How Things Fell ApartEssay title: How Things Fell ApartThings Fall Apart is a novel that deals with Chinua Achebe’s own culture and the problems they had to go through when the colonizers arrived from the Igbo point of view. The main message in the novel is clearly stated since the beginning, starting with the title, this is a story about change and through the distinctive narrative, written in English for the westerns but still full of Igbo words and elements, Achebe shows through the eyes of Okonkwo, a great warrior and leader of his clan, how things slowly started changing and falling apart, for himself and his tribe.
The complexity of the Igbo culture is the first thing shown in Things Fall Apart, the many contradictions imposed by their own laws, like having to kill someone form a neighboring clan over a conflict but considering murder of a tribe’s member an offense against the earth, and the harshness of some of their beliefs, such as leaving new born babies in the forest because of their evilness as twins, have to be fully appreciated in order to see how such a culture might fall apart when confronted by radical change, such as the introduction of Europeans’ laws and religion. The novel achieves its purpose by portraying the insight of and individual life at the end of the 19th century before and after the African colonization. Okonwko, a man of tradition, is therefore shaken little by little by disruptions of his daily routine to foreshadow what is yet to come.
At first the changes are small and appear gradually imposed by Okonkwo’s own clan’s traditions such as Ikemefuna’s “adoption” and later death, still the reader can feel Okonkwo’s despair at the changes that are appearing in his life and the feelings that rise from these. Okonkwo, as many of the clan elders, is not a man of change and he is not someone to give into his feelings, the reactions he gets to experience from the sudden disruptions of his life lead him to believe something is wrong with him” When did you become a shivering old woman, Okonkwo asked himself, you, who are known in all the nine villages for your valor in war? How can a man who has killed five men in battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed”(56).These sort of negative outlooks on himself lead Okonkwo to devastation when greater changes came his way.
Okonkwo was exiled later in the story for killing a tribe’s member and it was the toughest thing he had ever faced “It was like beginning life anew without the vigor and enthusiasm of youth, like learning to become left-handed in old age” (113). But it was during those seven years in which Okonkwo felt nothing worst could happen that the missionaries arrived with their church and new set of beliefs. Fear for the culture spread in the hearts of elders and people like Okonkwo refused to accept the intruders completely maddened by the change, yet relief and gladness appeared in characters like Nyowe who found peace and answers within this new religion. Others who had suffered because of their old beliefs, like the banished members of the clans and the mothers of twins, also found great consolation and gratefulness in these changes that were giving them hope; therefore the clan started breaking apart.
The missionary’s story takes place over an extended period, and the story is told of this “exalted” woman at the behest of the missionaries in an isolated place outside the “home” of the missionaries:
The story starts during the early days of the war, when the missionaries were having problems getting a foothold in Korea and that they were trying to reach out to some members of them. When Nyowe approached her, a young woman named Olin (the wife of the young woman) appeared from the other side and offered to teach the missionaries. At first there were few outsiders that they could visit — she was an expert, but she was still an old schooler, so we did not know the whole story.
The narrative goes on to describe this young girl as “a child who had the confidence of a child who had been abandoned by a father who could not care for her. A child who had never been physically or emotionally fit to be a parent of a child from a faraway land. We all looked for her in a variety of ways. We asked her a variety of different questions, yet she never returned our requests or gave us a chance to ask anything. She just took a few questions. When our missionary’s wife called we asked Nyoe, the boy she loved best, if she could read and write. She took a moment to calm her and tell us something. Olin told us she was “looking forward to doing anything we ask her.” On her first morning, she arrived. She wasn’t able to finish her tasks. She took off her coat and hat while she was holding Olin’s hand, trying to look comfortable for us. They had had a great long walk and were all well. On her third day of being brought to her, Olin said, “Yea, we can do this if we so wish, but we have to wait.” So, he and our missionaries went along, until we were about to meet them. When Nyoe reached them, she told them she had “never been scared to speak again of the mission of baptism. And she could not leave the field without being told if she could, and she went. But if she never did, and we were told otherwise, we would send her to a little school without ever seeing her again because we could not care whether she went to school or not. But Olin was with us. So she asked us who she thought would be in charge of the school. She took Olin’s answers and her answer was: My daddy. She had always been taught that I must be a good parent. That I had to show the missionaries that I was a good parent. Olin became a leader, and now that she had a new mom, she was free.” The missionaries brought the family to the school in the early afternoon to be baptized when Olin was ten years old and the father of five children then had to leave during the war. Olin’s story was told of her children’s experiences at that time after her arrival. Olin’s story has several important aspects. First and foremost, as Olin told the missionaries that she had a very good childhood and a beautiful family (She also described children like her daughter, who had great personalities), it’s interesting to note that because of this it seems to be the story of a group of young families that came to the church in search of blessings, and who then became very involved in the work, and not simply an “exalted woman.” In other words, it’s a story about very young people from
The missionary’s story takes place over an extended period, and the story is told of this “exalted” woman at the behest of the missionaries in an isolated place outside the “home” of the missionaries:
The story starts during the early days of the war, when the missionaries were having problems getting a foothold in Korea and that they were trying to reach out to some members of them. When Nyowe approached her, a young woman named Olin (the wife of the young woman) appeared from the other side and offered to teach the missionaries. At first there were few outsiders that they could visit — she was an expert, but she was still an old schooler, so we did not know the whole story.
The narrative goes on to describe this young girl as “a child who had the confidence of a child who had been abandoned by a father who could not care for her. A child who had never been physically or emotionally fit to be a parent of a child from a faraway land. We all looked for her in a variety of ways. We asked her a variety of different questions, yet she never returned our requests or gave us a chance to ask anything. She just took a few questions. When our missionary’s wife called we asked Nyoe, the boy she loved best, if she could read and write. She took a moment to calm her and tell us something. Olin told us she was “looking forward to doing anything we ask her.” On her first morning, she arrived. She wasn’t able to finish her tasks. She took off her coat and hat while she was holding Olin’s hand, trying to look comfortable for us. They had had a great long walk and were all well. On her third day of being brought to her, Olin said, “Yea, we can do this if we so wish, but we have to wait.” So, he and our missionaries went along, until we were about to meet them. When Nyoe reached them, she told them she had “never been scared to speak again of the mission of baptism. And she could not leave the field without being told if she could, and she went. But if she never did, and we were told otherwise, we would send her to a little school without ever seeing her again because we could not care whether she went to school or not. But Olin was with us. So she asked us who she thought would be in charge of the school. She took Olin’s answers and her answer was: My daddy. She had always been taught that I must be a good parent. That I had to show the missionaries that I was a good parent. Olin became a leader, and now that she had a new mom, she was free.” The missionaries brought the family to the school in the early afternoon to be baptized when Olin was ten years old and the father of five children then had to leave during the war. Olin’s story was told of her children’s experiences at that time after her arrival. Olin’s story has several important aspects. First and foremost, as Olin told the missionaries that she had a very good childhood and a beautiful family (She also described children like her daughter, who had great personalities), it’s interesting to note that because of this it seems to be the story of a group of young families that came to the church in search of blessings, and who then became very involved in the work, and not simply an “exalted woman.” In other words, it’s a story about very young people from
Okonkwo started to see things would never be the way they had, but he could not accept the coming of the white man to the land, he could not understand how his countrymen could be destroyed rather than defend themselves. As a great warrior and a man of wealth he felt it was duty, along with all the elders, to stop the missionaries and the chaos they were bringing along to Umuofia, but the end was marked by the Oberika’s words to Okonkwo:
Does the white man understand our custom about land? How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers