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Things Fall Apart Rhetorical Analysis

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“There is no story that is not true.” (Things Fall Apart 141). Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, in his historical fiction text, Things Fall Apart, emphasizes that just because a culture is unique does not make it bad or wrong. Achebe wants to reduce the amount of shown ignorance to anyone different and offer insight to the Nigerian people. He assumes a sympathetic tone to Umuofia by connecting his characters to his audience, the Europeans, and Western Civilization. Achebe uses ethos, pathos, and logos to connect the themes of family and government. Achebe employs rhetorical devices to start introducing the aspects of family and government. Ethos is used because it gives Achebe more credibility due to the fact that he is from Nigeria. He also …show more content…

The reason that family is mainly focused on is that Okonkwo is staying outside of the clan with his mother's kinsmen. Okonkwo's family has to establish a new farm and therefore are working very hard. Pathos is used by making the readers sympathetic towards the family. “Okonkwo and his family worked very hard to plant a new farm.”(131) By doing this Achebe is able to draw the readers in, to fully connect them, whether it's for the good or the bad. Now that the readers have a better connection with Okonkwo's family and know that Nwoye was thought to be like Okonkwo's father, Achebe brings forth the feeling of betrayal. “What moved Obierika to visit Okonkwo was the sudden appearance of the latter's son, Nwoye, among the missionaries in Umuofia” (143) With his quote it is known that Okonkwo will feel betrayal, and since the audience is connected to him they know that he will feel betrayed. Achebe once again uses pathos to portray the feeling of betrayal.”How then could he have begotten a son like Nwoye, degenerate and effeminate?” (153) It can see from this that Okonkwo believes that Nwoye has disgraced the family name, and Okonkwo regrets having him as a …show more content…

Okonkwo comes back to find he has lost his spot in the higher-ups of the clan “He had lost the chance to lead his war clan against the new religion, which, he was told, had gained ground.” (171)Achebe uses logos in this in order to give us an understanding of what happens on the punishment side of life. In this portion of the novel, Okonkwo is back in Umuofia, and he finds the tribe has been taken over by the missionaries. “The white missionary was very proud of him and he was one of the first men in Umuofia to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion, or Holy Feast as it was called in Igbo.” (174) Ethos occurs in this section because of who is meant to read this. Achebe wants to get his point across to Europeans and the western world; however, they would not read this if the white men were portrayed as evil and inaccurate. By using celebrations and sacraments that actually occur Achebe gains credibility of his work. Earlier in the book Achebe talked about how Umuofia was feared by the other clans, by letting the missionaries in and granting them the land to stay they have lost some of that respect. “If Umuofia decides on war, all would be well. But if they chose to be cowards, he [Okonkwo] would go out and avenge himself.” (199). Achebe helps the audience understand that some people in these tribes need to be the strongest, which is why he would include how

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922 Words | 4 Pages

His tribes gods are manifestations of the earth and seasons and nature. Okonkwo gained his wealth by farming crops his entire life. To the Umuofia clan, respecting the gods that help with weather and rain is highly important since it is how they survive. Without their beliefs they wouldn't take care of their “home” as well as they do and Okonkwo wouldn't have turned into the man the reader sees in this novel. When the white missionaries come to their clan and try and change their belief system Okonkwo is enraged.

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802 Words | 4 Pages

Okonkwo constantly struggled to create the same masculine character in Nwoye that he made for himself and constantly found a reflection of his effeminate father, Unoka, in Nwoye. Chapter two describes the relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye in Nwoye’s youth. “Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness... He sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating” (13-14). Okonkwo’s efforts to change Nwoye’s resemblance of Unoka were causing their relationship to be pushed apart because of Okonkwo’s violence and Nwoye’s resistance.

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1600 Words | 7 Pages

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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Okonkwo wanted his tribe to fight back the missionaries in order to protect their Igbo culture but his persistence only led to his downfall. This can be seen when Okonkwo makes a rash decision to kill a messenger thinking Umuofia would fight back but ended up not fighting, “The white man whose power you know too well has ordered this meeting to stop.” In a flash, Okonkwo drew his machete. The messenger crouched to avoid the blow. It was useless.

