Thingss Fal Apart Essay, Research Paper

Thingss Fall Apart

Thingss Fall Apart is a narrative about personal beliefs and imposts and besides a narrative about struggle. There is battle between household, civilization, and faith of the Ibo people which is all brought on by a difference in personal beliefs and imposts. There are the strong sentiments of the chief character, Okonkwo. We are besides introduced to the positions of his small town, Umuofia. Finally, we see how things fall apart when these beliefs and imposts are confronted by those of the white missionaries. Chinua Achebe is a merchandise of both native and European civilizations. This has a great consequence on the relation of the narrative. When he tells the narrative with an apprehension and personal experiences in both civilizations. He does non portray the African civilization and their beliefs as barbaric. He merely tells it as it is and how things happened. It is the same with the white work forces. Chinua Achebe realized that neither of the civilizations were bad, but they merely had a difference in beliefs. We see a struggle early in the narrative between Okonkwo and his male parent, Unoka. & # 8220 ; Okonkwo was ruled by one passion & # 8211 ; to detest everything that his male parent Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness & # 8221 ; ( p.13 ) . Unoka was considered to be a failure. Okonkwo did non have anything from his male parent and he had to get down out with nil. His end in life was to obtain great wealth and to hold many married womans and kids. The Ibo people considered these things marks of success. Yet, his greatest end was his desire to go one of the powerful seniors of the kin. It is Okonkwo & # 8217 ; s interior choler and resentment over his male parent & # 8217 ; s failure that seemed to be the drive force behind everything he did in life. This was apparent in the fact that he ever felt as though he had to make what was manfully and he hated failing. Just as Okonkwo did non desire to be like his male parent, Nwoye did non desire to be like Okonkwo. Nwoye possessed traits that Okonkwo did non such as gradualness, forgiveness, and credence. Okonkwo saw these as marks of failing. & # 8220 ; Okonkwo ne’er showed any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of choler. To demo fondness was a mark of failing ; the lone thing worth showing was strength & # 8221 ; ( p.28 ) . Okonkwo considered Nwoye to be lazy and wanted him to be a success like himself. & # 8220 ; Okonkwo wanted his boy to be a great husbandman and a great adult male. I will non hold a boy who can non keep up his caput in the assemblage of the kin. I would sooner strangulate him with my ain custodies & # 8221 ; ( p.33 ) . This is an illustration of the difference in personal beliefs among household. Some may state that the book is about the differences in beliefs between the Africans and the colonisers, but it is more than that. It is clear that it was Okonkwo & # 8217 ; s personal beliefs and non needfully the positions of the people of Umuofia which guided him in what he did. One of these is his trust in the strength of choler. Although he felt strongly in the beliefs and imposts of the Ibo people, there are several occasions in which Okonkwo made a determination to disobey the imposts in order to populate out his ain personal beliefs. For illustration, in chapter four, Okonkwo is yelled at by Ezeani, the priest of the Earth goddess, for crushing his married woman during the sacred hebdomad of peace. Okonkwo did non experience compunction for his actions and likely idea of it as a mark of strength and manhood. Okonkwo was ever worried about being seen as weak. One good illustration of this is when he kills Ikemefuna. Okonkwo liked the male child because he saw several good qualities in him that he wished his ain boy possessed. He had to be killed because of one of their imposts. When it came clip to kill Ikemefuna, Okonkwo delivered the 2nd and concluding blow from his matchet and killed the male child so that people would non believe that he was weak. After Ikemefuna was killed, Okonkwo was unable to eat or imbibe for yearss because he was upset. But, he made himself acquire rid of those feelings and reminded himself that killing s

omeone should non trouble oneself him because he feared being seen as weak, like a “shivering woman” ( p. 45 ) . This same event is besides a major dislocation for Okonkwo. Killing Ikemefuna represents killing off everything in which Okonkwo believed really strongly in. He saw many of his ain qualities in Ikemefuna. He could hold done a batch of good for the kin and Okonkwo was really proud of him but, he ends up killing Ikemefuna himself. Merely as Okonkwo was deriving power and higher places within the kin, he was banished for seven old ages for by chance killing another member of the kin. They burned all his huts down and he and he and his household had to populate in his fatherland. Even though everyone knew that he was guiltless and that the ostracism was meant for slaying, no 1 was willing to dispute the tradition. The fact that the Ibo people relied on tradition and would non accept alteration was a weak point in their society. As Okonkwo was fixing to return to Umuofia from his clip is exile, he was anticipating the people to be exited for his return. He thought they would be happy to hold their warrior leader back place. Their reaction was non what he expected. He believed that the people had grown weak. The missionaries had besides arrived in Umuofia. Okonkwo was non scared of them at foremost. He did non believe that anyone would believe what they had to state. The reaching of the missionaries is the issue in the book in which there is the biggest clang of beliefs. When the Christian faith was introduced, many members of the kin who were non happy with the Ibo faith became interested. Some of the title-less work forces were besides interested. Nwoye, who did non O.K. of go forthing the purportedly evil twin babes in the forests or the violent death of Ikemefuna, was besides interested in Christianity because it taught that killing guiltless people was incorrect. When Okonkwo heard that Nwoye was sing with the missionaries, he was infuriated and he kicked him out of the house. In general, Okonkwo was fearful and highly immune to the new faith because it had the potency of destroying the life long work of the kin of seeking to delight the Gods of its ascendants. Merely as we can see a difference in personal beliefs within the kin, we can besides see the difference in imposts or methods or motivations between the two missionaries. Mr. Brown was a really inactive and understanding adult male, whereas, Mr. Smith was more forceful and condemning of the people. He did non seek to understand the imposts of the kin, he merely told them that they were incorrect and Christianity was right. Thingss truly got heated up when a convert unmasked and killed an egwugwu. In retaliation, the church was burnt down. Okonkwo and other members of the kin were brought before the commissioner and were harassed and beaten. It was after this that a town meeting was called. Okonkwo was infuriated and determined to contend the white work forces. When a courier came to interrupt up the meeting, Okonkwo was so angered that he killed the adult male. In the terminal, Okonkwo committed self-destruction by hanging himself. He knew that the people would non contend and he was ashamed of what the Ibo society had become. “He knew that Umuofia would non travel to war. He knew because they had let the other courier flight. They had broken into uproar alternatively of action” ( p.205 ) . Everything he lived for and believed in was traveling to be taken off by the white work forces. He did non desire to see that go on so he took his ain life. Yet, this is dry because, in making so, he was perpetrating an act which was considered one of the worst actions a member could make in the Ibo society. Throughout the narrative we see how strong Okonkwo’s personal beliefs were and how much they meant to him. Beliefs, both personal and those of the society person is born into, play a major function in their life. This narrative is an illustration of what happens when those beliefs are taken off and others are forced upon a individual. Everyone needs to believe in something, and things fall apart when they no longer can.

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