Nwoye's Change In Things Fall Apart

Sometimes when there's a path that leads out of pressure, our best option is to take it even if it means going against your own culture and leaving your family and everything you know behind to follow change and accept the modern culture. This decision was faced upon the character Nwoye in the book “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe. Starting from the beginning of the novel, Nwoye was always disapproved of by his father as they were quite different. Nwoye’s father “Okonkwo '' had always been a fierce, strong, and hard working person. So when Nwoye didn't meet his fathers standards which were to be like him he would beat and curse his son as Nwoye was a weak and emotional boy. Nwoye's internal conflict was being faced with how a man was supposed

For one example, standard gender roles were very important to the older generations of the villages. So to Okonkwo's surprise when Nwoye Does not match a man's personality he gets upset and quotes, “A chick that will grow into a cock can be spotted the very day it hatches. I have done my best to make Nwoye grow into a man, but there is too much of his mother in him.” (66) Here we see how Okonkwo does not approve of Nwoye because of his non-masculine attributes and throughout the books disowns him as a son. But Nwoye found nothing wrong with this and he just discredited the Ibo culture. Another example of Nwoye not agreeing with his culture's ideology is how in the book Achebe tells us, “…a vague chill had descended on him and his head had seemed to swell, like a solitary walker at night who passes an evil spirit on the way. Then something had given way inside of him. It descended on him again, this feeling, when his father walked in, that night after killing Ikemefuna'' (65). In this sentence we can see the guilt and disapproval from Nwoye because of the actions of his tribe. He had these feelings after hearing the cries of twin babies out in the forest. In Ibo culture they throw out twins in the forest to die because of “evil spirits' '. Nwoye feels this is wrong just as he felt it was wrong for the tribe to kill Ikemefuna just because “The Oracle of the Hills and Caves has pronounced

For example Okonkwo ended up becoming a prisoner and ultimately ended up killing himself. However this was not the case for Nwoye. During pre-colonization Nwoye didn't know where he saw himself and seemed lost and misfit in his Village. For example, when Nwoye does not cut yams for planting properly, Okonkwo says to Nwoye that ''if you split another yam of this size, I shall break your jaw.'(pg 78) Okonkwo's treatment of Nwoye leaves Nwoye feeling unsure of himself and scared of making mistakes. This was a notable trait found in Nwoye throughout the book during pre colonization. Another contrasting view found at the beginning of the book for Nwoye is when Nwoye reverts to his former gentle nature after his role model and brother Ikemefuna gets murdered, instead of sticking to the falsified masculine one he pretended to have in Ikemefuna’s appearance. Increasingly, Okonkwo comes to view Nwoye as a disappointment and extremely effeminate. After the arrival of the missionaries and the process of colonization is the turning point of Nwoye's character development. Proof of this is found in (pg. 133) when the reader can see Nwoye's true intentions of why he decided to convert, “It was not the mad logic of the Trinity