Why Things Fall Apart

The story Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe is about the Igbo tribes in Nigeria. If you read the book you would recognize why the book is titled like that. In the beginning, things were fine, but as things go on, and events unfold, things start crumbling. Their encounters with the Christians is a large part of the reason they “fall apart.” A big event that happened that could be considered things falling apart was when Okonkwo and his family were exiled for seven years. Okonkwo was identified as a significant person within his village before he was exiled. Many people knew him as the aggressive, war-loving, wrestler man who beats his family. When he got exiled he had to go back to his mother’s homeland. Doing this was a giant blow to his …show more content…
It divided the village which made Okonkwo very distressed. The book states “He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart…” Their arrival also created conflicts between both sides. Especially because of Enoch causing trouble with the Ibo people. When Enoch unmasked the egwugwu the villagers wanted to get revenge. They decided to burn the church down and some houses around it. That resulted in the head missionaries getting angry and taking the prominent men of the community hostage. They were at a standoff for a few days until the village payed what the missionaries asked for. Once the men were allowed back into their land, it was as if they were new people. They wouldn’t talk to anyone and sulked a lot. The book came to end with Okonkwo killing himself. Everything in his life had crumbled. The title Things Fall Apart is very fitting if you read the book from beginning to end. It is suitable because everything does eventually fall apart. They went from being a unified clan, to a divided mess of two different lifestyles. Things fell apart mostly because of the Christians and their mission to convert the Igbo people. But, it can also be noted that things started to go downhill once Okonkwo killed