Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe makes Obi Okonkwo responsible for his own (financial and moral) downfall, while making his circumstances and other characters the catalysts. Obi not only refuses to accept responsibility but also blames others, firmly establishing the fact that Obi is delusional and played a major role in his own downfall in the reader’s mind.

The reader is first introduced to Obi during his trial, where he is charged with corruption. This portrays Obi Okonkwo as a disappointment through the judge's statement of her incapability “to comprehend how… [Obi] could have done this”. A judge would normally have dealt with a lot of abnormal and dreadful cases. For a person with that kind of vast exposure not to be able to “comprehend” Obi’s actions speaks …show more content…
FURTHERMORE?The reader’s curiosity of what happened to the protagonist, Obi, to cause this, is reinforced by Achebe’s use of repetition and juxtaposition. The juxtaposition of “‘education’ and ‘promise’” with his current terrible situation is important as it shows the reader the extent of his downfall, THEREBY removing any sympathy for Obi, as one cannot just fall so much by just his circumstances. This is replaced with curiosity of how he caused his own downfall.

Chinua Achebe confuses the reader BY using Mr. Green’s statement when he is at the bar chatting with….. QUOTE FROM MR GREEN NEEDED HERE The reader then thinks about the possibility that maybe, just maybe Obi’s downfall was caused by his circumstances and that it was “hardly his fault”. This confusion is almost ever present throughout the book, but not as evident.NOT CLEAR Intended to keep the reader engaged and pondering about Obi’s downfall and the causes. NOT A COMPLETE …show more content…
Sam Okoli. However, within the same conversation it is shown to the reader that even the characters surrounding him are of the same nature, suggesting that they reinforced his materialistic nature, making them partly responsible for his actions and in turn his downfall. He looks “round the luxurious sitting-room” and spots the “enormous radiogram”. Hon. Sam Okoli then responds with more features that it has as well as the price of it. This shows the reader than Hon. Sam Okoli that he does not want his radiogram to be JUST another radiogram, he rather wants it to be the top of the range radiogram. The mention of the price emphasises this. EMPHASISES WHAT? BE SPECIFIC. LINK TO QUESTION.

Another characteristic of Obi, rather unusually for an educated person, is his naivety portrayed to the reader when he was collecting his “sixty pounds outfit allowance”. His naivety was ridiculed by Mr Omo to show the extent of it through his “laugh of derision” and his statement of “You get B.A. but you no know say you have to affix stamp to agreement?”. This convinces the reader that however large a part the other characters played in his downfall, it will always primarily be Obi’s own fault. EXPAND ON THIS. HOW IS THIS LINKED TO THE

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