Commentary on Things Fall Apart Essay

There is a very interesting man who dreamed as a newborn of being well known and respected throughout his village, tribes, and neighboring villages. This man who was know as Okonko, worked hard at his goal, and he achieved it. Okonko, a man with great strength and personality, had achieved his goal to become rich and famous, a privilege that was unseen before in his family. Although Okonko had reached his goal at an early age, his life began to Fall Apart when tragic episodes took place.

In the beginning, Okonko's life first began to fall apart when Ikemefuna, a captive who stayed at Okonko's home was killed. Okonko had thought of Ikemefuna as one of his own sons, and he was deeply saddened when Ikemefuna was killed. You can see the great tole it takes on Okonko from that event. First, for three days Okonko was unable to sleep. While he couldnt sleep he kept on getting drunk. This was red flag that Okonka was depressed. The murder of Ikemefuna had a long-term effect on Okonko. From This point on his family would look at him as if it were his fault that Ikemefuna is dead. This can be seen as an event where Okonko looses some faith from his family. This corresponds to Okonko loosing faith in his father.

Another important occurrence where you can see that Okonko's life falls apart was when he was thrown out of the clan for a few years. From this point you begin to see that Okonko's hopes dreams have begun to fall apart. His hopes of being a rich and popular individual had drifted away with this upsetting incident. Okonko had no longer had his farm or animals. Okonko had also lost faith with most of his friends. This goes to show that Okonko lost faith with his friends just like he had lost faith with his father. In this part of the story, Okonko lost faith like his father, because his father could not lead the tribe. Now with Okonko being kicked out of his tribe for several years he was becoming just like his fathers with his failure to the provide and contribute to the survival of his tribe.

Last but not least, another thing that showed the downfall in Okonko's life was when Nwoye, his oldest and favorite son, converted to the white mans religion, Christianity. To Okonko this was very upsetting because Nwoye was his eldest son, and Okonko had the greatest expectations for him. When news came to him that Nwoye was among the white men, you could have foreseen that only no good was coming to Okonko after that. In the research I did, I read about how, "the white men whom were the British, went to the tribes and villages to steal and capture the men and women to bring them back to their homeland and sale them into slavery." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/thing_fall_apart) The tribes began to suffer and fall apart because the leaders were stole and taken captive by the British. If the women did not obey the men, by tending to the crops, farming the land, and taking care of family things they were beaten, but what the British were doing was worse. (book: things fall apart) Because the men were not around, the women would not tend to the land and make sure they had enough food for the tribe to survive. I believe, that the reason why Okonko was so distraught was because he saw his son who was learning and following the white men, who were stealing their men and doing cruel things.

By glancing at Okonko's life, one could see that the title Things Fall Apart fits perfectly with the book. Starting from the beginning with Ikemefunas murder, you begin to see that Okonko's life is slowly starting to fall apart. Then, later on in the book, when Okonko was thrown out of his clan, you could safely assume that Okonko's hopes of being rich and famous were ruined. After all that, with the incident of Nwoye, one could see that Okonko's life was completely destroyed. Anybody can see that Okonko had notachieved his goals, but instead at the ending of his life Okonko become a failure like his father.