Context presentation Things Fall Apart

In the book Things Fall Apart it begins with introducing Okonkwo, who is a warrior of the clan of a Nigerian tribe which consists of 9 communities. There is an internal struggle with Okonkwo due to his issues with his father leaving the villages with many unsettling debts after his death. Okonkwo has one son, but he does not approve of him, and finds him to be very lazy and lives with the fear that he will end up just like his father, Unoka. He does get the opportunity to raise another boy, due to winning him in a settlement between another Tribe. He becomes very fond of the boy, and the boy begins to see him as a father figure. This results in Okonkwo being placed in a situation where he has to choose to show his power to his village which requires him to kill Ikemefuna, the settlement son. 

The Week of Peace, Okonkwo is still dealing with having to kill his “son” and takes it out on his wife and accuses her of negligence, and starts to beat her during this time where this is forbidden. This takes a toll on how the village sees him, and it leads to them to feel this is out of his character. Some time later there is a celebration of death for Ogbuefi, during this time the gun that Okonkwa fired exploded killing a clansman, which is forbidden, and he was forced to leave the village with his family to where his mother lived. During a two year time span, information is given to Okonkwa that villages have been taken over by white men, and people have come in and began to preach to the villagers that what they believe is a sin. 

Overall, this book does a good job at explaining that life in Africa is not what most portray it to be, the common stereotypes are that the country and people are poor, which is shown throughout that this is not accurate, and that there are many who are wealthy. This relates back to the Ted talk that Adichie made, where she goes to example what life was like for her, and the stereotypes that she encountered her entire life. 

Adichie, C. N. (2009). The danger of a single story. TED. Retrieved September 26, 2021, from https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.

Achebe, C., & James, P. F. (2010). Things fall apart. Clipper.

5 thoughts on “Context presentation Things Fall Apart

  1. Thank you for your presentation, I thought your explanation of the text was very helpful in my understanding as I read through Things Fall Apart. I enjoyed bow at the end you mentioned the single story and brought this into the context of the book. Many of the stereotypes surrounding African tribes come from white settlers justifying the exploitation of their people and land. This book brings a different point of view aside from the single story of the European colonizers. We see complex disputes and social power struggles and pressures unfold which is contrary to the single story of the uncivilized African tribes created by European colonizers. I thought your presentation did a nice job by alluding to all this through the single story. Nice job!

  2. Your presentation greatly helped my understanding of what the storyline was about, and how it connected to what we are learning about in this class. The last paragraph analyzes the importance of understanding that some stereotypes that people have about African living are incorrect, which I think is important to realize many other places as well have this incorrect stereotypes about them as well. I am curious as to what your perspective is when the white Christians come into the story; does it relate to other stereotypes, how did it change your understanding of the Nigerian tribe?

  3. Great presentation! This further informed my understanding of the reading, especially with your ending; where you mentioned common stereotypes about life in Africa. I think that the story mentions, quite often actually, different cultural aspects like “ogbanje”, the tortoise bird story, and others that made me, especially after reading your post, think back to Adichie. Thinking about the idea that there are many, an extraordinary amount, of aspects of other cultures that are so interesting but rarely mentioned. And even going further into what you were saying about stereotypes, like those that contradict Okonkwo’s wealth, Adichie talked heavily about the stereotypes she had to face, and I think that if everyone didn’t live their lives seeing just single stories or could see the other aspects of people’s cultures, that these stereotypes wouldn’t be so common.

  4. I liked your presentation! You did a great job presenting an overview of the story and circling back to the misconceptions about Africa. Many people don’t realize Africa is actually one of the quickest developing continents at the moment. The part that caught my eye was when you mentioned colonizers treating many facets of the Ibo culture as sin. I haven’t yet made it this far in the reading, but I anticipated religion would be a big issue in my previous discussion post. Their religions are wildly different, and the European colonists failed to understand their culture and treated them as sinful people. They attempted to convert them to Christianity, rather than accepting their culture. Having a perspective from the future shows this didn’t at all help them, and only further destabilized their governing bodies.

  5. Your presentation was great, very systematic, outlined the whole story, and had a new understanding of the development of Africa. This is very helpful for my subsequent understanding, because my knowledge is scattered and my reading is limited. At the same time, you quoted Adichie’s speech at Ted, which is also very good, because the author personally told his life, which changed our stereotypes about Africa. In this way, we can understand the story from the culture and characters, rather than relying on stereotypes. In general, a good speech.

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