A Mesh of the New and the Old: Analysis of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

A Mesh of the New and the Old A human, by definition; “of or pertaining to the social aspect of people” (Merriam Webster). By composition merely “65 percent oxygen, 18.6 percent carbon, 9.7 percent hydrogen, 3.2 percent nitrogen” (madsci.org), and an abundance of other trace elements. However, when you describe humanity as a whole, the perspective changes and describing it gets much more complicated than a simple definition, or a matrix of elements. This is because humanity can not exist without change. Change is the driving force behind all that is and will be, as well as defining the past. For this reason alone, the colonization of the Africa, as described in “Things Fall Apart”, was to the natives benefit. A stagnate society will not prosper, we are renowned and remembered for the changes and choices we make. The colonization of Africa did not just change the land , but the people that inhabited it as well. One of the major changes in Okonkwo village was the introduction of a new religion. This not only changed the way people viewed the world and their beliefs, but it brought physical change as well. With the implantation of the church came new rules and laws that the villagers had to respect and follow. An example of this is the traditional title system they used in the village. As soon as some lower, or unrespected members of society attend church, a vast majority of the members where disgruntled at the fact that they are seen at the same status as themselves. For many years before the colonization started, a title of a man is all he had. There were no credentials or ways of showing or proving yourself. This theory of society is pushed aside and disregarded by the settlers and their new ways. “'Before God,' he said, 'there is no slave or free. We are all children of God and we must receive these our brothers.'” (Things Fall Apart 156). This is seen most prevalently when the church does not look down on a lady who has had four sets of twins, instead they