Things Fall Apart Essay Example for Free

Things Fall Apart Essay Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 50th anniversary edition. New York: Anchor Books, 1959. 211. Print Chinua Achebe was an african man who was raised in the large village of Ogidi in Eastern Nigeria. Things Fall Apart was Chinuas first book. In the year 1944 Chinua attended the Goverment College like other major nigerian writers. He also later attended the University College of Ibadan, where he studied english, history, and theology. Okonkwo strives to be nothing like his father but in the end he is no better. Ikemefuna comes to Umuofia as a human sacrafice from the neighboring clan of Mbaino for the killing of one of the Umuofia women. He lives with Okonkwo for the course of three years, in which he becomes like a son to Okonkwo and his three wives and a older brother and mentor to Nwoye Okonkwos son. Okonkwo gets bad chi because he beats his wife during peace week which was unheard of in his village peace week meant togetherness and happiness After , peace week marks the start of the king of the crop, the yam season which must start with peacfullness. Ikemefuna is then odered to be killed because he called Okonkwo father and Okonkwo called him son which was not supposed to happen. So, Okonkwo tells Ikemefuna that he is going home and on the way he kills him. Okonkwo regrets his choice because he went against the oracle which said he was supposed to have no part in killing the boy. Thus Things begin to fall apart. Chinua wrote the book Things Fall Apart to describe Nigerian culture and the effects of European colonization upon it. It was also written as a response to the Western beliefs that the Africans were uncivilized and barbaric people. Over the course of the book, Okonkwo overcomes obstacles arising from the conflicts of man vs. self, man vs. society, and man vs. estiny, through which he gains inherent morals and life lessons that make the story as a whole a sort of bildungsroman, by depicting the personal growth of its main character.