Things Fall Apart

Hey everyone! So this is the first of two blogs that I am doing today. I have to do two blogs in order to reach my goal of fifty by the end of the summer! This is another flashback book that I read in English II called "Things Fall Apart", written by Chinua Achebe. Well without further ado, away we go!

Characters: Okonkwo: leader of the African village of Umuofia/ one of the best and most famous wrestlers in the tribe/ lives in fear of ending up like his father
Nwoye: Okonkwo's eldest son/ son that Okonkwo is ashamed of/ leaves the tribe and converts to Christianity
Obierika: friend of Okonkwo/ helps Okonkwo while he is in exile/ is thrown into prison with Okonkwo when Okonkwo returns to the village
Uchendu: takes in Okonkwo when he is exiled/ tries to help Okonkwo be more accepting of the white people who have entered the African villages/ is Okonkwo's uncle
Ikemefuna: boy from a neighboring village who lives with Okonkwo/ is very close with Nwoye/ is killed by Okonkwo

The Plot: Okonkwo's world was as close to perfect as it could get. He was one of the clan leaders of the village, a champion wrestler, and one of the most well-respected and rich men in the village. Most importantly, he was absolutely nothing like his father, a weak drunkard. But all that changes when Okonkwo accidentally shoots a villager during one of the village's festivals. Sent into exile with his entire family, Okonkwo returns to Umuofia to find it overrun with the white man. Infuriated by the spread of Christianity, his son's conversion and the village's lack of resistance, Okonkwo finds his world completely changed and not for the better. What follows is Okonkwo's fall from the peak of his power until he is reduced to the mere shell of a man.

What I liked: I am really kind of split on this story. I liked half of it. After Okonkwo is exiled and returns to Umuofia, the story really picks up pace and I was hooked. I felt like the second half really depicted the conflict that went on as the entire way of life of Africa was completely turned upside down. I felt like the characters got better, particularly Mr. Brown, Reverend Smith and the District Commissioner, who all gave the story a bit more interest. I felt like this part of the story had an actual plot, with conflicts that I felt were more real and meaningful. The back half of the story was fast-paced, and I had never really read anything like it before. I hadn't read anything about the colonization of Africa from the perspective of the tribes that were conquered, so it was very interesting for me to read about it. However, I wish more of the story had focused on this, rather than the beginning, which I will get to in a second. I could almost ignore how much I disliked Okonkwo in the second half of the story because Okonkwo's anger fit in more with this section. Before the second half, I felt like Okonkwo was angry at nothing: now this rebel without a cause had found a cause. His anger felt more justified, so as a reader, I felt more justified putting up with him.

What I didn't like: I did not enjoy Okonkwo as the main character. I found him arrogant, violent, condescending, unforgiving, and cold. I particularly did not enjoy the scene where he beat his wives and shot a gun at one of them. He was even so stubborn, so afraid of ending up like his father, that he killed his own son because the other clan leaders asked him to. He was not accepting of his oldest son Nwoye, and disowned him after he converted to Christianity. I found it hard to side with, or root for such an unlikeable character, and I hoped his exile might have taught him something, but it didn't. Instead, he was just as bad as when he started. While I understood his fear that he would end up like his father, I didn't understand the lengths he went to in order to prevent that from happening. I also found the first half of the book before Okonkwo goes into exile particularly dull. Nothing really happened, just festivals, and arguments, and planting of yams. I had a hard time staying interested in the book and might have even put it down. The combination of the grating Okonkwo and the dull storyline is enough to turn anybody off. I also found the story to be unclear and confusing in places, with many characters rotating in and out, many of them in my mind, unneeded. Not only that, but these characters had such a small role, that you were almost expecting them to come back later, so you were still looking for them the rest of the book. There were some characters that were introduced for only a paragraph or two. Also, I couldn't for the longest time figure out what village they were in: Achebe was very unclear as to where they actually were, and since Okonkwo often traveled from village to village, I had a hard time figuring out if events were taking place at the home village, or in another close village.

Overall: 5 out of 10. I gave it half the points because I liked half of it.