continues to worry about multiple things later on in the story, showing the side of his character that is very worrisome in a stressful time. Both characters have some sort of way to vent out their stress, but it’s really doing them more harm than good. The cause of this stress leads back to unwanted change, the change of meal time for Okonkwo and the change of how different life is for the boy without his

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