FREE ESSAY ON THINGS FALL APART (ACHEBE)

THINGS FALL APART (ACHEBE)

All the cultures in a bigger or smaller grade had always been under the possibility of
colonization. Even today where there is a greater control and knowledge about the
territories we still see some powerful country trying to colonize other. In the book by
Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart we see how the English people in the name of the Queen of
England try to colonize small African villages. We been talking about colonization, but
what is colonization? We can define colonization as the appropriation of lands that
belong to someone else by force, and the introduction of the foreign culture to the one
already existing there.
In this book what Achebe wants to show us is that is possible to change a whole culture
just by introducing a new one. If we analyze the book we see that the African village had
its own structure and rules. Everyone in the village respected those rules even the most
powerful men in the village. When Okonkwo shoots accidentally the old' s dead man
daughter he has to leave the village, even thought he was one of the nine who run that
village. There were no excuses, nor corruption, nor a way to escape, if someone did
something wrong that someone have to pay no matter whom he was. He tries to show us how
the original culture of the village was, how the women were treated and how men were in
charge of everything. He shows us that the more you work and the more stronger you were
the more important you were. We can see this very clear in the analogy of Okonkwo' s
father and Okonkwo. His father hardly worked, he was not a strong man, and therefore he
was not respected and owed lots of money to everyone in the village. On the other side
Okonkwo was a warrior, hardworking man. Everyone in the village respected him and he was
one of the wealthiest men also. This kind of culture and social life was very
characteristic of African villages in colonization times. 
Achebe wants to show us how is that a culture can be changed from one day to another, and
he really represents what happens. The first thing that is worth naming is when Okonkwo'
s son joins the missionaries. Even though Okonkwo prohibited his son to go there, his son
couldn't resist it, going against all the villages' principles and mainly against his
father. His father very mad disinherit him showing his son he disapproved completely what
he did, and he also does this to show his other children what would happen to them if
they go with the missionaries. The second thing that we can see that changes everything
is the matter of religion. The missionaries try to convince the people from Umuofia that
the gods that they where worshipping were not real, and that there was only one god. The
people of Umuofia showed a great discontent since they couldn't believe that someone that
came from some other place was telling them that the gods they worshipped generation
after generation did not exist.