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The Igbo Society In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

908 Words4 Pages

In Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, Achebe, through his utilization of rhetorical questions, word choice that show the weakness and strength of the Igbo verses the European people, and the title’s symbolism to the novel as a whole, is able to illustrate the differences between the European colonialists and the Igbo society that caused their inability to communicate, which led to a state of desperation, and eventually resulted in the damage of the Igbo society. Achebe is able to emphasize how deeply the Igbo society was affected through cultural and societal transformations due to the colonization of the Europeans. In part three of the book, the main character Okonkwo and his friend, Obierika, have a conversation concerning what has …show more content…

After the part of the passage that explains both the Europeans and Igbo people are to blame for colonization, Obierika states, “Now he has won our brothers and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart (Achebe 176).” This is the only reference of the title throughout the entire book, and is used to represent the book as a whole because it shows that nothing goes as planned throughout Okonkwo’s life as well as the overall existence of the Igbo culture and society. In relation to the surrounding plot of this quote, Achebe uses the word ‘knife’ as a symbolic representation of the European colonization. The ‘knife’ has cause great amounts of damage to Umuofia that is beyond repair. The European have broken the Igbo society into two. As a whole, this passage is about how the difference in tradition between the Europeans and the people of Umuofia led to a torn society. Chinua Achebe strengthened his claims of the important themes of the inability to communicate, which led to the state of depression, and eventually resulted to the Igbo society being torn apart, through the use of rhetorical questions, careful word choice, and symbolism. From this, he is able to grasp the reader’s attention, educating them about the Nigerian society’s disputes through its history of European colonization, which carry

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We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” In which achebe’s purpose was to condemn the white colonists for altering the Igbo culture, religion, "Igbo." - Introduction, Location,

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