Efulefu (C) level: 350 words and a quote from the novel
Unoka level (B): 450 words and two quotes from the novel
Okonkwo level (A): 550 words, two quotes from the novel, and at least one reference to an outside works or texts.
Chukwu level: (A+): 750 words, at least two quotes from the novel as well as quotes, and at least two references from other works or texts.
Things Fall Apart is about identity, perception, family, and society in a culture on the verge of dramatic change. Throughout the novel, we see how the prospect of change affects individuals within and outside of that culture. We see how the interplay between cultures and between people in a community can shape both a society and its citizens.
Throughout the time we've read the novel, we've explored works on identity, gender, politics, society, leadership, and culture. Depending on your history and your interests, this book could be about dramatically different topics. For this blog, take the time to engage with an idea or theme that resonates with you and make connections with examples inside and outside of the novel.
A Culture On the Verge of Change
- What forces are at play?
- What connections can you make to things happening now?
- What role do tradition, ritual, and ceremony play in maintaining a culture and what role do they play during a time of change?
- What effect does status play in cultural change?
- How does push and pull influence people?
Progress and Tradition
- In what ways does the idea of progress shape the novel?
- How does the idea of a single story play into the idea of progress?
- How does tradition perpetuate and thrive from one generation to the next?
- This book features to belief systems that are similarly based on hierarchy and tradition. Why do they have such trouble coexisting? What key differences between the societies bring them into conflict?
- What role do customs, worship, festivals, ceremonies, trials, and religion play in this society? What anthropological connections can you make to American practices in these areas? What can we learn from this society as Americans?
Identity, Knowledge, and Fear
- How does tradition perpetuate and thrive from one generation to the next?
- In what was does Okonkwo build and lose his identity throughout the novel? What forces drive this transformation?
- How does Fear play into the development of characters in the novel?
- Other issues of identity that emerge throughout the novel:
- Social Identity
- Masculine and Feminine Identity
- Religious and Spiritual Identity
- Cultural identity
- Beliefs about Justice and the impact on identity
If none of these questions work, here are some questions I stole from a great school and teacher in Pleasanton, California. If you are the teacher who wrote these questions, you are getting the titles of our village. May Chukwu bless your people and your traditions - in both your motherland and fatherland. I tried to find you to ask permission and thank you, but I couldn't.
1. How does the father-son relationship throughout three generations shape the personalities of Okonkwo, and Nwoye? Comment on their characteristics and the role their father plays in making them who they are.
- "The story of Okonkwo is in a way the story of our culture; he pays a price because he places too much emphasis on strength and manliness." Discuss this quote as it applies to both the novel and our own modern American culture.
- One of the themes of Achebe's novel is the striving after titles, trophies, and status in general. Write an essay commenting on the presence and importance of status symbols in Okonkwo's world and today's world. Explain their appeal and the ways in which searching for status symbols is a negative force in life.
- Discuss the ways in which the District Commissioner symbolizes intolerance and disrespect for cultures he considers inferior.
- Okonkwo suffers because he does not understand himself. Do his experiences help lead him to self-awareness or not, and why?
- "[Okonkwo's] whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness." Explain how fear, in an ironic way, is the catalyst for destruction and failure in the novel?
- Comment on how Achebe, through this novel, counters the Imperialist stereotypes on Africa as an uncivilized continent. What aspects of Ibo culture contradict this commonly held stereotype? Perhaps use the District Commissioner’s comments to help convey the imperialist view.
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