Essay #1 Things Fall Apart

Christine Bays
Mrs. Bosch
English 10 Honors
9 August 2007
Things Fall Apart
One of the greatest wonders of the world is the uniqueness and individuality of every single person. They all have different wants, needs, values, and anti-values that make them that unique individual in this world. Of course, these characteristics are often reflected in the actions and works of the person. If, for example, a lazy man were to construct a house, this quality about him would be reflected in the shoddy job done on the house. African author Chinua Achebe exemplifies this idea in his famous novel Things Fall Apart, bringing out his pride through the actions and reflections of proud, hard-working protagonist Okonkwo. Okonkwo, a man who has developed a strong sense of pride from watching the laze and folly of his father before him, works hard as a farmer and wrestler to become wealthy. After shooting a young boy however, he is forced to leave his home and hide out with his mother’s family for seven years. He returns to his village at the end of those seven years with his head held high. Later on, he is forced to challenge the impeding loss of tradition that comes in the form of the white man and his “western” conversions. The story of Okonkwo expounds on the great pride that Achebe takes in family, heritage, memory, language, and lives.
If someone were to pick up the treasure chest of Chinua Achebe, and pull out a handful of coins, they would flip one coin over, and it would have the word family written on it. Family is a very important thing to Chinua Achebe, and he takes pride in it. He shows that he takes pride in family when he writes “Okonkwo was well received by his mother’s kinsmen in Mbanta. The old man that received him was his mother’s younger brother, who was now the eldest surviving member in that family. His name was Uchendu, and it was he who had received Okonkwo’s mother twenty and ten years before when she had been brought home from Umuofia to be buried with her people.” (129) This shows his pride in family because they are accepting Okonkwo and his family because they are relatives, and Uchendu is not even asking why Okonkwo is there, he trusts him to tell later on. Family is built on lots of things, and one of them is trust. Also, Chinua shows pride in family when he says “The daughters of the family did not
return to their homes immediately but spent two or three days with their kinsmen.” (132) Takes place after a marriage; the sisters are the sisters of the wife that just got married. When they do not return home immediately it shows that they like to visit with their kinsmen and spend some quality time with them. It’s just like when people get together with their families on holidays, usually they stay and chat, they don’t just go then come home, they like to catch up on what’s happening with their relatives. The pride shown in this quote for family is a little different than the others; this is said by two brothers, “My in-law Uzowulu is a beast. My sister lived with him for nine years. During those years no single day passed in the sky without his beating the woman…Two years ago, when she was pregnant, he beat her until she miscarried.” (91) This shows how the families protect one another. When one is in need of help they go and help because that is what families do, they protect one another. This protection comes from love which is another foundation for family. They have to protect their families because if they don’t then who will be there to pass on the heritage.
Another one of the coins that you would have in your hands and flip over would have the word heritage written on it. Heritage is what someone receives from a parent or predecessor, which in Chinua Achebes place would mean knowledge from family
members, like the knowledge of his ancestors and his ancestral lands, Africa. Just by writing this book he showed a pride in his heritage. He felt so strongly about it and wanted every to know about it, so he wrote a book. In the book he writes about pretty much about everything that happens inside a village, and really left nothing out, even if it was unpleasant. When people get sick and are going to die they put them in the “evil” forest. Most people would go “Oh that’s so mean why did he put that in the story.” Well he put it in the story because that is what really happens, and he takes pride in that. If people read the book, they might understand what happened a little better. It’s their culture; they know that it is going to happen to them, it’s just part of their life. One of the other activities that they do is they like to wrestle. One of Okonkwo’s wives married him because he was one of the best wrestlers. The men are also allowed to marry more than one woman, but in their culture that is perfectly acceptable, they have no problem with that. Actually the more women that you marry the wealthier a person you are, and you are higher up in the society. Chinua Achebe doesn't write things to make people happy; he writes things to inform people. He writes about what it is really like in the land that his ancestors came from; he wants people to know what it is like, and he takes pride in it.
The hands are still full with coins from the treasure chest and another coin is flipped over. This one says memory on it. Memory is a pretty important thing to Chinua Achebe and as the book shows, he takes pride in it. In the book the mothers are always telling their children stories. All the stories have morals or they explain why something is the way it is, they help children to understand, like this one, “Once upon a time all the birds were invited to a feast in the sky…Tortoise saw all the preparations and soon discovered what it all meant…but he had no wings, so he went to the birds and asked to be allowed to go with them.”(96) Well anyway tortoise was a sly and ungrateful and the birds told him that, but he said he was a changed man. The birds agreed that he could go after a while. They gave him feathers so he could have wings to fly with. He ended up tricking the birds and eating all the good food. The birds became angry; they took all the feathers back so tortoise could not fly. He dropped down to his house, his shell cracked. That is why tortoises don’t have smooth shells. The moral of this story could be you should be nice to people and don’t try to trick them or else it explains why the tortoise has a cracked shell. The book too expresses Chinua’s pride in memory because he wrote this book so the memory of the culture of the people and time can live on and hopefully will not be forgotten.
The treasure chest still holds the coins so another is flipped over and on this one is written language. Language can mean the language you speak or how you express something. Chinua Achebe’s prides his language like he prides a lot of other things. He shows that he takes pride in language when he puts some of the words that come for the village. Words like iba which mean fever, nno which means welcome, and ochu which mean murder or manslaughter. Usually authors put words in from a different language because it describes it better than the English words do. Some languages have words that describe things perfectly in one word, and to describe the same things with English words would be more than one word, and it wouldn’t even describe it as well. The language also helps you get into the story better and make you feel like you know more about the culture and way of life. It’s part of who the people are in the story.
One of the last coins that are in the hands is flipped over and on it is written lives. The lives of the people in the stories in Chinua Achebe’s are very important to him because they tell his story for him and because life is just a very important thing to Chinua Achebe. Okonkwo may have killed a lot of people, but each time he killed someone he suffered. First he killed his adopted son, and by doing that, he made himself miserable and depressed for about two days, until he realized that he could work and that would take his mind off of what he had done. He goes to his friend and asks why he didn’t go to kill Okonkwo’s adopted son. Obierika says, “I did not want to…I had something better to do.” (66) and he told Okonkwo, “If I were you I would have stayed home. What you have done will not pleased the Earth. It is the kind of action for which the goddess wipes out whole families.” (67) Okonkwo was also was told before that he should not go to kill his son by one of the elders, but Okonkwo did not listen. Later Okonkwo kills a dead mans son, it may have been by accident, but he was still killed, so Okonkwo had to leave that night. He packed up all the families stuff and he left with his wives and kids and he took them to his mother’s family. He had to be gone from Umuofia, the town he was living at, for 7 years. He didn’t like it because he had to start from scratch and do everything over again. He kills a messenger when the messenger tries to stop their meeting, and he ends up having to go to the white man’s jail for that. In the end he kills himself because he can’t live with how his village is changing. The bad thing about this was that the white man pretty much won and would take over his village because his courage wasn’t there to fight. Chinua Achebe takes pride in the lives that his characters have because he punishes the people who are the killers somehow. Chinua prides the lives that his characters lead.
Chinua’s pride taken in family, heritage, memory, language and lives all tie back to one very important thing to him: his country. The country that Chinua takes pride in is Africa. There may have been some traditions that people think are revolting, but its part of the culture in the country. One of the biggest things about Chinua’s pride is that he knows who he is and takes pride in that. This may not be how everyone shows pride in their countries, but we are all unique, and this is how Chinua shows his pride, with the power of words.