Who Is The Igbo Culture In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Creating an image of happiness, sadness, and tragedy all into this one story of life and death in one culture known as the Igbo culture. Chinua Achebe has been able to rope in his readers through symbolism and from the plot of on of the most popular stories of this kind. In Things Fall Apart you are really able to see why he has given this story the title Things Fall Apart. The story includes many people throughout different parts of the story. In the beginning we focus mainly on Okonkwo and his actions, along with some of the other characters such as his wives and father. One of the most important characters that was focused on was Ikemefuna who was an adopted child of Okonkwo from one of the neighboring villages. Later in part two I began …show more content…
In the beginning we learn of this village in Nigeria and some of the important people especially a man named Okonkwo known throughout the nine villages from Umuofia to Mbaino. As the story continues we learn more of his background and how he did not want to turn out to be like his father. His father is introduced in the beginning of the story and we learn that Okonkwo had a severe hatred for him, but later in the story it seems as though Okonkwo has become more like his father. He describes his father as a poor, low-life man. A quote that can tell you this is ...¨He was not afraid of War he was the first to bring home a human head, unlike his father who could not stand to look at blood¨(10) and he here is making it seem as though he thinks that his father has not brought honor to their family and that someone need to bring honor to the family. Okonkwo believed in better for his family and that is how he had become so renown through the villages in Nigeria. This is coming from Okonkwo's feelings towards his family. During the story we have a emergency in the village and the men are asked to meet in the morning and then he thinks the only possibility is war. This proves that …show more content…
He had said in the story ¨The world they know has been changed and he does not want to live in it¨ (Paraphrase from multiple pages). This conclusion towards the end of the story supports how he believed in his culture and he was not going to allow a man to come into his village and ravage their way of life. This shows his cultural pride for his people, but he wasn't going to let someone get away with taking this from him. He later decides the only way for him to avoid his fate of being introduced to new views by the white man he hangs himself and it was disgraceful on him and his family and would make his family lose their honor. You can see this on page 207 where it says ¨Why can you take him down? It is against our customs¨ and then this makes us realize by trying to not disgrace his cultural by adopting a new culture he disgraced his own and was an abomination to the village and they could not do anything for him like take him down or bury him. This culture does not approve of suicide like some other cultures, and culture plays a major role in the village and in the hearts of the people who live