Free Sample Essays > World Literature
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
is ironic because we know that white people did enslave Africans using guns and took them overseas to places such as America, but they did not know this at the time, and considered these stories to only be myths.
The language Achebe uses in this passage also helps to accentuate the naпvetй, primitivism and susceptibility of the Igbo people. Most of what is said is very basic, and they show very little real understanding of the situation of the problem in hand, basically skimming over a large and significant threat. The only technicality in language used is shown by Uchendu, who seems to grasp quite well, although, as knowledge was very closely linked with age in the Igbo culture, it tells us that those who were able to comprehend what could happen to the culture were too old to act upon their knowledge, adding to the sense of inevitability about the story. Okonkwo is someone who could possibly aid the situation by taking action against the invasion, but he, as shown by his language in this section, does not completely grasp the situation, which explains later why he has taken no action 5 years later. It is not just the language of the characters which is relevant in the passage, as we can see that the narrative has changed as well. Throughout the first part of the story the language used by Achebe was very unsympathetic to Okonkwo and we are led to think of him as a fool, but in this section it becomes less aggressive and less judgmental. There are no real examples of this in the passage, as it is more what isn’t said which makes the difference is. In the first part, Okonkwo’s actions were usually followed by a negative comment on his language, and they appeared to have been exaggerated quite significantly, whereas here they are not.
Altogether this section is representative, in many ways, of the whole story. In the first section of the passage, as in the first section of the book, Okonkwo appears to be in complete control of himself for the main part, if in different ways, which changes in the second part. In the second part we can see that Okonkwo’s destiny is sealed, and that nothing he can do can change it, which is portrayed by Achebe to us in many different ways. In the third part we see Okonkwo’s decline. In the whole story it is his complete decline from what he began as, whereas in the passage it is a decline in the success of his efforts to change. Without this small passage the story would not run as smoothly, as we find out a lot in it, and it helps add to the effect given by most tragedies, the feel of inevitability.