Things Fall Apart

In the classic bestseller Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, readers receive a plethora of cultural information about the Ibo. Achebe executes the story of Okonkwo and the other characters in Umuofia, where the story takes place, quite well, but it can sometimes become confusing to read about all the culture while still attempting to understand the plot. Due to this particular story’s ability to make it somewhat difficult to retain all the information given, it is helpful to analyse the…

times throughout the book to capture the dangers of vanity. Taking a plain element, the mirror, Grimm warns the audience of the eventual self-destruction that will occur with narcissism. Since motifs remain a conventional literary device, in Things Fall Apart Achebe uses the motif of parent-child relationships to characterize Okonkwo’s brutality and compassion, explore the complex nature of…

angst that he will be marked as cowardly; he would rather be seen as self-reliant than have the ones he thoroughly loves. “Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength” (Pg 28). And in order to prove this, Okonkwo will accomplish or end anything. Deep down he knows that he feels the emotion and affection, and it is with that that he shows so much anger. His cold hearted…

customary to make animal sacrifices to the earth goddess when planting crops. Yet again, ritual is used to communicate respect, in this case to the earth goddess who has control over the success of the yams. The Ibo people in the novel Things Fall Apart strongly believed in their customs and traditions. It’s all they knew all their lives. It wasn’t until the English missionaries came, that’s when everything changed for them. Their struggle to maintain their culture and their…

character’s life such as the many things Nwoye has to go through in a day along with Okonkwo’s pride with the consequences they have to face. He was a role model to Nwoye and a son to Okonkwo. The character, Ikemefuna, from the book, Things Fall Apart serves a role as someone who holds the father son relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye and gives a new change to the family. Topic sentence- Firstly, Someone that is to be loved by Okonkwo would be a very hard thing to accomplish, especially…

Change can normally be thought of as a good or bad thing that can happen to someone. Some people love to have change and explore new ideas and cultures but to others the thought of not having routine and being forced to change terrifies people. Things Fall Apart is a novel about a village that is being overcome with church missionaries trying to convince people to convert to Christianity and leave their traditions behind. In the novel Things Fall Apart the author, Chinua Achebe, recognizes how…

Treatment of the Tribe Okonkwo’s gun exploded and killed a boy during a funeral, he was banished to his motherland for seven years as punishment, after the accidental death of a 16-year-old boy. It was at this time that the missionaries’ movement set in amongst the villagers of Umuofia. Since Okonkwo was not in his village of Umuofia, he was not able to do anything to stop or persuade the villager from participating. Okonkwo’s own son Nwoye became a missionary, after hearing a song that…

mindsets of certain individuals. By seeing different aspects of the world, people tend to find a sense of individuality. Many also start to form their own opinions that can interfere with the thoughts of a group, causing a conflict. In his novel, Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe expresses through the symbolic death of Nwoye and Okonkwo’s suicide that unity and support is necessary in a community for it to become successful. Nwoye becoming Isaac is due to encouragement he did not receive from…

In Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, one of this main focus points is sacrifice. Achebe uses many different kinds of sacrifice throughout his novel. Achebe portrays animal and human sacrifice in the turn on the century African Igbo culture as an integral part of part of African religion. Animal sacrifice is exhibited when Okonkwo slaughters a goat for his first wife’s third child. He sacrifices himself when he cannot get away from the people around him that proselytize to the new…

“‘Thank you. He could brings kola, brings life, but I think you ought to break it,’ replied Okoye, and they argued like this for a few minutes before Unoka accepted the honor of breaking the kola.” (page 6). In the historical-fiction novel Things fall Apart a man named Okonkwo struggles with what he is always known while adapting to the new wave. Missionaries coming from Europe change everything in the villages of the Ibo people. Everything from their government, trade, and religion, changing…