Things Fall Apart Research Paper

763 Words4 Pages

After reading this novel Things Fall Apart, I can truly comprehend how cultural conflict, peer pressure, and temptations can affect a person's life and state of mind. Watching a little child that was not alike his father and tended to behave like his mother or like a “female”, slowly but surely pushed to become an outsider in his own family. Also his father Okonkwo felt as if
Nwoye was going to become like his Grandfather Unoka. He did not want his son to become lazy, incompetent, or vulnerable to female traits. “Okonkwo’s first son Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness.” (Pg. 13).
Already starting out Okonkwo felt as if Nwoye was not going to be like him. “Nwoye knew that it was right to …show more content…

Here we see Nwoye going back to his feminine side and crying because he knows what is going to happen to his “brother”.
When Okonkwo and his family are exiled for seven years to his motherland Mbanta several years later the encounter a group with a new faith and one ultimate God of everything. Unlike the
Igbo culture where they have multiple Gods, the new religion was called Christianity brought by the white man to change the Ibo world forever. The new faith was taking control of some of the tribes most awarded men that held high titles, it even consumed Nwoye from beginning but he didn’t let anyone know of his interest in the church. “Although Nwoye has been attracted to the new faith from the very first day, he kept it secret” (pg. 149). He tried to stay away from the missionaries because he knew his father would not enjoy the thought of his son abandoning his cultural roots. “After passing and re-passing by the church, Nwoye returned home.” (Pg. 150).
Obviously he wanted to go into the church and not leave but he couldn’t muster up the courage to do so.
Okonkwo was furious. “... suddenly overcome with fury, sprang to his feet and gripped him