African Cultures In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” (The Second Coming) Chinua Achebe used his deep interest in Nigerian cultures to write an accurate depiction of African cultures in response to novels such as “Heart of Darkness” which wrongly portrays Africa as a primordial and cultureless addition to Europe. Furthermore, the novel follows a respected leader of Umuofia through his lifetime 10 years after his father died. Subtle distinctions in the way Achebe writes his book are going to be thoroughly analyzed and given purpose as one reads further on. Alternatively, a slew of characters within this book intimately depicts the …show more content…
This hatred provides the reasoning of Okonkwo’s fearfulness of being mediocre regarding wives and amount of yams, He feels that the futher his life differed from his father 's, the less fearful he would be. This hunger for authority relates to the African culture in the sense that the more authority one has over his people, the more sucessful,he will be and the more one he will be with his chi. Okonkwo has a similar dislike for Nwoye as he did he father for the fear of him recieving the same reputation as Unoka and futhering his ongoing fear of his life relating ti his father 's. Okonkonkwo continues to be fearful when everything he has ever knwon about his culture slowly falls apart. The ibo way faded as the novel continued with the white men invading Umofia while Okonkwo was in his motherland. After Nwoye went witht the missionaries, Okonkwo dismissed his own son. "But on further thought, he to.d himsefl that Nwoye was not worth fighhting for." (Pg. 142) he continued on to Umofia believing that there world would be anarchy and chaos