About the Author: Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He graduated from Ibadan University in a large village of Ogidi. He worked for the radio earlier on in his career until 1966 when the Biafran war broke out. He was appointed as Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria and lectured around the world. He was then a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherts, and Connecticut, Storrs from 1972-1976 and 1987-1988 teaching english. Throughout Achebe's life, he published many novels, children's books, short stories, essays, and poetry. One of his collections of poetry, Christmas in Biafra, was a joint winner of the Commonwealth poetry prize. During his profession, he was awarded several honors from around the world, including Nigeria's highest award for intellectual achievement, the Nigerian National Merit Award.
He now lives with his wife and four children in New York, where they both teach at Bard College.

Comparing Religions

Themes Frequent in Things Fall Apart

#1- Strength

In the book Things Fall Apart strength plays significant, but different, roles through the characters of Okonkwo, Nwoye, and Enzima. Each character is able to define strength uniquely.

"But he left hold of Nwoye, who walked away and never returned. Nwoye did not full understand. But he was happy to leave his father" (152). NWOYE

"At last Ezinma was born, and although ailing she seemed determined to live...She was rewarded by occasional spells of health during which Ezinma bubbled with energy like fresh palm-wine" (79). EZINMA

"Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak" (61). OKONKWO

#2- Fear

In the book Things Fall Apart characters experience a common emotion of fear, both internally and externally.

"Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children" (13).

"But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of hte forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself..." (13).

"He called his son, Nwoye, to sit with him in his obi. But the boy was afraid of him and slipped out of the hut as soon as he noticed him dozing" (63).

The Plot in a Multi-Flow Map

interpretation of sayings

agadi-nwayi: old woman
agbala: woman, or a man who hasn't taken a title
chi: personal God
efulefu: worthless man
ekwe: a musical instrument
eze-agadi-nway: the teeth of an old woman
iba: fever
inyanga: showing off/ bragging
isa-ifi: a ceeremony celebrating the reuion of a husband and wife after a long period of time away
iyi-uwa: a stone that forms the link between an ogbanje and the spirtual world
kotma: court messenger
jigida: a string of waist beads
nna ayi: our father
ochu: murder
ogbanje: a changeling (a child who repeatedly dies and returns to its mother to be reborn
osu: outcast
oye: the four market days
ozo: a title
tufia: a curse or oath

Enzima 2

Influences

SCIENCE

One of the main usages of science in "Things Fall Apart is the usage of medicines and healing methods.

"He took his machete and went into the bush to collect the leaves and grasses and barks of trees that went into making the medicine for iba" pg 76

Humanity

Okonkwo is a character who greatly appreciates his life and does whatever possible to become both respected and wealthy, unlike his father who failed at everything he did in life. "Unoka, the grown-up was afailure. He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat" pg 5 However once "Everything Falls Apart" Okonkwo commits the ultimate sin against the tribe, sucide.

"We cannot bury him only strangers can. It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the Earth." pg 207

"That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself" pg 208

Nwoye

Influences

RELIGION

The Ibo clan practices common tribal traditions such as, worship of gods, sacrifice, communal living, war, and magic. Leadership is based on a man's personal worth and his contribution to the good of the tribe. When the missionaries arrive the tribe is divided by the influence of missionaries and English bureaucrats who have interrupted the routine of tradition. They Introduce Christianity to the village. Some of the costumes in Christianity captivate and convert alot of the Ibo clan. One of them is Nwoye.

"And he told them about this new God, the Creathor of all the world and all the men and women. He told them they worshipped false gods, gods of wood and stone. He told them the true God lives on high and that all men when they dies went befor him for judgement."pg 145

"At the end of it Okonkwo was fully convinces that the man was mad. But there was a young lad who had been captivated. His name was Nwoye, Okonkwo's first son." pg 147

PHILOSOPHY
a study of human morals, character and behavior

The ibo clan has several different practices. As a clan they follow them very percisely.

"It was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansmen, a man who monnitted it must flee from the land" pg 124

"Ekwefi had siffered a great deal in her life. She had borne ten children and nine of them had died in infancy. After the death of Ekwefi's second child, Okonkwo had gone to a medicine doctor, who told them the child was an ogbanje. When they died they entered the mother's womb again." og 77

Mr. Brown

Setting

UMUOFIA

This is Okonkwo's viallage. It is feared by all its neighbors. It was powerful in war and in magic. The most potent war medicine was the clan itself. (pg11)

"He had a large compond enclosed by a thinck wall of red earth. His own hut,or obi, stood immediantly behind his only gate in the red walls. Each of his three wives had her own hut, which together formed a full moon behind the obi. The barn was built against one end of the red walls. At the opposite end of the compound was a shed for the goats." pg 14

"Every clan and village has its 'evil forest'. In it were buried all those who had died if the really evil diseases, like leprosy and smallpox. It was also the dumping land of potent fetishes of great medicine men when they dies. " pg 148

"Let us give them a portion of the evil forest" they laughed and agreed, and sent for the missionaries." pg 149

"One morning Okonkwo's cousin, was passing by the church on his way home from the neighboring village, when he saw Nwoye amoung the Christians" pg151

Enzima

okonkwo 2

"He had no patience with unsuccessful men.
He had no patience with his father" (4).

Okonkwo

Okonkwo is the clan leader and a war hero. He holds very high status with three wives and children. Also, Okonkwo is embarrassed of his dad's faliure and is terrified of looking weak in fear of becoming like his dad.