“Things
Fall Apart” deals with how the prospect and reality of change affect
various characters, therefore, there is
a story about a culture on
the verge of change.
The tension about whether change should be
privileged over tradition often involves questions of personal status. For
instance, Okonkwo resists the new political and religious orders, since he
feels that they are not manly and that he himself will not be manly if he
consents to join or even tolerate them.
To
some extent, Okonkwo’s resistance of cultural change is also due to his fear of
losing societal status. His sense of self-worth is dependent upon the
traditional standards by which society judges him. This system of evaluating
the self inspires many of the clan’s outcasts to embrace Christianity. Long
scorned, these outcasts find in the Christian value system a refuge from the
Igbo cultural values that place them below everyone else. In their new
community, these converts enjoy a more elevated status.
The
villagers in general are caught between resisting and embracing change and they
face the dilemma of trying to determine how best to adapt to the reality of
change. Many of the villagers are excited about the new opportunities and
techniques that the missionaries bring, however, Europeans threaten to
extinguish the need for the mastery of traditional methods of farming,
harvesting, building, and cooking. These traditional methods, once crucial for
survival, are now, to varying degrees, dispensable. Throughout the novel,
Achebe shows how dependent such traditions are upon storytelling and language
and thus how quickly the abandonment of the Igbo language for English could
lead to the eradication of these traditions.
Source ; http://www.enotes.com/topics/things-fall-apart/critical-essays/things-fall-apart-chinua-achebe
I see your point and I quite agree with it. Okonkwo is a character that refuses to change, that enters to a state of crisis but stays in there without doing nothing. Crisis is not something negative if the person can overcome it and adapt life for new changes, changes that can open possibilities for a new life and that allow that particular person to go on. As Okonkwo is unable to change, he fails at every aspect he wants to improve in his life and his community.
ResponderEliminarIn addition to that, I can recognize similarities and state a relation between Okonkwo and Blanche (A Streetcar Named Desire): they are similar because they refuse to change, they want to keep living in a world that no longer exists and cannot be possible again (past) and unfortunately as they cannot overcome the crisis, their lives end terribly, leading to tragedy.
I tally with your idea Cristina. Actually as I wrote in other post, these characters are simple slaves of the past, since they can not hold their existence without trying to back to what happened before.
ResponderEliminarWhen I think about this idea, it is impossible for me not to remember Emily as she refuses to change, to adapt her life to a new way society works. In fact, she never wanted to go on and live the struggle between past and change.
All in all, Emily, Blanche, Okonwko ,Minnie Cooper, Mc. Lendon would have had a different destiny if they would had accepted the crisis of change , however they never did it and unfortunately their ended in tragedy.