Member Of The Ibo Tribe example essay topic

In the book Things Fall Apart, China Achebe, the author is trying to give an explanation of what it is like to live in an African society. The story is about a man named Okonkwo who is a member of the Ibo tribe. Achebe is telling the emotional story of Okonkwo from his childhood till his death. The title Things Fall Apart is symbolic of many events in the book. The main character, Okonkwo, did not like the way his father lived, he thought a man should be strong and do stereotypical male tasks. Unoka, Okonkwo's father, did not fit mold according to his son's ideals leaving Okonkwo ashamed of him.

Okonkwo promised himself that he would make a better life for himself and his family. He became a revered member of the Ibo tribe and gained recognition from his peers. Unfortunately Okonkwo was accused of killing a boy and was banished from the Ibo tribe for seven years, during which he was forced to live with his mother's tribe. He lost all of the recognition he had worked so hard to attain in the Ibo tribe. When Okonkwo returned he found that many things had changed, these changes were mostly instituted by Christian missionaries newly situated in Africa.

In retaliation of these truths which he could not accept, Okonkwo killed a clansman, the worst crime a tribal member could commit. After his lashing out, he realized that there was no hope for redeeming himself nor was there a chance he could become an elder (his goal). Giving in to his weakness, he hung himself, for he most likely would have been killed anyway. Basically Okonkwo's life fell apart on him, as the title Things Fall Apart exemplifies. As would be expected after all of the turmoil in his life, Okonkwo was not a very stable personality. Every thing that happened to him sparked emotions that he bottled up and kept in side.

These emotions kept on building up and building up until he exploded on his Ibo tribe mate. All his life Okonkwo had been conforming to the tribes ideals and wasn't allowing himself to truly be the Okonkwo that he was inside. He had a lot of negative feelings to his father whom took different sides than him on almost every issue. As Okonkwo realized that his life had fallen apart and it seemed that there was no was to salvage is, he resorted to suicide. This shows that Okonkwo really did need the support of friends and family to feel good about himself, an alternative to killing himself would have been to escape to the evil forest where he had been banished, but he was not a strong enough character to endure that scenario all by himself, isolated from the world he so much wanted to be a part of again. Before I read this book I did not have a very good idea of how people lived in Africa, and the ideas I did have about life in traditional African societies turned out to be misconceptions.

Achebe used great detail illustrating the traditional African society in this book, now I have a much better idea of what life is like in a non-western society. This was Achebe's goal in writing Things Fall Apart, to educate ignorant people, and average people for that matter about struggles many people experience in other countries. A main idea in the book is the difference between communal aspects and individual aspects in a traditional African society. There were both some communal aspects and some individual aspects present in the Ibo tribe.

The community was very important to the survival of the tribe, the tribal members often work together for the overall betterment of the tribe. Individual aspects in Ibo society include the chi., Each person has his own chi, this personal god is to watch over the person and protect them. Some members have a stronger chi than others, these few will achieve a higher standing in the society. This is relevant because Okonkwo is one of the tribe members who is very concerned with his social standing, ironically he is one of the tribal members with the weakest chi and he self destructs his plan. The strength of this book was the picture that it painted of the Ibo society. Achebe included several different points of view to show a vast African society, which made the book more enjoyable for me.

Two distinct points of view were those of Oknokwo and his friends Oberika. Oberika the more feminine of the two believes that the missionaries and the Ibo tribe may co-exist. On the other hand Okonkwo feels the Ibo tribe needs to go to war with the Christian missionaries and drive them out. The linguistics of this story are what give it the ability to stir up reader's emotions.

The plot line was simple, so other literary elements really shined. I would recommend this book to readers who appreciate detail and aren't as focused on action. The Ibo language was used throughout the book as well as the exotic character names. These literary elements added to the overall mood of the story. The author's purpose in writing this book was to move people and put them through a variety of emotions. The plot line was like an emotional roller coaster.

The story was superbly writing with vivid descriptions, it was easy to feel what the characters were going through and sympathize with them. Irony was present in this narrative, Okonkwo and his Dad inevitably end up the same, though they strongly disagreed on the goals of their life. Both father and son end up being ostracized, Unoka for his strange disease and Okonkwo for killing his clansman. Although Okonkwo opposed his fathers beliefs and held very contrasting ones they both died unhappily and alone. Modern Western societies are very individualistic.

Reading a story from an atmosphere of a primitive way of social interacting provokes many new This story may have different interpretive meanings to different people. There is a lot that can be taken away from this story, I learned many new things about how Africans socially interact with each other. This story contrasts the effects of communal living and individual living showing how these two surroundings change Okonkwo using great linguistics and literary elements.