In response to the significance of the title and how it realtes to diversity conflict and justice. Things fall apart.

Essay by mrb1476Junior High, 9th gradeA+, May 2003

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Things Fall Apart

Was there a time in your life when you had everything going for you and then everything just fell apart? This is what happens to the main character Okonkwo, when he becomes successful and prosperous. In Achebe's novel which is ironically titled Things Fall Apart, a tribe called Umuofia has everything settled and in good order until a white man rides in with a bicycle which the natives call an iron horse. The people are interested in change and money with one God looking over them, which is very different and goes against all the tribe's beliefs. The land then begins to flow with money while their precious palm oil is being exported. Soon the white man sets up a government and Okonkwo begins to foreshadow the doomed future. The meaning of things fall apart is mainly due to the life of the main character, Okonkwo, changing in ways he is not able to understand.

The story depicts the Igbo tribe and the foreigner's conflict with each other and few problems they face along the way.

Things begin to fall apart for Okonkwo when a shot fires from his gun killing a young man at a burial ceremony of an important elder in the tribe. Ironically the boy was a son of the man who warned him not to kill Ikemefuna, a boy who is like a son to Okonkwo. Achebe's novel begins to reach its climax, when Okonkwo is banished from the tribe for incidentally killing the boy. Although hints of his misdemeanors were foreshadowed, this event marked a turning point and a major setback to his status and his ambitions. The seven years while he is ostracized from his clan not only destroys his chances of him becoming a tribe leader but allows the...