THINGS FALL APART

Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart

Introduction

Chinua Achebe born in 1930 is a Nigerian writer, novelist, poet and literary critic. His parents raised him in the Protestant faith, but also taught him in the old tribal customs and values. He is best known for one of his works, Things Fall Apart, which is one of the most widely read African novel in the world (Williams, 2001). The novel is structured around the personal tragedy of the hero, the warrior Okonkwo, who, due to an unfortunate series of coincidences and fatal errors, destroy its own existence and ends up committing suicide. Chinua Achebe work is a profound meditation on colonialism. His novels are in a situation of African heroes at the crossroads of two worlds, a world with a Western abstract rationality, without justice, and African traditional values ??which render his subjects disabled disqualified for new times. It is probably the most famous English-speaking African writer. This earned him several times nominated for the Nobel Prize . This paper is a brief research about the author Chinua Achebe and his novel 'Things Fall Apart'.

Discussion and Analysis

Okonkwo is an Igbo village of imaginary Umofia, located near Onitsha, on the east bank of the River Niger, which enjoys high reputation for his skills as a fighter. The action takes place in the early decades of the twentieth century, a time when Europeans had not yet established in the region. The overall environment is one in which took place Achebe's childhood (Tejumola, 2001).

Okonkwo spends most of his life to acquire social respectability that his father, lazy and unlucky not guaranteed. Applying with relentless self-discipline in work and in accordance with the traditions of his clan, Okonkwo finally comes to acquire a high level of social status (the point of being among the few who have responsibility to wear the masks of the gods) (Ohadike, 2009).

Okonkwo's rise has an abrupt end when he accidentally kills the son of another clan member during a ceremony. Following the laws of his people, Okonkwo agrees to spend a period of seven years of exile in the village of his mother, where he was welcomed and helped build a new farm from an uncle. Although he managed to become an important member of society of the village breast, Okonkwo prepares his return to Umofia during the time of exile as deeply determined to regain the prestige lost as quickly as possible (Povey, 1996).

When Okonkwo returns to the village, however, that the world waited impatiently to return Okonkwo is beginning to disappear. The missionaries British began to preach Christianity and criticize the customs of the ancestors, and part of the population has already been converted. Among the Igbo, there is also converted one of the sons of Okonkwo, Nwoye. Saddened by this dishonor, Okonkwo disowns his son and openly take a stand against the threat posed by the new culture brought by the whites.

Gradually the British influence becomes stronger: the missionaries followed the army, religion and the ...