Achebe's Things Fall Apart

The book Things Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe tells of an Ibo village in Africa and its culture, along with how they are changed after the missionaries from England come to their villages. The missionaries impose their beliefs and religion onto the Ibo people through school and preaching the “right way to live”. The characters followed in this book are Okonkwo, an icon in the Ibo village; Nwoye, Okonkwo’s outsider son; and Obierika, one of Okonkwo’s good friends. This book helps to demonstrate many different character reactions to the introduction of new ideas and religion into their everyday life, such as in Okonkwo, who shows the internal struggle of facing the change happening in front of him to his friends and family. Okonkwo, being a set in his ways character, needed the consistency of his culture and village to validate who he was and everything he …show more content…
When that began to change, he started to lose a sense of who he was. Okonkwo’s character is very stubborn and violent by nature, so it makes seeing his reaction to conflicts interesting. Okonkwo’s realization that there was change happening began with his son, Nwoye. Nwoye was a child that challenged Okonkwo’s idea of normal the minute he was old enough to participate in the manly things his father thought he should be doing. Okonkwo often berated his son for acting childish and like a girl, such as when they were preparing the yams for the next growing season. “You think you are still a child. I began to own a farm at your age. … I will not have a son who cannot hold up his head in the gathering of the clan. I would sooner strangle him with my own hands.” (32-33, Achebe). Nwoye’s incompetence in farming set off alarms in Okonkwo’s head because he showed signs