Examples Of Ramifications Of Ignorance In Things Fall Apart
The Ramifications of Ignorance
From the perspective of a non-African reader, the novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, is the story of a seemingly uninviting character, named Okonkwo, who struggles to secure his status and masculinity within himself and his culture during the time of European colonialism. His continuous struggle leads to his downfall and ultimate death, in which the District Commissioner orders his messenger to retrieve Okonkwo’s body and bury him, on account of the villagers cultural beliefs and the Commissioner’s refusal to dirty his own hands in the process. As the deed was being cleaned up by his messenger, the Commissioner walked away and took note of this incident to add a book he planned to write on Africa, which
would take up a paragraph at the most. In the last line of the novel, the Commissioner decides on the title for his book: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger (209). The District Commissioners phlegmatic response to Okonkwo’s death and his quick shift in focus towards how he will profit from adding Okonkwo’s story to his book shows his narrow mindedness and unwillingness to look at the scenario beyond his point of view. A civilization, filled with rich history, culture, and language, will be completely annihilated and an entire book’s worth of a man’s legacy will be diminished to an over generalized and stereotyped version of an “uncivilized” tribal man who decided, after an act of violence, to take his own life.
The juxtaposition between the last line of the Commissioner versus the rest of Achebe’s novel shows the detrimental effects ignorance, and the unwillingness to accept and acknowledge cultural and religious differences has on society. Although the readers never read the Commissioner’s novel, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger, judging simply from the title, the novel would be very vague, biased, and omit of any stories of cultural traditions, food, activity, and religion that haven’t been whitewashed or censored. Through Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, readers get a glimpse into the good and bad aspects of the Igbo people as well as Okonkwo’s journey through his internal issues revolving self identity and worth within himself and his community, as well as the deterioration of the village post European colonialism.
From the perspective of a non-African reader, the novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, is the story of a seemingly uninviting character, named Okonkwo, who struggles to secure his status and masculinity within himself and his culture during the time of European colonialism. His continuous struggle leads to his downfall and ultimate death, in which the District Commissioner orders his messenger to retrieve Okonkwo’s body and bury him, on account of the villagers cultural beliefs and the Commissioner’s refusal to dirty his own hands in the process. As the deed was being cleaned up by his messenger, the Commissioner walked away and took note of this incident to add a book he planned to write on Africa, which
would take up a paragraph at the most. In the last line of the novel, the Commissioner decides on the title for his book: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger (209). The District Commissioners phlegmatic response to Okonkwo’s death and his quick shift in focus towards how he will profit from adding Okonkwo’s story to his book shows his narrow mindedness and unwillingness to look at the scenario beyond his point of view. A civilization, filled with rich history, culture, and language, will be completely annihilated and an entire book’s worth of a man’s legacy will be diminished to an over generalized and stereotyped version of an “uncivilized” tribal man who decided, after an act of violence, to take his own life.
The juxtaposition between the last line of the Commissioner versus the rest of Achebe’s novel shows the detrimental effects ignorance, and the unwillingness to accept and acknowledge cultural and religious differences has on society. Although the readers never read the Commissioner’s novel, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger, judging simply from the title, the novel would be very vague, biased, and omit of any stories of cultural traditions, food, activity, and religion that haven’t been whitewashed or censored. Through Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, readers get a glimpse into the good and bad aspects of the Igbo people as well as Okonkwo’s journey through his internal issues revolving self identity and worth within himself and his community, as well as the deterioration of the village post European colonialism.