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479 Words | 2 Pages

As a child, Nwoye is the frequent object of his father's criticism and remains emotionally unfulfilled. Okonkwo, “wanted Nwoye to grow into a tough man capable of ruling his father’s household when he was dead and gone to join the ancestors”(38). When Nwoye finds out that it is Okonkwo who killed a “brother” who he is extremely fond of, and grows very close with, he loses all appreciation for Okonkwo and decides to go against his father and his cultures.

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970 Words | 4 Pages

This also represents the importance of image to him and shows that he is self-conscious about himself. “‘We shall not do you any harm,’ said the District Commissioner..” (Achebe 194). This is quite ironic since the Europeans ended up abusing Okonkwo and his comrades and eventually destroying the Igbo culture. In this quote the author is implying that in the European's’ perspective, they are doing a good thing for the Igbo in the Umuofia by changing their beliefs, but in reality they are destroying their culture which the foundation and the identity of the Igbo.

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1119 Words | 5 Pages

He was too proud to let his tribe give up their warlike history. He was to proud and self-assured to accept his son's choices. Okonkwo is a sad character whose pride has constantly led him down the crooked path. Achebe shows that being proud isn't a constructive thing for the future. That development can only occur when pride is put aside, and people think logically instead of

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888 Words | 4 Pages

Okonkwo’s identity is someone who is powerful but now he has no

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1346 Words | 6 Pages

The novel narrates the life of Okonkwo. The latter was very successful in everything he undertook. The opening lines of the novel clearly demonstrate his success. He had three wives and eight children. His life, however, starts to shatter little by little through a series of events, leading him to being exiled for seven years from his village.

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Among those of the same culture, individuals who are adaptive and open-minded can be successful when there is cultural collision. When the Igbo and European cultures collide, Okonkwo gradually spirals out of control, losing everything he values and his own sense of self. From the beginning of the novel, Achebe depicts Okonkwo as a virile warrior and a successful farmer within the Igbo tribe. Reacting with violence to anything he considers “womanly” or “weak”, “He was a man of action and man of war” (10). Because of his reputation as a warrior he is highly respected by his community.

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These sudden behaviors against his son nwoye completely make him to adapt opposite ideals from his father Okonkwo just like okonkwo and his

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895 Words | 4 Pages

His fear of weakness and failure is derived from his father, Unoka’s failures, which ignite Okonkwo’s misogynistic views. Throughout his lifetime, Okonkwo associates femininity with weakness because of Unoka, who was called an “agbala” or woman by the people of Umuofia. Since women have this reputation for weakness, Okonkwo lives with constant fear that he will be given the same title as his father. Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye’s effeminacy reminds Okonkwo of his own father. He says, "I have done my best to make Nwoye grow into a man, but there is much of his mother in him ."(Achebe, 66).

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889 Words | 4 Pages

The story has many examples of the importance of community through tradition and religion, which also plays a major part in the story. For example, we see the community working together and supporting each other throughout the book, until change visits them and changes their culture and muddles their ideals. The introduction of the white man forever changes the Igbo culture which we see at the very end of the book when Okonkwo kills the missionary to try to bring war to drive the change out, and no one supports him. The community has changed, and Okonkwo hadn’t realized it, this change was destructive to both the Igbo culture and to Okonkwo, as he realizes that the change he is trying to prevent is inevitable, and the community he once was respected in and loved, had turned their backs on

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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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1715 Words | 7 Pages

Discourse on colonialism generally results in the different opinions of the colonizer and the colonized. The upshot of such discourse shows that colonialism has divergent interpretations. For the colonizer, it is ‘a civilizing mission’; to the colonized, it is exploitation. Such concept is better understood when both the views are studied with an objective approach. Things Fall Apart is a perfect novel to study colonialism as it deals with the perspectives of the colonizer and the colonized.

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