Module 6: Identifying One's Strengths and Weaknesses

On the road to self-discovery, you must be able to identify your strengths and weaknesses. In Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart, the discrepancy between people of weakness and people of strength is the reason why things fall apart. The novel portraying the conflict between change and tradition was written in response to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad portrays Africa and its tribal communities as savage, primitive, socially backward, and essentially lacking in an advanced language. Achebe, born into the Ibo tribe of Nigeria, demonstrates the exact opposite in his story of the highly intelligent, evolved Ibo society as it battles for survival within its own culture and against British colonialism. The novel teaches its readers that the Ibo tribe of Nigeria, prior to its contact with Europeans, was a complex, socially advanced, and cultured society with a language steeped in rich tradition. In this novel, the main archetypal character is Okonkwo. His physical strength and weak mind lead to his downfall. Okonkwo’s breakdown causes the fall of the Ibo society as more of the tribe is converted to Christianity as British influence takes over.

In this module, you will study the archetypal character and the literary elements of theme, conflict, motif, and symbolism. You will also analyze Achebe’s use of idioms and proverbs throughout the novel. You will learn about the British colonization of Nigeria and the resulting conflicts created within the native tribes.

Getting Started

Chinua Achebe named his novel after a line from William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming.” The two literary works reference different time periods. Yeats’ poem describes the atmosphere in Europe after the First World War while Things Fall Apart describes the influence of British colonialism during the late nineteenth century. Although these works were written in different times and about different societies, they contain many similarities. In this interactivity, you will learn about the similarities between the two literary works by using the previous and next buttons to navigate through the interactivity.

View a printable version of this interactivity.

 

Key Vocabulary

To view the definitions for these key vocabulary terms, visit the course glossary.

allegory	foreshadowing	personification
allusion	guttural	polytheistic
anaphora	harbinger	prophesy
apocalypse	impenetrable	proverb
callow	improvident	repetition
capricious	incipient	resilient
coiffure	lament	revere
cowries	malevolent	ritual
Eurocentric	metaphor	sediment
expedient	metonymy	simile
feign	mirthless	superfluous
foil	mores	voluble