Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe wrote the book "Things Fall Apart" in 1958. the novel quickly became famous for having two unique differences between two very different groups of people. The two groups were the Ibo tribe and the Europeans missionaries. The book makes a contrast of the European imperialism.

The conflict shown by the Europeans and the Ibo is important to the telling of the novel. Had this contrast not been a part of the story, things would not have "fallen apart" the way they did. The colonizers came from a culture where technology and industry was advancing every day. Bicycles were a common sight and the fashion consisted of outfits that covered most of the body. The Ibo instead were not as industrially developed, and their clothes consisted instead of barely there loincloths, with both men and women baring their chests. These factors caused cultural disagreement when the Europeans came to Umofia. Europeans just did not accept the way they lived. They saw the Ibo as a tribe that was "ancient" and "barbaric" in their customs. The Europeans did not see and understand the complex traditions of the Ibo led to feelings of superiority. They felt like it was their Christian duty to show these "un-modern" beings the ways of the civilized man. Therefore through the novel the white European men, along with their culture, come to represent ignorance and intolerant things that certainly would lead to conflict.

Since the novels is seen through an African point of view, it is only expected that the African people would be represented as good, hard-working individuals who were unjustly attacked by the Europeans. Many would say that through the story the Ibo seem far more tolerant of the Europeans. They allowed them to stay in their village, and even gave them a piece of land to build a church. They did however, refuse to understand the culture of the white man, as Okonkwo clearly depicts, to the point were war seemed truly inevitable. Perhaps the contrast of the cultures may not have been as disastrous of an event if both cultures had not failed to communicate and tolerate each other.

Moreover, Okonkwo was very much unlike his father, Unoka. He made sure ever since he was small that he would never end up like his father, a failure in life, one who is not man and not warlike. From that point on, he worked hard to achieve in life what his father never accomplished, which was being a man, to take