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Things Fall Apart Research Paper

440 Words2 Pages

Nwoye’s before and after missionaries Before the missionaries came everything was fine and normal, but after they came some people changed and some stayed the same. Everyone had a different reaction, whether it was a positive or a negative one to the missionaries being there. Nwoye is one of the many that changed when the missionaries showed up. In Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart not everyone had a positive experience with the missionaries being there like Nwoye did. In the beginning of the book Nwoye didn’t have a very good life, his father Okonkwo was abusive towards him and he thought that Nwoye was lazy, and they weren’t close. Chinua Achebe writes “...Was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness. At …show more content…

Chinua Achebe writes “Then something had given way inside him. It descended on him again, this feeling, when his father walked in, that night after killing Ikemefuna”(62). Nwoye was not that close with his father to begin with, and after that he despised him. At the end of the book when the missionaries came, they welcomed him, he became hopeful. At first he was going to church in secret, but when Okonkwo found out, Nwoye left to completely join the missionaries. Chinua Achebe writes “Although Nwoye had been attracted to the new faith from the very first day, he kept it secret. He dared not go too near the missionaries for fear of his father”(149). At the end Nwoye accepted the missionaries offer and went away to study and to become a teacher. In conclusion Nwoye was one of the few people that had a positive experience with the missionaries. Nwoye was able to get away from his bad past and his father, and he was able to explore a new faith and will become a teacher. In Things Fall Apart Nwoye was able to escape his bad past with the new faith and in real life some people use their faith to escape their lives. We can learn from this book to not use violence when a big change unexpectedly

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Once again, Nwoye found peace away from his father when the Christian missionaries came to Mbanta, the motherland where Okonkwo and his family were exiled to. Nwoye converted to Christianity and escaped the force of his father in their household. Okonkwo, of course, didn’t support his son’s decision and was completely against Nwoye leaving behind the tradition the Okonkwo followed so deeply. A paragraph in chapter seventeen reflects on Okonkwo’s thoughts. “To abandon the gods of one’s father and go about

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Manhood is being treated as a human of mankind. Okonkwo, however, equates manhood to brute force and anger. Anything else was considered to be characteristic of a woman. It is this idea of manliness that pushes Nwoye into the hands of the missionaries. Okonkwo “wanted Nwoye to grow into a tough young man” and although Nwoye at times acted as if he was annoyed with the tasks the women would ask of him, “nothing pleased Nwoye now more than to be sent for by his mother or another of his father's wives” (Achebe, 36).

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954 Words | 4 Pages

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

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904 Words | 4 Pages

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646 Words | 3 Pages

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1890 Words | 8 Pages

Similarly, Nwoye also resists the reputation of his own father by rejecting this masculine regime of Okonkwo and Igbo culture, showing feminine virtues instead. His intention to carry his beliefs on to his children is established when Okonkwo thinks to himself after he learns of Nwoye’s conversion to Christianity. Nwoye made the decision to leave Umofia after the realization that his views do not coincide with those of his society any longer due to the life time of exposure to the toxicity of Okonkwo’s masculine behavior. It is because he refuses to conform that Nwoye wishes to alter the reputation of himself and his family by joining a culture that he finds to reflect the values that he believes in, instead of those he was dejectedly forced into following by his

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390 Words | 2 Pages

In a later situation, Nwoye reaches another realization when he hears the faint sound of babies crying in the woods. This, again, gives Nwoye another strong feeling of pain. After it is mentioned that Nwoye’s head swelled because of this anguish, Achebe places a simile to compare the two by saying, “like a solitary walker at night who passes an evil spirit” (62). Because of the way Achebe planted this simile, connecting Nwoye hearing the cry of abandoned babies to a person seeing a ghost, it gives the reader a direct sense of horror and hatred towards this part of the African culture that Nwoye had in that moment. The reason for this encounter in the story was to also portray Nwoye’s sorrow and longing to be in a different life, therefore showing a part of Okonkwo’s family falling apart.

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1006 Words | 5 Pages

It is well-established that throughout the book, Nwoye’s growing changes from a boy to a real man. Even though Nwoye experienced dynamic change during his life, his personality in this book is flat. Nwoye decides to make his first change responded to his father’s dissatisfaction to him, “That was the kind of story that Nwoye loved. But he knew that they were for foolish women and children, and he knew that his father wanted him to be a man.” In Things Fall Apart, the descriptions of Nwoye mainly portray one kind of personality—fear towards his father Okonkwo.

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1750 Words | 7 Pages

Nwoye, although he is a male, is viewed as a very feminine character. Okonkwo’s dislike of “a woman for a son” (153) pushes Nwoye to the Christian Church and Okonkwo’s actions show the imbalance of respect and the dislike of women in a patriarchy. Although he is viewed as “womanly” and weak, Nwoye gains power through the Christian Church, joining “effeminate men clucking like old hens” (153). Indeed, the white religion is viewed as womanly also; however, the Christian religion proves to be a powerful force in changing the masculine ways of the Ibo tribe. This change symbolizes the influence and powerful impact women can have on traditional and masculine thinking.

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881 Words | 4 Pages

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828 Words | 4 Pages

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