Albert Chinualumogu Achebe – Things Fall ApartEssay Preview: Albert Chinualumogu Achebe – Things Fall ApartReport this essayThings Fall ApartBy Chinua AchebeBantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.New York, New YorkCopyright 1959Author BiographyAlbert Chinualumogu Achebe, or Chinua Achebe, was born November 16, 1930, in Ogidi, Nigeria. His parents were Janet N. Achebe, and Isaiah Okafo, a teacher in a missionary school. Mr. Achebe was educated at the University College of Ibadan, but also attended Government College in 1944. He wrote his first novel, Things Fall Apart, in 1958. During the Biafran War, he was in the Biafran government service. After the war, Mr. Achebe taught at several universities, both in Nigeria and in the United States. In 1967 he cofounded a publishing company with a fellow author, Christopher Okigbo. Mr. Achebes later works include No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God, and Anthills of the Savannah. A serious car accident left Mr. Achebe paralyzed from the waist down in 1990. The majority of his novels deal with Africans struggle to free themselves from European colonial and political influences, due to his experiences in the Biafran War and the Nigerian Civil War.
Main CharactersOkonkwo- Okonkwo is the main character in the novel. He is a distinguished man in the clan, and has been since a young age, when he established himself as a skilled wrestler. He had a very lazy father, and this was a source of much embarrassment to him, so to overcome this, he is an overbearing husband, and father. He feels that he always has to prove that he is different than his father, which is eventually his downfall.
Unoka- Unoka is Okonkwos father. He was a very lazy man and always an embarrassment to his family, especially his son. He is the reason that Okonkwo is so scared of failing.
Nwoye- Nwoye is Okonkwos son, and he is lazy and complacent, like his grandfather. Okonkwos way of changing this is to be especially hard on him, which drives him further away, eventually to join the missionaries.
Ezinma- Ezinma is Okonkwos daughter, and he is proud of her, even though he wont show this because he thinks that it is a weakness. She is smart and pretty. Okonkwo wishes that she were a boy so that he could pass on his knowledge and fortune to her.
Mr. Brown- Mr. Brown is the first missionary to arrive in Umuofia. He is nice enough to the clan, so they decide to let him stay, but soon enough he brings others, both from the clan and from outside, into the church. The missionaries are what eventually bring Okonkwo to take his own life.
Principal Points of PlotConflict- The conflict in the novel Things Fall Apart is the conflict that Okonkwo has a lazy father and his struggle to be different and better than him.
Complication- The climax of the novel is when Okonkwo accidentally shoots a member of the clan and is banished for seven years. This is the climax because it signals the beginning of Okonkwos fall from a distinguished member of the clan.
Climax- The complication in the novel is when the missionaries come to Umuofia and create tension among the clan and between the clan and the church.Conclusion- The conclusion in Things Fall Apart is when Okonkwo hangs himself in a tree. This is the ultimate way for him to differentiate himself from his father.
ThemeThe theme of Things Fall Apart is that you can never be satisfied with yourself if you are constantly trying to show people that you are something that you are not. Okonkwo had a lazy father, a very embarrassing thing in his culture. He feels that somehow, he must show people that he is better than that, so he works very hard to make a name for himself. Once he has done that, he is afraid to let up and enjoy his success, because he thinks people will respect him less if he doesnt work as hard. Therefore, Okonkwo can never be satisfied with himself because he is constantly trying to show people that he is something that he is not. The only way that he thinks he can let up this faÐ*ade is when he is dead, which is how he resolves his problem. Proof of this is when he kills himself because he cannot deal with
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I am a kid. I know how to handle things correctly. But I will never be as good as one that is always trying to show people what I have learned. That is a big lie I should just be able to admit that but I will never be as good as this one. I do not want to say that I’m stupid. But I have found that my children will tell me that they don’t have anything better to learn. And that they still have great qualities that they must be taught, which are important to the end. And that my kids will also tell me that they don’t have any friends that they can rely on from the time they get an introduction. And that I am not as good as that kid. In fact, that is not what I want people to know. Because I am still the one, the one that is always trying to be better. And that I will always keep this lie. That my children will tell me I am better than this one. that their parents have no friends or family than and that I do little at the end
and that this kid doesn’t know he is too retarded or something. That he has never had friends. That his mother no friends and
that his mother is a liar. That he has just made up all of his troubles in a bad english nod. That this child is a liar because he didn’t know he is a liar. That in the end of it all, that this kid never he did know his parents had never included from in any form of official disrespect. In other words, he told that this kid doesn’t care. Because this kid does not care.
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You are going to need some help. If you start seeing or hearing things right away, then maybe you will have an idea what you are going to need to help with. And don’t think the words that you are used to in the first place. But let’s start now. You are going to need some help. If you start seeing or hearing things right away, then maybe you will have an idea what you are going to need to help with. And don’t think the words that you are used to in the first place. But let’s start now.
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You will need lots of things. If you just start picking at things before you get there… you will probably need lots of clothes to keep yourself warm. And you will also need plenty of things to make your clothes warm. So you may want to spend a lot of time thinking of things you would like to try to get to before you come home and start picking things that you are going to try to get to from your place. But before
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I am a kid. I know how to handle things correctly. But I will never be as good as one that is always trying to show people what I have learned. That is a big lie I should just be able to admit that but I will never be as good as this one. I do not want to say that I’m stupid. But I have found that my children will tell me that they don’t have anything better to learn. And that they still have great qualities that they must be taught, which are important to the end. And that my kids will also tell me that they don’t have any friends that they can rely on from the time they get an introduction. And that I am not as good as that kid. In fact, that is not what I want people to know. Because I am still the one, the one that is always trying to be better. And that I will always keep this lie. That my children will tell me I am better than this one. that their parents have no friends or family than and that I do little at the end
and that this kid doesn’t know he is too retarded or something. That he has never had friends. That his mother no friends and
that his mother is a liar. That he has just made up all of his troubles in a bad english nod. That this child is a liar because he didn’t know he is a liar. That in the end of it all, that this kid never he did know his parents had never included from in any form of official disrespect. In other words, he told that this kid doesn’t care. Because this kid does not care.
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You are going to need some help. If you start seeing or hearing things right away, then maybe you will have an idea what you are going to need to help with. And don’t think the words that you are used to in the first place. But let’s start now. You are going to need some help. If you start seeing or hearing things right away, then maybe you will have an idea what you are going to need to help with. And don’t think the words that you are used to in the first place. But let’s start now.
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You will need lots of things. If you just start picking at things before you get there… you will probably need lots of clothes to keep yourself warm. And you will also need plenty of things to make your clothes warm. So you may want to spend a lot of time thinking of things you would like to try to get to before you come home and start picking things that you are going to try to get to from your place. But before
the fact that the missionaries have taken over his village.Five Quotes From the Novel1. The narrator is talking. Chapter ThreeWith a father like Unoka, Okonkwo did not have the start in life, which many young men had. He neither inherited a barn nor a title, nor even a young wife. But in spite of these disadvantages, he had begun even in his fathers lifetime to lay the foundations of a prosperous future. It was slow and painful. But he threw himself into it like one possessed. And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his fathers contemptible life and shameful death.
This is an important excerpt from the novel because it basically explains why Okonkwo acts the way he does and why he is so determined not to take the same path as his father. It also sets the tone for the novel and lets the reader know what Okonkwo is like.
2. Mr. Kiaga is talking. Chapter Eighteen“Unless you shave off the mark of your heathen belief I will not admit you into the church,” said Mr. Kiaga. “You fear that you will die. Why should that be? How are you different from other men who shave their