Things Fall Apart Research Paper

Things Fall Apart is a novel written by Chinua Achebe in 1958. The novel shows the life of a man named Okonkwo, a strong leader and local wrestling in Umuofia, one of a fictional group of nine villages in Nigeria, which is resident by the Igbo people.It describes his family and personal history, the customs and society of the Igbo, and the influence of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on the Igbo community during the late nineteenth century. In Things Fall Apart,the most shocking and heartrending as the execution of Ikemefuna, an event too dreadful to endure.

The reason surrounding the event made the novel more interesting and invited our moral revulsion more intensely than the killing of the messenger.

The death of Ikemefuna is a turning point in the novel. The guardianship of the boy was a mark of Okonkwo’s hard-won status and the highest point of his rise to power. The execution of Ikemefuna is the beginning of Okonkwo’s decline, for it initiates the series of catastrophes which ended in his death.

The text states;”That boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death.” Okonkwo was surprised and was about to say some things when the old man continued: “Yes, Umuofia has decided to kill him. The Oracle of the Hills and Caves has pronounced it. They will take him there. But I want [you] to have nothing to do with it. He calls you father.” (59-60). In defense of Okonkwo’s participation, Okonkwo has no choice but to comply with the monstrous decree of the gods; further, because Ikemefuna is already regarded as a sacrificial lamb, his death already a fait accompli, Okonkwo acts only as a messenger executing the decree of the gods.

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To stress Okonkwo’s place as a victim who deserves our sympathy instead of our vilification

In Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, The Oracle

Okonkwo’s killing of Ikemefuna is instinctive. No time was left for him to consider his actions. In other words, his killing of Ikemefuna was not premeditated. The immediate circumstances under whic…