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Things Fall Apart Symbolism Essay

979 Words4 Pages

When creating a story, symbolism can be a crucial factor that helps represent ideas and morals that build onto the characters and the work as a whole. Things Fall Apart and The Poisonwood Bible both use a great amount of symbolism to create a picture for the reader and connect ideas throughout the plot. In Things Fall Apart, the harvesting of yams is used as a symbol to represent wealth and fire is also used to describe Okonkwo’s aggressive behavior. The Poisonwood Bible uses a parrot named Meshuselah to represent The Republic of Congo and what they go through. They also refer to the poisonwood tree and the word “bangala” when speaking about Jesus and religion. All of these forms of symbolism help shape the themes and conflicts that arise in the characters lives. The author of Things Fall Apart refers to the cultivation of yams when describing Okonkwo and how masculine he is because of his barn full of yams. The author also refers to yams as being the king of the crops, in an attempt to show how important it is to the Umufio society. Okonkwo’s mood also changes based off of how his crops are doing or what season it is when it comes to harvesting. This makes me think that the yams represent a man's income or wealth, and whether or not he can provide for his family and those around him. This would explain why the …show more content…

The author of Things fall Apart chose to use symbolism to describe a character and what type of personality they have. It also shaped the climax of the story and showed the reader why the characters would make the choices that they did. The Poisonwood Bible chose to use symbolism to describe a whole group of people and show the downfall of them in a tragic end. These two novels show that symbolism can easily be used to manipulate the plot and develop a story as a

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