03 August 2006

Essay 1

Sharon Lizotte
Mrs. Bosch
English 10 Honors
14 August 2006

Achebe’s Pride

Pride can be defined as, self-respect or satisfaction in one’s achievements. Each of these definitions are things that one should strive for in life, because without self-respect a person probably doesn’t take care of themselves or care about themselves, which would make other people think that way of them too. Also if one is not satisfied with their own achievements then they will never truly be happy, because they’ll always have wished they could have achieved more. Throughout the novel Things Fall Apart, the author Chinua Achebe shows us some of the things he has pride in, by including them in this novel. This novel illustrates the author’s pride in family, heritage, memory, language, and lives, by introducing each into the story and showing the importance that each holds.

At one point or another everyone has felt pride in their family, whether a son scored the winning basket or a grandma won an award for her amazingly pink tulips there are many reasons for family pride. This doesn’t change in Things Fall Apart, if anything the novel helps to support this. The author shows family pride through a character named Okonkwo. In the novel Okonkwo, grows up with a father who did not bring much pride to the family. Okonkwo’s father Unoka was a poor musician who borrowed money, which he never repaid. The only thing that could make Unoka’s family proud about him would be that, “he was very good on his flute” (Achebe 4). Because his father didn’t amount up to much in the aspect of pride Okonkwo made sure that his family could be proud of him, and that he could be proud of himself. Through this the author shows that he believes that family pride is an important thing and that if you don’t have it you should strive for it.

Heritage is a big part of this novel; the people in this novel lose sight of their heritage and give up instead of fighting for their heritage, the memory of their ancestors. An elder points out the loss of pride in heritage in the story by saying that, “the younger generation consider themselves wiser than their sires” (Achebe 166). The character Okonkwo tries to keep the pride in heritage alive, by following the ways of his ancestors and praying to their idols. Many of the villagers have lost sight of their heritage completely through their conversion to Christianity. Okonkwo tries to fight back, by getting his fellow villagers to fight against the Christians but the villagers fearing the Christians and forgetting about their heritage do not fight back. The author is showing how easy it is to lose pride in heritage by mere fear, but through the character Okonkwo he shows that fear should not stop a person from showing pride in their heritage and trying to keep it alive. Because without fighting for your heritage and for your ancestors everything will fall apart and nothing will be the same.

The author also shows pride in memory, and through this novel shows pride of his own memory and the things that happened to him and his family. The story throughout the novel is based in African villages, villages like the one Chinua grew up in himself. Chinua grew up in Nigeria in the village of Ogidi, which like in the story was one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work. Achebe uses his past to bring a reality to the story by bringing characters and situations that in the world are truly real. He shows pride in the memory of the African tribes and people by not down playing any of the things that happened in the novel. The author uses the character Okonkwo in this story to show his pride in memory by showing that memories can help mold a person. Okonkwo’s memories of his father, who was so poor that his “wife and children had barely enough to eat,” caused him to become a very successful man (Achebe 5). He becomes successful by remembering what a failure his father was, this caused him to work hard to achieve pride for himself so that his children will not have to feel the way he does about his father. So although Okonkwo’s memories of his father are bad ones, people should have pride because even bad memories can help mold a person into someone who will create good memories that his family and friends can be proud of.

Achebe shows his pride in language by showing that only people who know the same language can truly understand each other and in that way gain respect. This is shown through the white man entering the Igbo village, the white man cannot speak their language so he, “spoke through an interpreter who was an Ibo man, though his dialect was different and harsh to the ears of Mbanta” (Achebe144). This shows that a barrier is automatically put up between two people who cannot speak the same language. Even the interpreter who spoke differently because he was from a different language had trouble communicating and so was made fun of, because “instead of saying ‘myself’ he always said ‘my buttocks.” One of the men in the crowd makes a joke saying, “your buttocks understand out language” which makes his fellow Igbo people laugh (Achebe 145). This shows that there can only be true understanding if people know what each other are saying, so that a person should have pride in his language, because it is for the reason of his language only that he can understand the people of his culture.

The author Achebe, also illustrates in the novel the importance of a person’s life. People can only truly live when they are happy and understood. But in this novel when things started to fall apart so did the life of the main character Okonkwo. Throughout the novel Okonkwo takes pride in his life, but as his tribe starts to lose it’s way he starts to lose his reasons to live. Okonkwo who honors the tradition and memory of his ancestors, loses himself when he realizes his tribe will no longer fight for the honor, tradition, or memory of it’s ancestors. After this realization Okonkwo loses his will to live, and so he hangs himself. Though Okonkwo dies he does make a difference, his people cannot take him down from the tree themselves because, “it is an obomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen” (Achebe 207). So although Okonkwo is now dead he caused his tribe to realize that it is important that they live their lives the way their ancestors would have wanted. You can tell they realized this when they would not take down his body themselves, because it is against the way of the tribe, which shows that their minds are converting back to their old traditions.

Throughout the entire novel Things Fall Apart, the author shows his pride in various subjects. Subjects such as family, heritage, memory, language, and lives. He illustrates the importance of pride in these things by showing their impacts on the life of Okonkwo. Okonkwo shows how each of these things are important in life, and how pride in them is necessary. Achebe shows that each of these five things are important and people should take pride in them, for if a person loses their pride in family, heritage, memory, language, and lives there is really no reason left to live, because by losing pride in these things you also lose yourself in the process.

Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1959

Posted by Sharon_Lizotte @ 8:41 PM