Comprehensive Book Review of "Things Fall Apart"
Comprehensive Book Review of "Things Fall Apart"
In the book Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, the author is trying to give an explanation of what it is like to live in an African society. The story is about a man named Okonkwo who is a member of the Ibo tribe. Achebe is telling the emotional story of Okonkwo from his childhood till his death.
The title Things Fall Apart is symbolic of many events in the book. The main character, Okonkwo, did not like the way his father lived, he thought a man should be strong and do stereotypical male tasks. Unoka, Okonkwo’s father, did not fit mold according to his son’s ideals leaving Okonkwo ashamed of him. Okonkwo promised himself that he would make a better life for himself and his family. He became a revered member of the Ibo tribe and gained recognition from his peers. Unfortunately Okonkwo was accused of killing a boy and was banished from the Ibo tribe for seven years, during which he was forced to live with his mother’s tribe. He lost all of the recognition he had worked so hard to attain in the Ibo tribe.
When Okonkwo returned he found that many things had changed, these changes were mostly instituted by Christian missionaries newly situated in Africa. In retaliation of these truths which he could not accept ,Okonkwo killed a clansman, the worst crime a tribal member could commit. After his lashing out, he realized that there was no hope for redeeming himself nor was there a chance he could become an elder (his goal). Giving in to his weakness, he hung himself, for he most likely would have been killed anyway. Basically Okonkwo's life fell apart on him, as the title Things Fall Apart exemplifies.
As would be expected after all of the turmoil in his life, Okonkwo was not a very stable personality. Every thing that happened to him sparked emotions that he bottled up and kept in side. These emotions kept on building up and building up until he exploded on his Ibo tribe mate. All his life Okonkwo had been conforming to the tribes ideals and wasn’t allowing himself to truly be the Okonkwo that he was inside. He had a lot of negative feelings to his father whom took different sides than him on almost every issue. As Okonkwo...