Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, gets its name from the poem “The Second Coming.” “The Second Coming” describes the chaos after an unstated event. Things Fall Apart (TFA) is about a man named Okonkwo and his tribe. The novel is split into parts which follow his life and the changes in his society after white settlers arrive. Lines 3-6 in “The Second Coming” can be used to illustrate the destruction of the way of life experienced by the Igbo people in TFA. The line of the poem which lends its name to TFA is “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;” (Yeats 3). In TFA, white settlers bring Christianity to the Igbo tribe of Nigeria. The settlers are welcomed at first, but they soon threaten the Igbo way of life. The settlers build churches (150, Achebe),
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These changes, among others, break apart the society. The church causes villagers to question their gods, and many convert to Christianity. When people begin to convert, the society becomes fragmented. Onkonkwo even loses his own son’s loyalty when Nwoye, his son, joins the church. Accepting the outcasts, or osu, has the same effect on the village. The social class system is broken, and the established order starts to lose meaning. One of the men who converted and joined the church commites the crime of unmasking an egwugwu. The unmasking symbolized the death of a spirit, and was the worst offense anyone could commit. A similar effect happened when a sacred python was killed by a church member. “Things fall apart” (Yeats 3) is an accurate way to describe what the church is causing in the tribe. As the church gains more influence and followers, the tribe’s way of life begins to break apart. “The center
These changes, among others, break apart the society. The church causes villagers to question their gods, and many convert to Christianity. When people begin to convert, the society becomes fragmented. Onkonkwo even loses his own son’s loyalty when Nwoye, his son, joins the church. Accepting the outcasts, or osu, has the same effect on the village. The social class system is broken, and the established order starts to lose meaning. One of the men who converted and joined the church commites the crime of unmasking an egwugwu. The unmasking symbolized the death of a spirit, and was the worst offense anyone could commit. A similar effect happened when a sacred python was killed by a church member. “Things fall apart” (Yeats 3) is an accurate way to describe what the church is causing in the tribe. As the church gains more influence and followers, the tribe’s way of life begins to break apart. “The center