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Things Fall Apart
Simile: Figure of speech that directly compares two different things using the words "like" or "as." "Okonkwo's fame had grown like a bush-fire in the harmattan" (Achebe, 1). "Okonkwo was as...
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Things Fall Apart
As you work on writing this scene, your primary focus should be the contrast in beliefs and actions of the two men and the way Okonkwo resents his father. You might want to frame the scene as a...
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Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel Things Fall Apart explores the complex Igbo culture of Nigeria in the wake of European colonialism. One of Achebe’s stated purposes of the novel was to introduce the...
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Things Fall Apart
Okonkwo is a good father in that he provides for his family and protects them when necessary. He is also a successful man who demonstrates to his children the importance of hard work and...
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The Poisonwood Bible
The Poisonwood Bible has much in common with such critiques of colonialism, but it also moves beyond them, incorporating some realities from the postcolonial age. This is partly because it is...
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Things Fall Apart
The representations of colonialism in Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness differ in a major way. In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad depicts colonialism as a violent force deconstructing a...
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Things Fall Apart
Yes, I agree with this statement. Okonkwo's obsession with being masculine negatively affects both his public and private life. Okonkwo is known and respected throughout his village for being the...
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Things Fall Apart
Throughout the novel, Chinua Achebe characterizes silence as being ominous and negative. In Chapter 7, Okonkwo and the boys work in "complete silence" until the locusts descend onto the village....
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Things Fall Apart
Okonkwo's suicide is an act driven by despair. This despair seems to come directly from Okonkwo's sense that his village culture/identity has disappeared. In ways that are quite real and deeply...
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Things Fall Apart
Imperialism, put simply, is a policy whereby a country extends its power and influence either by diplomatic means, military intervention or some other stratagem. Things Fall Apart acts as a counter...
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Things Fall Apart
Achebe's description of Igbo society paints a picture of a fully functional system in which inhabitants are comfortable with what they have. It is clear that the Igbo have an extended history and...
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Things Fall Apart
Okonkwo grows up to become a brave warrior who is known throughout Umuofia as a violent, but successful man. Okonkwo's drive to be successful comes from his determination to not follow in his...
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Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart centers on the strong traditional warrior Okonkwo as he adjusts to an evolving Umuofian landscape. Though Okonkwo is a man of relatively few words, the novel...
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Things Fall Apart
One purpose of post-colonial literature is a consistent correction of the false perception that colonized people had no true culture of their own or were uncivilized before the arrival of the...
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Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is a post-colonial novel that takes place towards the end of the nineteenth century in a small, fictional Nigerian village. The setting is of utmost importance...
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Things Fall Apart
One of the most significant messages throughout the novel concerns the dangers of intolerance and prejudice. Unlike Mr. Brown, who seeks to understand the culture of Umuofia by discussing religious...
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Things Fall Apart
In An Image of Africa, Achebe talks at length about the grotesque and inaccurate African caricatures that inhabit the margins of Western literature and exist only to justify the condescending white...
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Reference
An interesting question! According to the text, Okonkwo was the one who struck the killing blow during Ikemefuna's execution. Prior to Ikemefuna's death, Ogbuefi Ezeudu, a village elder and former...
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Things Fall Apart
Okonkwo is an insensitive, powerful individual who is attracted to violence. He is also a proud man who values titles and prestige throughout his tribe. Despite Okonkwo's achievements, he is...
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Things Fall Apart
Unoka and Okonkwo represent reactions to the traditional ways of life. Unoka did not meet the village's expectations of what a man should be, as he was considered weak. He disliked fighting and...
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Things Fall Apart
In Things Fall Apart, the main conflict is that Okonkwo can't accept the changes that Christianity and westernization have brought to his village. He has always gotten prestige and esteem from his...
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Things Fall Apart
In Chinua Achebe's classic novel Things Fall Apart, there are two major factors that contribute to everything in Okonkwo's life and his home of Umuofia "falling apart." First, Umuofia changes...
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Things Fall Apart
One of the lessons of this book is that colonialism is a process that literally makes things fall apart. After white missionaries appear in Umuofia, a part of Nigeria, the community is torn apart...
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Things Fall Apart
The power of Okonkwo's story in Things Fall Apart is the relatively static nature of his daily life. He is very comfortably entrenched in the social order established, and questions little of it,...
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Things Fall Apart
One theme of Achebe's Things Fall Apart is the importance of customs and traditions. Okonkwo, through much of the novel, is attempting to balance Igbo traditions of leadership and masculinity with...
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Things Fall Apart
One example of European colonialism in Africa is the colonization of the Congo by the state of Belgium. Belgian colonization was ultimately harmful to the Congo. Congolese people were forced to...
