Nwoye In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Sometimes when someone offers us a door our best option is to take it even if it means leaving your family and everything you know behind. This is true for Nwoye in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Nwoye was always afraid of his father’s disapproval and abuse, but with the arrival of new ideas from the western missionaries, Nwoye is challenged to stand true to his obtained beliefs and to face the wrath of his father. Never fitting in and living in fear of your own father is something Nwoye has dealt with his whole life. Through Nwoye’s life there has been countless times where he had to hide his true self from others. This is mostly true when the situation included Okonkwo, Nwoye’s father. Achebe wrote, “And so he feigned that he no longer cared for women’s stories. And when he did this he saw that his father was pleased, and no longer …show more content…
Nwoye did not agree with a lot of the practices his tribe took part in. Achebe tells us, “…a vague chill had descended on him and his head had seemed to swell, like a solitary walker at night who passes an evil spirit on the way. Then something had given way inside of him. It descended on him again, this feeling, when his father walked in, that night after killing Ikemefuna” (Achebe 65-66). Here we see the guilt and disapproval from Nwoye because of the actions of his tribe. Nwoye has this feeling after hearing the cries of twin babies out in the forest. In Ibo culture they throw out twins in the forest to die because of “evil spirits”. Nwoye feels this is wrong just as he felt it was wrong for the tribe to kill Ikemefuna just because “The Oracle of the Hills and Caves has pronounced it.” But with the arrival of the western missionaries Nwoye is free to disagree with the actions of his tribe. Nwoye finally has a place where he can make his own standards for himself without the judgment and refusal of his