Review on the book “Things Fall Apart” Author – Chinua Achebe

“Okonkwo was deeply grieved . And it was not just a personal grief. He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who has so unaccountably soft like women.” - Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe


Crops and their significance.
Yams and manliness
Coco yam
Cassava



 The African art of Conversationalism.
Proverbs
Kola

The Man -  Okonkwo
short and ill tempered

The concept of polygamy and the definition of manliness


The passion of the wrestling events

When your ancestors are drunkards and gluttons
when your dieties cant fight for themselves

Food
Meals- Roasted plantain, oil beans and fish
Roasted yam and palm oil in the farm.
Yam porridge and chicken.



Nwoye
capacity for empathy and clairvoyance.
Christianity appeal
Mother -
The earth is our mother
Exile
Burial


Marriage Rites in Umuofia and Communality

Negotiation in Marriage
Commitment
Shifting grounds (compromising)
Moving forward
Jigida
Marriage as complimentary, symbiotic, role management..

 African way of life  by similarities
Killing of Twins
Child mortality and reincarnation
The yoruba concept of "Abiku" and that of the igbo "Ogbanje" 
Kinship and Camaraderie

Love Story
Ndulue and Ozoemena - dying minutes apart.

 Metaphors
Dimaragan
Okonkwo’s Gooatskin Bag.


Names and the African society
Ozoemena - May it not happen again.
Onwunbiko - Death, I iomplore you.
Onwuma - Death may please himself.
Nneka- Mother is Supreme
Nwofia – Begotten in the wilderness.

Patriarchy and paternalism


Belief on the esoteric
Will of the gods vs method of execution
The appeal of a loving , long suffering God as opposed to a swift, decisive, vindictive and rigid one.

Ceremony of confessions

Rites of Passage and stages in the human life.

Societal hierarchy

Dialect “Myself” “Buttocks” homophones?

Post 7 years definition of the Umuofia community.


Belief system and the role of religion on strengthening the bonds of kith and kin or otherwise.

Colonialism
How colonialism came about
Support from the indigent.
Cleverness - Understanding as the white man’s tool of warfare.
The trinity called Colonization, religion and education.
The lackeys called hospital and commerce.
James Smith vs Brown Shepherding styles
The white man’s arrogance as shown in Reverend Smith and the District Commissioner.
50 bags of cowries
The genesis of bureaucratic corruption.
Kotma

Relativity of Good and Bad.
What is good is one land is abominable in another.

Over zealousness, zealot, fanaticism, faith and belief.

The Character Called ENOCH.
Agent Provocateur
The outsider who wept louder than the bereaved.

addendum

My Take on the book.
Things fall apart is a clever book elucidating culture while covertly opening up the gradual steps at colonization and it’s attendant evil.

Essien . Allan

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