Things Fall Apart
What does it exactly mean to “fall apart?” The protagonist, Okonkwo, and his village, Umuofia, are the concepts of things falling apart in this book. Chinua Achebe develops two stories of struggle in her novel, Things Fall Apart. The village of Umuofia and Okonkwo are in a constant struggle and they believe that the “things” that are changing are deconstructing their culture and tradition. These traditions are what hold the culture of the village together and Okonkwo’s life, but if these traditions are broken or untied, things begin to “fall apart”. Although life in Umuofia seemed perfect and cultured, many “things” occurred to revolutionize their social, political, and economic independence.Okonkwo, a self-made, courageous, strong man will forever hold hostility towards his father, Unoka. He promised himself to never walk in his fathers’ footsteps because he was weak and a failure. Although Okonkwo always portrayed himself to be most powerful and intrepid, he constantly was “dominated by fear” (Achebe 13). However, after he achieved his many goals during his younger years, everything went downhill and eventually no success came out of it. Things started falling apart after Ikemefuna, a captive who stayed with his family . . .
Brown’s influence over the Umuofians dramatically changed their lifestyle and culture. Society fell apart if religion fell apart. Okonkwo was ashamed to have Nwoye for a son and he saw his father’s traits in Nwoye. Okonkwo “regretted every day of his exile” and began to realize he was falling apart after the seven long years in Mbanta (Achebe 162). He did not lose faith in Ikemefuna, but within himself, which made him very weak, similar to his father. The missionaries came to Umuofia with wealth and money the villagers never had. Tradition was the bricks that held a house up, it’s what held the village together, and if it was even touched with, everything went wrong. So now the Umuofians social independence was lost and the desire of a new religion dominated over their culture. Achebe intelligently picked a perfect title for this book, because in three words it explains the novel. The final act of Okonkwo falling apart was his death. This loss resulted in Okonkwo losing faith in his strong family bond, which also parallels to his faith with his own father. His friends grew to dislike him and stopped visiting him, which resulted in losing faith in his friends. He had no choice but to accept his new culture for seven years until he was able to go back to Umuofia. Okonkwo’s death proved to himself that he was a failure and therefore, he lost the greatest thing of all, faith in himself. As soon as the British arrived they built themselves a church and started recruiting the Africans to convert to Christianity.
Common topics in this essay:
Umuofia Okonkwo, Evil Forest, Isaac Browns, Okonkwo Nwoye, Umuofia Achebe, Commerce Conquest, Christianity Okonkwo, , Mbanta Achebe, fall apart, falling apart, Chinua Achebe, lost faith, fell apart, village umuofia, social economic political, social economic, son nwoye, hostility towards, economic political, family bond, |
Acceptance Essays
