Things Fall Apart Quote Analysis

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart tells the story of Igboland before the British Empire arrived, and Okonkwo who is a villager, who has worked for his strong and respected position as a leader in the community. After a mishap Okonkwo’s exiled and it is not until he returns he realizes British missionaries have changed everything. We see how the community’s obsession with strength and stability ultimately leads to weakness and instability, just as it does in Okonkwo’s life.
Things Fall Apart in Things Fall Apart not because of the outside pressure, but also the pressure of Okonkwo. Okonkwo is a man known “throughout the nine villages and even beyond” whose “fame rested on solid personal achievements.” He is known for his strength and his wrestling ability. In …show more content…
It is said he “had risen so suddenly from great poverty and misfortune to be one of the lords of his clan.” But despite his status and achievements Okonkwo is haunted by his father Unoka, who owed debts all over town. The pain of growing up and knowing the village thought his father was a loser stuck with Okonkwo. “His whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness.” He grew to have one passion, “To hate everything Unoka had loved. One of these things was gentleness and another was idleness.” Okonkwo lives in a world where you are always punished for your mistakes, although there are a few where he is not reprimanded. Like during the Week of Peace which forbids all violence, Okonkwo beats his youngest wife. Then during the Feast of the New Yam he beats his second wife and tries to shoot her. His brutality is connected to his fear of anything that he thinks is gentle or weak. But in fear of being weak, when Ikemefuna was to be sacrificed, a boy who he had raised for three years and called his father, Okonkwo finds himself not only in taking part in the sacrifice, but ultimately being the one who kills

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