Examples Of Colonialism In Things Fall Apart

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Colonization Synthesis Essay
When a group settles in an area with an unfamiliar culture, there is almost always conflict. One of the main clashes these differing cultures face are unknown languages they are unaccustomed to. Colonization affects language by creating a language barrier, which causes cultural clashes. Events that show this can be seen by trying to solve “The Indian Problem,” the unfairness in the Dakota 38 trial, and the communication between the villagers and colonists in Things Fall Apart. “The Indian Problem” refers to the conflict between the United States government and Native American groups during the late 1800s and early 1900s, in which the government needed to deal with the problem of Native Americans that lived in the land the government had seized from them. The government’s solution was to send Native American children to boarding schools to assimilate them into white culture. These schools had strict rules and only allowed children to speak in English. If they were heard speaking their native language, they were beaten. Because of this, …show more content…
Sometimes these conflicts can be minor, but others can be severe, such as the Dakota 38 hanging, which killed 38 people. Similar to Dakota 38, the villagers in Things Fall Apart were not able to effectively communicate with the settlers due to differing languages. In all three cases, the language barriers created confusion. In “The Indian Problem,” the students grew further away from their cultures as well as families, in the Dakota 38 trial, confusion affected the Natives because they were tried in a court where they could not understand the language, and then killed, and in Things Fall Apart there was confusion between communications from the settlers to the villagers and vice versa. In my opinion, the most important way to build connections between two cultures is to have a language that brings fairness and understanding to both
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