Literary Analysis Of Things Fall Apart

In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe employs imagery, symbolism, and themes to reveal the story of Okonkwo. Throughout the novel he weaves in these things to really tell us the tale.

Many people have their own culture, wouldn’t you agree? Some feel more strongly about their culture than others. Culture is something that is a large part in everyone’s life. It determines who you are and how you handle situations. When two cultures interact with each other and start mixing up, it results in something called a cultural collision. A cultural collision can be seen as a good thing or it can become something negative within both cultures. In the novel, Things Fall Apart culture is used everywhere. Culture is the main topic that is introduced throughout the novel. The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Nwoye has a huge part in the cultural collision that is occurring, between

For all of his desire to be strong, Okonkwo is caught up by the constant fear of being perceived as weak. He is afraid of failure and afraid of being considered weak. This fear drives him to do whatever he can to not become a failure like his father which ironically contributes to his death. While Okonkwo was a strong and important figure in his tribe, he had to keep his reputation that way by making some hard decisions. One of them was when he had to kill Ikemefuna, a young boy from the neighboring tribe. Okonkwo started accepting the decision to kill Ikemefuna because he started to call Okonkwo father. He had to keep his own valor intact and kill the boy to prevent himself from showing any weakness, but deep down, Okonkwo was really upset because of what he did which was ironic, “’When did you become a shivering old woman,' Okonkwo asked himself, 'you, who are known in all the nine villages for your valor in war? How can a man who has killed five men in battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.'" (Achebe 65). He continued to roll downhill when the white man comes to try and convert Okonkwo’s tribe. Okonkwo responds by killing one of the messengers that were sent. This cause Okonkwo's own tribe to question his actions. “"Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape.

In Things Fall Apart the Igbo society is dominated by gender roles. Husbands beat their wives just for bringing food a few minutes late. Women are completely discriminated against. In fact, it is an insult to call a man an agbala (a woman). To men, women exist in a world in which they are "to be seen not heard, coming and going, with mounds of foofoo, pots of water, market baskets, fetching kola, being scolded and beaten before they disappear behind the huts of their compound" (Mezu 2). However, the role of women is far more essential than the male villagers believe. Achebe repeatedly refers to the masculinity or femininity of a person. Though Achebe seems to believe that men seem to dominate relationships, in fact, there are many ways in

Culture collision is not something that you hear about everyday. Culture collision is the clash of cultures or values. This can be triggered by many things and the way we react to it is due to our personality. When this does occur it can impact our lives in such a great way. It can have an affect on who we are and what we stand for. In the novel “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe we take a look at the character Okonkwo and see how he is affect by his Culture collision and see that his personality is the the factor in the way he reacts to it.

His fear took over his entire life. Achebe says, "Okonkwo ruled his house with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children."(9). This quote explains that Okonkwo was very abusive towards his family members, not only that but whenever his children, especially his first son, Nwoye, showed signs of being anything like Unoka, "-he(Okonkwo) sought to correct him(Nwoye) by constant nagging and beating. And so he developed into a sad-faced youth"(Achebe 10). This intimate fear of Okonkwo's has affected the livelihoods of his family, however, there's one event when he let his fear of femininity get the best of him. In Chapter 7, Okonkwo's adopted son, Ikemefuna, is murdered. But the blood of Ikemefuna is on Okonkwo's hands. Achebe explains,"-He heard the blow. The pot fell and broke in the sand. He heard Ikemefuna cry, "My father, they have killed me!" as he ran towards him. Dazed with fear, he drew his machete and cut

In these pages from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, literary devices including details and proverbs are used to reveal both the tradition and challenge of tradition to the Igbo people.

The description given early in the novel clearly establishes his character as being a strong and wealthy man who is well respected among the rest of the tribe due to his superior fighting abilities and his influential personality. Having achieved such elite status within the Umuofia clan, Okonkwo appears to be old-fashioned as it is seen in his approach in raising his family and tribal people. However, Okonkwo’s character changes incrementally with the emergence of a boy, Ikemefuna, from a neighboring village, who was brought to him because of his brutal attack against his wife Ojiugo during the ‘week of peace’. Amongst the Umuofia clan, the ‘week of peace’ is a tribal ritual whose conditions are not to complete any evil sins in a certain week span. After having accepted Ikemefuna into the family, Okonkwo experiences a shift in his mental state. Shortly hereafter, he questions this change, which demonstrates his lack of willingness to change which is clearly demonstrated in the book in several different ways like in chapter Eight, Okonkwo proclaims to himself, “When did you become a shivering old woman, you, who are known in all nine villages for your valour in war” (Achebe 56). This represents that his character has become a weaker, less influential individual amongst the nine tribes where he is well known. Symbolically, this depicts a fragile reputation in Okonkwo’s status within the community to which he belongs.

“whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness” (16). He put his fears he had into the rules and tradition of Umofia and it is what made him who he became.“was the fear of himself, lest he should be to resemble his father” (17). The traditions of Umuofia resembled the opposites of what Unoka was and Okonkwo twisted his motivations around in his mind and presented them to the community as derived from the villages traditions. From this delusion, Okonkwo established his goal of becoming a highly placed member of the village, achieving many titles, and achieving anything necessary displaying his dominance in the

Failure is inevitable, everything leads to failure due to unruly human errors. Achebe illustrates the ending of an era in the Things Fall Apart, which was influenced by another piece of literature: “The Second Coming”. Although Things Fall Apart and “The Second Coming” both analyze distinct time periods, both pieces of literature use negative tone, diction, and symbols to reveals the theme everything leads to failure.

Okonkwo life is “dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness” (Achebe 13). When Okonkwo was a boy, his playmates teased him calling, saying that his father was agbala. Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, was lazy. He did not work on his farm; he died in great debt. He did not acquire a single title. He did not have a barn to pass down to his son. Unoka is a type of man who is scorned in Umofia. He is seen as weak and effeminate. As Okonkwo grows older, he is determined not become a failure like his father. His father was weak; he will be strong. His father was lazy; he will be hard-working. Okonkwo earned his fame by defeating the reigning wrestling champion. Okonkwo diligently plants yam, building a successful farm. He builds himself an obi, has three wives and many children. His fame “rested on solid personal achievements” (Achebe 3). Okonkwo will not let one womanly trait sully his reputation. Therefore, he “hate[d] everything that his father Unoka had loved” (Achebe 13). One of these was gentleness. Okonkwo refuses to show any signs of emotion, except his temper. He

Okonkwo’s fear of unmanliness is kindled by his father, who was a lazy, unaccomplished man. Okonkwo strives to have a high status from a young age and eventually achieves it. He has a large family, many yams and is well known throughout the village for his valor. He

Okonkwo’s culture tells him to beat what he cannot fix, this idea evolved from his father, his mother culture and the lazy ways that came with it. The major factors that shape Nwoye’s view on a culture are his father, his mother culture and the white man. Along with Christianity he completely destroys the values of Okonkwo’s culture. “ Nwoye had been attracted to the new faith from the very first day, but he kept it a secret”(Achebe 149). Nwoye is too afraid of his father, as is, symbolically the clashing culture afraid of the mother culture and the outcome of the clash. The notion of the white man, along with Christianity assimilates Nwoye and his culture. And the factors above shape the view of what he wants a culture to be.

Okonkwo's fear of being perceived as weak tragically leads to him to be unnecessarily violent and excessively prideful. These two fatal flaws lead to Okonkwo’s own emotional isolation, and his inevitable downfall. Driven by the fear of being seen as weak and emasculated, Okonkwo exhibits hyper masculinity and rage. Although this behavior initially leads to success in the patriarchal society of Umofia, rage is his greatest bane: it masks his compassion and pusillanimity. Onkonkwo’s obsession to never appear feminine is driven to the extreme. He denies affection even to his own family, “never show[ing] any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To [Okonkwo] show[ing] affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.” (pg. 28). Okonkwo whose “whole life [is] dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.” (pg. 13) suppress his compassion in order to appear important and manly. Ironically this creates a stark juxtaposition between his own fear and his position as an alpha male. Rather than being masculine and courageous, Okonkwo just creates tension within his family and within himself. The pinnacle of this extreme hypermasculinity is when Okonkwo ignores the wisdom of the elder Ezeudu, and violently kills his “son” Ikamafuna: “As the man who had cleared his throat drew up and raised his machete, Okonkwo looked away. He had heard Ikamafuna cry “My father, they have killed me!”

Okonkwo's first and most prominent flaw is his fear of becoming a failure. It is greatly influenced by his father, but Okonkwo takes his fear to the extreme. Okonkwo's father was a very lazy and carefree man. He had a reputation of being "poor and his wife and children had just barely enough to eat... they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back." (Achebe Page: 5) In Umuofia, a father is supposed to teach the children right and wrong, and in this case, the lessons were not taught, but self-learned. Okonkwo had to rely on his own interpretations of what defined a "good man" and to him that was someone that was the exact opposite of his father. As a result of his own self-taught conclusions, Okonkwo feels that anything resembling his father or anything that his father enjoyed was weak and unnecessary. Because of his fear to be seen as weak, Okonkwo even strikes down a child that calls him father: "(and as the machete came down] Okonkwo looked away. He heard the blow... He heard Ikemefuna cry 'My father, they have killed me!'... Okonkwo draws his machete and cuts him down, he does not want to be thought weak." (Achebe page:61) The fact that he kills the child shows that the way that he thinks is wrong, that reputation is more important than the life of a child. Although it is a shame to be