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I Lost My Talk Analysis

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Vitality of Culture Civil rights activist Marcus Garvey says, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” Marcus values culture just as the character Okonkwo from the novel Things Fall Apart and poet Rita Joe do. The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and the poem “I Lost My Talk” by Rita Joe, display the theme of personal and cultural identity and how one must fight to maintain their sense of self. Rita Joe and Okonkwo’s reactions to the threats against their cultures, and the journey they partake to maintain their identity, even when those around them are not loyal to their culture, displays the theme of culture and identity and its significance. By examining Okonkwo’s …show more content…

In Things Fall Apart, the character Okonkwo is proud of his culture and wants to keep it alive. He shows courage by declaring he will fight in a battle against the colonizers if it saves the traditions and customs of Umuofia. Okonkwo says, “Afraid? I do not care what he does to you. I despise him and those who listen to him. I shall fight alone if I choose” (Achebe, 201). The persona in “I Lost My Talk” tries to use communication to defend tradition and says, “Let me find my talk” (Joe 14). Okonkwo declares that he is willing to fight for what he believes in and wants those around him to follow in his footsteps. He tells the people, “If a man comes into my hut and defecates on the floor, what do I do? Do I shut my eyes? No! I take a stick and break his head. That is what a man does”(Achebe, 158). Like Okonkwo, the persona of the poem experiences lose of identity and furiously says, “You snatched it away” (Joe 5), blaming the colonizers for conforming her. By examining Okonkwo’s will to fight and Rita’s anger towards the settlers, their courage is revealed and their pride towards their culture is shown. People who respect their culture refuse to give up and are willing to take whatever actions necessary to preserve

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In both of the novels the characters struggles to adapt to new lifestyles that they are not use to. In Things Fall Apart Okonkwo has a controlling personality where he struggles to adapt to change in his tribe. Okonkwo, leader of the Umuofia tribe has a strong, manly, and harsh mindset that is claimed to have helped him succeed financially and socially. But later on, Christian and new political values are coming into their tribe and Okonkwo does not want his people to follow them because he might lose his power and social status.

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This quote shows how much fear Okonkwo has when he learns Nwoye has converted. He does not have control over this and that only fuels the fear. This foreshadows how he will react since we know from previous experiences he reacts with violence when he feels fear. " Let us not reason like cowards," said Okonkwo.

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387 Words | 2 Pages

Prompt 2 Okonkwo is driven by his hatred of his father and the fear he will become like him. Okonkwo saw his father, Unoka, as a coward and is ashamed to be his son. Everything that Okonkwo does is meant to set him apart from the legacy of his father. First, this is evident in his beating of his wives and even his aggression with his children. He is trying to show his strength and ensure he is not portrayed to be like his father: powerless and incapable.

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728 Words | 3 Pages

In most fairy tales and novels a humble male role is used to dictate the normality of writing. In “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo, a strong male role is not only that, a lead character, but he is also cruel and prone to violent tendencies In the novel Okonkwo experiences harsh changes when the white men first came and at the beginning of colonialism. In “Things Fall Apart”, Achebe uses Okonkwo to display the negative change in everyday Igbo culture after colonialism. In this novel by Achebe, before colonialism was introduced, Okonkwo was a known masculine member of Umuofia.

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1027 Words | 5 Pages

Okonkwo hates change, and he feels that the missionaries have brought about change through their religion, which has started to affect other aspects of traditional Igbo life and its people. He feels that the men have gotten weaker, hence him feeling proud when the warriors start acting like warriors again in his mind when the village agrees some violent action must be taken against the white man. When the village crier announces that there will be a meeting to discuss what to do about the foreigners following Okonkwo and the other prisoners getting released, Okonkwo is very excited. However, once the meeting gets interrupted by court messengers during a speech about how the white man is desecrating their gods and ancestral spirits, things take a turn for the worst. As soon as the head messenger tells the crowd to disperse “Okonkwo drew his machete.

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924 Words | 4 Pages

In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo reacts to cultural collision in his society by having a closed mind and attempting to retaliate, which ultimately leads to his suicide, contributing to the novel’s theme that one

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623 Words | 3 Pages

The novel “things fall apart” is about the fatal demise of Okonkwo and the igbo culture of Umuofia. Okonkwo is well known and respected leader in his community, who is successful in everything he does, such as wrestling and farming. He is quick with his hands and takes pride in his accomplishments. Okonkwo’s family relationship makes him a sympathetic character because of his support and an unsympathetic character because of his cruelty. In many ways Okonkwo showed that he had no sympathy for others , However at times he could be sympathetic.

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1359 Words | 6 Pages

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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1119 Words | 5 Pages

The novel "Thing's fall apart" by Chinua Achebe is a complex work that masterfully establishes and develops characters through their experience with cultural collision. The way that Achebe accomplishes carefully weaving his implicit claim throughout the work is such a beautiful subtlety that it deserves to be analyzed. The Igbo's pride is constantly challenged by the colonizers as they gain increasingly more power in Africa. The idea of pride is constantly developed throughout the thoughts and actions of the novels protagonist Okonkwo. His response to the colonizers is influenced by his own views on pride and is used by Achebe to illustrate his own opinion on pride.

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888 Words | 4 Pages

Colonization has an impact on an individual’s life and can either be positive or negative. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe uses Okonkwo, a tragic hero, to show loss of power and respect due to colonization and to exemplify change can be hard for people. Okonkwo’s identity is dependent on the Igbo Culture. At the beginning of the book, Okonkwo is seen as very strong. Also, Okonkwo only shows the emotion anger because he thinks that is the only emotion that men should show and every other emotion is feminine according to his standards.

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965 Words | 4 Pages

In the book “Things Fall Apart“ Okonkwo is a very strong man and from time to time he starts showing his true self. He has a lot of responsibilities and other things he has to do around the living environment and interact with lots of people. Okonkwo changes from being that strong man, to a man who feels like his tribe is not with him when he wants to go to war with the missionaries. For someone like Okonkwo a lot of people looks up to him and while in the tribe Okonkwo beats his wives and children. Not good behavior for someone who is supposedly looked at as strong.

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855 Words | 4 Pages

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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1774 Words | 8 Pages

Things Fall Apart is a novel written by Chinua Achebe. In the novel there is a main character called Okonkwo. He lived in Umuofia where he was also known throughout many of the nine villages around Umuofia. In the beginning of the story we see his overwhelming hatred towards his father Unoka. His father died about ten years ago and had not taken any title and was very much in debt.

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889 Words | 4 Pages

Everyone as a human being has experienced some form of change in our life, big or small, and it has a lasting effect on who they are and how they act. In Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’, change is a forward facing theme of the whole story, we see change in all forms occur throughout the book; the arrival of the white men and their changing of the igbo culture, the tearing apart of Okonkwo’s family by religion and traditions, and the change that occurs within Okonkwo himself when he realizes he cannot prevent change from happening in the community and culture he loved. Change is destructive in ‘Things Fall Apart’, especially to such a magnitude as we see in the story, it is destructive to communities, to families, and especially to individuals.

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1890 Words | 8 Pages

Fear is the core cause of the dramatic shift of lifestyle for both Okonkwo and Nwoye. Through the management of reputation and the avoidance of their father’s likeness, Okonkwo and Nwoye built new lives for themselves. Okonkwo sought power and authority to prove his masculinity and make up for Unoka’s reputation as a weak man. He did this to the point where manliness became his character. Fearlessness and violence were masculine qualities that in Igbo culture signifies strength and influence.

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