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Things Fall Apart
Okonkwo is both representative of the values of his community and a rebel against them at different times in the novel. The obvious point in the novel when Okonkwo's role and position in his...
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Things Fall Apart
In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo's father Unoka has a tremendous impact on the trajectory of Okonkwo's life. Unoka never obtains titles or any level of success within the clan. Indeed,...
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Things Fall Apart
The second part of the novel focuses mainly on this aspect. It becomes clear that the arrival of the missionaries, obviously of European descent, and the establishment of foreign forms of...
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Things Fall Apart
Ezeudu's son is killed during the funeral from an accidental firing of a gun. It is Okonkwo's gun that goes off unexpectedly, lodging "a piece of iron" in the poor boy's heart. This happens in...
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Things Fall Apart
Okonkwo's defeat of Amalinze the Cat is such a great achievement because it was a display of physical prowess that earned Okonkwo the enduring respect and admiration of his fellow villagers. The...
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Things Fall Apart
The title Things Fall Apart directly relates to the major themes in Chinua Achebe's novel. The protagonist Okonkwo is first introduced in an environment in which he has truly succeeded. He has...
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Things Fall Apart
The argument between Okonkwo and Obierika reveals that Okonkwo is a man who believes in traditional Ibo definitions of manhood. Also, the argument highlights Okonkwo's combative and stubborn...
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Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe, author of the novel Things Fall Apart, was a preeminent Nigerian author whose works defied the Eurocentric biases of classic literature and were lauded as brilliant texts. In Things...
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Things Fall Apart
Two present themes in this powerful novel are man vs. self and man vs. man. Achebe's representation of Ibo aociety in this novel carries both of these themes forward throughout the plot. At first...
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Things Fall Apart
This excerpt occurs at the end of Part One, and Obierika is considering Okonkwo's crime (inadvertently shooting and killing a young man of the tribe) and subsequent exile. In this paragraph, the...
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Things Fall Apart
The Ibo marriage traditions Chinua Achebe presents in his seminal debut novel Things Fall Apart are noticeably different from Western norms surrounding marriage. For one, the Umuofians in Achebe's...
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Things Fall Apart
Throughout Chinua Achebe's classic novel Things Fall Apart, Achebe constantly demonstrates the value of personal bonds within the Ibo society. Indeed, even though Okonkwo prides himself on his...
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Things Fall Apart
After following Okonkwo's staunch perspective throughout the entirety of the tale, Chinua Achebe's classic debut novel Things Fall Apart provocatively ends by narrowing in on the white District...
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Things Fall Apart
In Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart, Nwoye is the son of the protagonist Okonkwo. Nwoye initially idolizes his father, who is perceived as the height of Igbo masculinity. This idolatry is...
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Things Fall Apart
Firstly, Okonkwo is used as a symbol for the society he represents. He is a strong, powerful man, intolerant, one who despises weakness and laziness. He is strict, commanding and demanding. He has...
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Things Fall Apart
The outcasts, also called Osu by the Igbo people, were some of the first to convert to Christianity upon the arrival of the missionaries. Achebe describes and Ibo outcast as a person who lived...
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Things Fall Apart
Militarism crops up often in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Achebe uses scenes that depict the desire for military action throughout the novel to reinforce Okonkwo's bellicose nature. Indeed,...
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Things Fall Apart
Aristotle says that the tragic hero is any protagonist who meets his or her downfall "through some combination of hubris, fate, and the will of the gods" ("Aristotle on Tragedy," paragraph 1)....
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Things Fall Apart
In his novel Things Fall Apart, author Chinua Achebe subtly reveals Igbo culture through three different methods. First, he illustrates the sociocultural, philosophical, and practical elements of...
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Things Fall Apart
The first quote is an extract from chapter sixteen and relates to the arrival of the Christian missionaries. They had come to Umuofia (Okonkwo's village) and had built a church there. They had been...
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Things Fall Apart
A denouement is the final outcome of a story which generally occurs after the climax. Unresolved events and missing pieces of the story are clarified in the denouement. In the novel Things Fall...
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Reference
The two father-son relationships we get the most information on in Things Fall Apart are those between Okonkwo and his own father, Unoka, and between Okonkwo and his son, Nwoye. Both of these...
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Things Fall Apart
The arrival of English Christian missionaries in Umuofia had major impacts on traditional lifeways- both good and bad. For example, the missionaries built a trading store in the village, where...
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Things Fall Apart
To write a monologue about Chinua Achebe's protagonist Okonkwo from the novel Things Fall Apart, one would have to consider not only the events surrounding the exile but Okonkwo himself and the...
