Things Fall Apart

THINGS FALL APART

Umofia is a place where people have a different life style then there is in a

modern society. People in Umofia are both civilized and savage at the same time.

There are both of the civilized and savage sides of the society but mostly they are

old-fashion minded. For example, in Ibo society they do not value women at all,

they are not equal by laws, they do not have any protection or any rights, etc. I

am going to define the terms civilized and savage firstly.

First of all, a civilized society has laws that are fair for people’s own

protection. In a civilized society, people must be free and be able to make their

own decisions. In Ibo society, sometimes-even men are not allowed to give their

own decisions and I think Umofia is only civilized in some ways. In a civilized

society, each person have equal rights like; speaking and thinking freely,

expressing freely, being able to make your own decisions. Also, there must be

certain rules, laws and punishments to protect the people. In Ibo society there

are no laws to protect people and only men and high status people have their

own freedom. For example, women have no value or any kind of right to protect

their selves, for men women are just able to give birth to children and do house

jobs and men are beating them or the children heavily as they want.

Secondly, a savage society is a society, which is not domesticated or cultivated,

in other words kind of barbaric. In “Things Fall Apart” we can see in many ways

that the Ibo society is not civilized at all and there is a savage system going on in

the society. There is no justice between the people, the weak has no value

among the society and only the strongest wins and gets some things. The trials,

social and family rituals, the marriage customs, preparation processes for food

production, leadership in the community religious beliefs are all symbolizing the

savageness in the society.

In my opinion, Ibo tribes that Okankwo belongs to are definitely a savage

community. Because they have different traditions, religion believes and they

have no laws or rules to protect people. Being a civilized community is most

importantly having self-protection. For example, the Ibo people who lives in

Okankwo’s village have very uncivilized beliefs, such as killing twins, leaving sick

people to death, they do not give any value to women and they kill who ever they

want to kill. So we can see from here that they do not have any self-protection.

The best example for that is Okankwo, he killed Ikemefuna to prove that he is a

powerful men and he does not give anyone any value. They also have

punishments for the ones who make mistakes in important events, such as The

Weak Of Peace; in the weak of peace every bad habit is forbidden. When

Okankwo beats his wife in the weak of peace he get punishment from the elders.

They believe more than one god and each person has their own chi. Also, they

have different ways to avoid war. For example, when a girl got killed from

Umofia in another village, to avoid from a possible war, the Ibo society wanted a

virgin and a lag from the other village.

In conclusion, Okankwo’s village is a savage community. People are not equal,

they are violent and they believe only men are valuable. In my opinion, in a

civilized community you need to be safe and have equal rights and laws to

protect you. People who live in Umofia are all old fashion-minded.