Things Fall Apart Research Paper

Derrick Phillips
4/10/13
APLIT B-3

THINGS FALL APART ESSAY

Things Fall Apart, a pivoting novel written by Nigerian native Chinua Achebe. The novel is set in Nigeria, Africa, and encompasses the adversity of a once prosperous village leader known as Okonkwo, and the Igbo people. The novel depicts the rise and fall of the Umuofia tribes, culture and society, as it conforms to the onset of White Europeans descending upon the continent. Not only does Africa change, Okonkwo does as well. Due to his constant fear of weakness, and an accidental murder that he is guilty of committing, his world quickly crumbles. Achebe uses symbolism to convey the extinction of tribal culture by using Okonkwo’s life
He is a 15 year old boy who treats Okonkwo as his own father, however Okonkwo does not feel the same way to him. Ikefuma is the centerpiece in which Okonkwo’s anger flows out. Ikemefuna is constantly the subject of the blind wrath that his faux dad enacts upon him. “He [Ikemefuna] could not understand what was happening to him or what he had done. How could he know that his father had taken a hand in killing a daughter of Umuofia?” (Ch.2 Pg.20). This shows how Ikemefuna’s fear stems directly from his adopted dad anger and fear, even though he is totally innocent, he is Okonkwo’s outlet for his own pain and misery. Eventually he murders Ikemefuna with a machete out of the fear of being weak. This was the first foreshadow that African culture was slowly receding. Even though it is quite normal for tribes to settle their differences with ultimatums such as trading children, it is not normal for tribal leaders to go insane, and brutally cut down their sons. Chinua Achebe most likely did this to show how the ancient bloodline of these people will soon die out (trading of the children pollutes the bloodline, and the children cannot follow their own tribes
The swarm of locust quickly feasts of the crops leaving the people with nothing but stripped plants. In many cultures at the time, this was considered a great omen, and a sign for the bad things to come. This quote foreshadows how white people will soon come to exploit and destroy the land. “The Oracle . . . said that other white men were on their way. They were locusts.” (Ch.15 Pg.138-139). This quote shows the omens that are laid out before the tribe. Okonkwo goes on to tell how the Abame tribe was annihilated by white men once they realized the fate of their bicycle riding companion. The locusts also represent how Christianity, a new religion to Africans, will quickly spread over the land like a plague. Okonkwo also realizes this when the Christian missionary preached to the crowd about how only the christian God was real, and all the other Gods that the African’s believed in were made up scraps of fiction. From then on out, Okonkwo starts rebelling against the foreigners. Eventually Okonkwo strikes down the head messenger. Since no one wanted to defend their own beliefs, he realizes that the Igbo culture, and soon to be many other African cultures were literally