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Things Fall Apart Literary Analysis

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Okonkwo’s struggles and how the clans of his tribe were separated by the white colonization of his village represent a powerful proverb throughout the novel. The meaningful proverb in Things Fall Apart exists as “If a frog is jumping in the daylight, you know something is after its life.” Since frogs are nocturnal animals, they dislike the daylight and prefer to jump in the night. In contrast the threatened frog pushes itself to jump in the hot unpreferred daylight. The proverb “if you see a toad jumping in the daylight, you know something is after its life” is manifested by the conflict between the settlers colonizing Okonkwo’s village and Okonkwo’s resistance towards the colonization. When the settlers colonize Okonkwo’s village he engages …show more content…

Therefore there must be a cause of the frog’s unusual behavior. This topic connects to Things Fall Apart when Okika mentions at the meeting “ My father used to say to me: “Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.” When I saw you all pouring into this meeting from all the quarters of our clan so early in the morning, I knew that something was after our life.’”(Achebe 203). The meeting represents the jumping that the toad performs during the daylight because the clansmen were discussing of how to face the challenging situation of the colonization of their tribe and their culture being taken away. Consequently european colonization exists as a threat to the Ibo culture when “The District Commissioner spoke to them again about the great queen, and about peace and good government. But the men did not listen. They just sat and looked at him and at his interpreter. In the end they were given back their bags and sheathed machetes and told to go home. They rose and left the courthouse. They neither spoke to anyone nor among themselves.”(Achebe 198). From this description of the resistant attitude towards the District Commissioner manages to represent how the colonization sparked a resistance and hatred towards the colonization. As mentioned before, the colonization also began to eat away the Ibo culture. This idea comes in play when the

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