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How Is Nwoye Change In Things Fall Apart

742 Words3 Pages

“Knowing when to walk away is wisdom. Being able to is courage. Walking away, with your head held high is dignity,” (Unknown). In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, missionaries come into Umuofia (Igbo culture) and they try to convert the villagers to Christianity. This causes many of the villagers to question their identity including the main characters son, Nwoye. Nwoye was never very fond of his father (Okonkwo) because of how different they were. His anger towards Okonkwo kept building over the years and it solidified when Okonkwo killed Ikemefuna who Nwoye was very close with. When the missionaries built their church Nwoye had been seen there. This upset Okonkwo who lashed out causing Nwoye to leave and never come back. In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Nwoye was able to stand up to his father as a result of two religions colliding. Although they were father and son, Okonkwo and Nwoye were never very close because of how different they were. “Nwoye knew that it was right to be masculine and to be violent, but somehow he still preferred the stories that his mother used to tell…” (Achebe 53). This shows that even though Nwoye didn’t share the same …show more content…

Nwoye and Okonkwo had a rocky relationship from the beginning but it only solidified once Ikemefuna was killed. Christianity being introduced to Umuofia showed Nwoye that he had a purpose in life and he didn’t have to be just like his father. Nwoye and Okonkwo had a bad relationship because they could never accept the fact that they had more differences than similarities,this caused them to separate from each other permanently. Stephen Covey said “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.” If Nwoye and Okonkwo would have been able to set their differences aside and tried to accept each other then maybe Nwoye wouldn’t have converted to

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