The Thing

the colonization of Africa has brought about a multitude of remarkable changes as a civilization. Nonetheless, forcing Christianity on a culture that has a preexisting religion and tradition system is not the most beneficial approach. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, it becomes apparent that cultures cannot be categorized as more primitive or less primitive because every belief system and value of traditions differ from civilization to civilization. The viewpoints of our world…

Exposure to other cultures has an enormous, sometimes harmful, impact on both tradition and individuals, especially when there is violence in the interaction. This is the case in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The novel describes Ibo culture, and how Christian missionaries affected it, through the unique perspective of the protagonist, Okonkwo. The arrival of Christian missionaries to Nigeria, specifically to the village of Umuofia, severely impacted Okonkwo’s perception of his home village…

Customs play a major part in all our lives. We as a society all are brought up on certain customs in our households and even within our generations. In the novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe customs are yet again essential in their everyday lives. The novel takes place in the Umuofia and Mbanta villages of the Igbo tribe in Nigeria, around the 1900's. Okonkwo, a well-respected warrior of the Umuofia clan, has a rising conflict within the novel between the traditional society of…

In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, both authors demonstrate a form of moral ambiguity. Each author’s moral ambiguity is slightly different which is understandable do to the two different cultures each author is presented. In the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, the main character, Marlow, proves himself to be morally ambiguous because he is willing to go on his European expedition to Africa yet he seems to despise the events he sees there in…

Another significant character in Things Fall Apart is Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son, who succeeds to overcome external forces which threatened to interfere with his life’s stability, and through the character’s life choices, readers examine how to successfully balance their passions and responsibilities. As a child, Nwoye is constantly criticized for his actions by his father and never gets the chance to develop his own personality, instead, it is forcibly molded according to his father’s high…

Imagine getting exiled from your homeland for several years, just to return to it being invaded by a new group of people trying to change your way of life, established many years ago. This is how Okonkwo felt in the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. In the book, the protagonist Okonkwo, lives in Umuofia, with the Ibo people. He is not a very good person however. He beats his wives and only cares about his yams, which symbolize wealth. He then get exiled for killing a person, and…

Literary Analysis of Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, gives prominence to a developed and influential leader Okonkwo. Okonkwo journeys through Africa and the nine different villages. He comes off as inferior, however he lives in constant fear that he is weak inside. “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness […] It was not external, but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of…

In the novels Things fall apart written by Chinua Achebe and Persepolis written by Marjane Satrapi both novels have to similar themes, which is political repression and how the main character goes about fighting it. In Things fall apart British invaders are repressing the Nigerian villagers and in Persepolis the people of Iran are being forced by Islamic Fundamentalist to abide by Islamic law. Each novel does have a protagonist that rebel against their oppressors, in Things fall apart we meet…

In the novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe we learn about the Ibo culture and how it is a male-dominant society that is ran by men. In the village of Umuofia, women have little to no power and men are seen as superior to them. Women are seen as the “weak” sex and have only a few qualities that make them powerful for example the ability of conceiving children, to be an obedient wife, and to be a pure bride. Genders in Ibo society play an important role. The people from Umoufia are gendered…

“Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.” In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo realizes the tragic reality that he has led himself to his demise. Since his youth, Okonkwo has devoted his life to becoming a respected tribe member of Umuofia. And so he did. From his successes as a teenage wrestler, a warrior who beheaded five men, and as the patriarch of his family, Okonkwo has not failed to rise above tribal standards. Although introduced in the novel as a strong figure of his…