Human Interaction In Things Fall Apart And Coyote Goes To Toronto

Human interactions in various literary works In spite of the social contrasts, characters’ values and behavior are formed by their past and incredibly impacted by their populace. For this essay, three literary works were analyzed, and they portrayed a considerable impact on characters’ lives, namely Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”, Tsushima’s “The Silent Traders”, and King’s “Coyote Goes to Toronto”. It is consequential to indicate that all texts were written by authors from different parts of the world, in addition, they represent the different time and cultural values. The intention of this paper is to show the impact that the community and history had on characters and what authors wanted to attain by presenting those in their literary works.
In the novel “Things Fall Apart” Chinua Achebe takes the reader to the wooded expanses of Eastern Nigeria at the end of 19th century, in a small village Umuofia. This was the period when tribal relations have already greatly undermined by the processes going on in the depths of tribalism, has not yet lost its strength and ties of kinship, were still bounding people of one village as one clan. The spirit of community, the atmosphere of unity and cohesion — perhaps the first things that manifest in the novel most clearly from the first pages. Achebe, not accidentally, begins with a narrative of how men from several neighboring villages compete in agility and power — the reaction of the audience, their unanimity immediately creates an atmosphere of community, a close unity of people. Polycarp Ikuenobe states that “complex communal relationships, which involve the moral and psychological integration of a person into the community, also provide the foundation for people's rational and emotional character and identity” (Ikuenobe, 125). The victory of one is the victory of the entire village. Achebe managed to bring the reader closer to the described era not only by creating a reliable picture of what is happening, but also by the fact that so vividly and visually conveyed the mood of the crowd and, above all, human consensus. The protagonist of the novel, Okonkwo, — a person that is so contradictory, that determine his attitude at once is impossible. He evokes sympathy, and sense of frustration, and even hostility. Despite the fact that Okonkwo as a character strongly individual, he is undoubtedly a figure typical of a society that Achebe draws. All his life, Okonkwo was haunted by the fear that he could be seen by his tribesmen the same worthless and pathetic as his father, the deadbeat who owed the village and died as an indigent. And fear, Okonkwo to be like his loser father, makes his life tragic. He is harsh with his wives, does not forgive the slightest children’s misdemeanor, being haughty and arrogant with neighbors. The same fear of appearing weak and cowardly forces him to commit an act, which without a doubt is the darkest Chapter of the novel. “[…] and so, we see Okonkwo the champion wrestler, the warrior, and cultural hero, and we also see the infamy of a man who, (thinking he is) obeying the dictate of Umuofia’s Oracle, murders his adopted son” (Korang, 17). When Ikemefuna was trying to run towards his father “Okonkwo drew his matchet and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak” (Achebe, 43). His murder says about the nature of man, or rather, the contradiction in the nature of Okonkwo: the fear of losing the glory of a fearless and strong warrior causes him to be blindly cruel against any human affection. Achebe gave a correct interpretation of the episode, showing not only the motives that prompted Okonkwo to kill the boy but also revealed — and mainly — the attitude of the Umuofia’s residents to ritual murder. Despite the fact that the blood of innocent victims "demanded" by the gods, and their wrath is terrible! - murder for inhabitants of the village remains an exceeding event, and not all decide to take part in it.
Moreover, friends of Okonkwo openly condemn it, and Okonkwo himself experiences the gravest of remorse after the murder. Ritual murder, as it is depicted in the novel — not a feast of savages, hungry for blood and happy to shed it — this is a human tragedy. Cultural traditions like this one can affect human’s behavior and not in a positive way. Contrarily, Yuko Tsushima’s short story “The Silent Traders” contains a modern issue of being a single mother, some type of outcast of the society. Yuko Tsushima makes use of the creature world as a reflection for our own sufferings, the family relationship she portrays echoes within the less complex, a statelier world of cats and dogs (Manguel, 311). The main character of “The Silent Traders” is a single mother who experienced some loses in her past and now lives it with “lack of interest” in things. Her main concern throughout the text is the relationship between her two children and their biological father: “But these fathers don’t care how many children they have-- they don’t even notice that they are fathers. Yet the existence of offspring makes them
so. Fathers who don’t know their own children.
Among humans, it seems there’s an understanding that a man becomes a father only when he recognizes the child as his own; but that’s a very narrow view” — claims the narrator (Tsushima, 421). She seeks for the father of her children because she did not have one present in her life and would like them to have some clear image of their dad besides the photographs they have taken. Her devotion to her children is remarkable and it is obvious they only care about her being present in their life, living it without a father figure. Eventually, there is an importance of community’s support in character’s change of beliefs, which is revealed in the poem “Coyote Goes to Toronto” written by Thomas King. “Coyote” used as a term to describe tricksters in Native American literature, a person who forget traditional values. Dawn Pettigrew explains in research that “Coyote also creates a method of coping with the dominant cultural oppression that surrounds him and the Native Americans. As he survives nature and humankind, Coyote serves as a symbol of Native Americans' experience; since the discovery of Columbus on their shores” (Pettigrew,
217). King portrays the Canadian-US border as a place with various contact zones between national and tribal that are always a concern of regulation (Andrews, 601). King writes: Coyote painted herself GREEN And she went back to the rez To show the people what an UP-TO-DATE Coyote she was. These lines symbolize the vulnerability of the character – to become “FAMOUS”, and fit in another society, she covers herself with the mask and hides her native culture. Forth stanza shows Coyote came back home and her people cleaned off her green mask as it started to peel (King, 215). She was so proud about being able to go to Toronto, but the tribe did not see it in the same way. Her change, loss of her cultural roots and selfishness are obvious results of going there. It is not a positive change, but worse for Coyote; she is seen as unhealthy and “not looking too good” (King, 215). Arguments of this paper took place in Nigeria, its tribal traditions and effects of those on human affection, how living without a father and being a single mother altered the main character of modern Japan, and how abandoning your community and trying to hide where you came from behind the mask affected Coyote in Canada. In conclusion, authors show the perspective of different social situations effecting human beings in positive or negative ways. Literary works like these are needed to help communicate and connect people from around the world with different cultures and different values.