Role of Religion in Things Fall Apart

Gender roles play a very important part in today’s society. Throughout the decades, gender expectations have been created and forced on both men and women. These expectations tell the different genders what their responsibilities are and how they should act according to society. What is expected of men and women has created a massive division between the various existing genders. The roles and expectations of the genders are seen everywhere, especially in the media. The standards that men and…

In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, greatness is defined by worth- or how much one accomplishes in a lifetime. Okonkwo, the main character, diligently works for everything he earns. His passion to be successful comes from his fear of turning out like his father, Unoka, who died with “no title at all and was heavily in debt” (8). Okonkwo fears the thought of becoming nothing. He keeps this fear with him and uses it as a strength to push himself through every hardship and reach the status his…

Suicide in the Igbo culture is considered Nso ani. In the book “Things Fall Apart,” Nso ani is described as a religious offense of a kind abhorred by everyone, literally earth’s taboo (2, A Glossary of Ibo Words and Phrases). The Igbo culture frowns upon the act of a man taking their own life and this act is considered taboo and evil. The clan finds that a person who commits this crime is considered shameful and does not receive a proper burial and is instead thrown into a bush (1). The clansmen…

“the maintenance or administration of what is just by law,” but this does not fully capture the connotation of the term “just.” To fully understand the concept of “just,” one must explore the more ambiguous concepts of culture, religion, and class. In Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, this ambiguity is explored as justice is dissected through the portrayal of conflict between Christian missionary tradition and Tribal legal action. Nwoye’s characterization mirrors this conflict as Nwoye’s personal…

behavior. A burning stick, though turned to the ground, has its flame drawn upwards" (Pandita). The metaphor mentioned in this quote, one that compares a struggling man to surviving flame, is not unlike the character of Okonkwo in the novel Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. Okonkwo was an honored member of an African clan, the Igbo, who lived his life with one goal: strength. Okonkwo pushed himself to be the essence of masculinity and power in every facet of his life, which left him…

The novel Things Fall Apart, represents exactly how missionaries treated the Igbo people when they came into their compounds and forced their religion upon them. This is shown when Obierika tells the White Commissioner “That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be burned like…

numerous people groups lives to be changed for ever. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe was an immaculate sample of what impact new thoughts…

Two main characters share similar traits from respective pieces of literature, one is a quasi-ruler of an African hamlet and the other is a soldier fighting deadly robots. In Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe, Ezeulu is the chief priest of multiple villages in Africa that is slowly being colonized by the British in the early Twentieth Century. Second Variety by Phillip K. Dick is a short science fiction story set in an apocalyptic future about a military officer named Major Joseph Hendricks, who…

dramatically. He became quiet and withdrawn, much to the dismay of his father. When the missionaries came into the area they seemed to have some of the answers that Nwoye was looking for. Nwoye had to leave his family to be a part of the new religion although he had plans to return to convert his mother and sisters. Okonkwo had given up on his son; he didn’t believe that Nwoye was worth fighting for. He had never thought of his son as masculine. Nwoye knew he disappointed his father, but…

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is a powerful novel about the social changes that occurred when the white man first arrived on the African continent. The novel is based on a conception of humans as self-reflexive beings and a definition of culture as a set of control mechanisms. Things Fall Apart is the story of Okonkwo, an elder, in the Igbo tribe. He is a fairly successful man who earned the respect of the tribal elders. The story of Okonkwo’s fall…