Chapter 7 Things Fall Apart

Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe is an African novel. It occurs in the 1890s and gives a glimpse of life during that time period pertaining to the noticeable differences between the European’s and the traditional customs of the Umuofian people. This novel encompasses their history, family structure, the introduction of outsiders influences, gender roles, rapid changes, customs and timeless struggles. The invasion of the colonial European government is threating to contest and disrupt nearly all the aspects of the Umuofian society which ultimately takes a huge toll on the village as a whole.
Chapter seven addresses gender roles, which is a social role dictating the types of behavior that is appropriate and acceptable for an individual based upon their sexuality. Okonokwo is a well-respected warrior in Umuofia, he has a very violent, controlling and …show more content…
Even though the drums are used for different reasons it all reverts back to tribal unity and how the society is functioning properly. “The drums were still beating, persistent and unchanging. Their sound was no longer a separate thing from the living village. It was like the pulsation of its heart. It throbbed in the air, in the sunshine, and even in the trees, and filled the village with excitement” (16). All the villagers from men, women and children knew his or her place. They worked collectively, functioning as a single unit with no outside influence which allowed them to run the village smoothly. The repetition of imagery relating to the drums before the European missionaries arriving shows a clear contrast to the lack of drums throughout the half of the novel in which the missionaries were present and the lack there of shows how the society is spiraling