Similarities Between Things Fall Apart And When The Emperor Was Divine

Change is inevitable and everyone experiences it throughout the span of their lives. Chinua Achebe represents changes through Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart, and Julie Otsuka portrays how people have to adapt to different environments throughout her work, “When the Emperor Was Divine”. Throughout both of the works, Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart and “the boy” in “from When the Emperor Was Divine” have to develop and adapt to diversity that is brought upon each of their cultures. Achebe and Otsuka demonstrate how people adjust to the confrontation of changes and the fear they encounter when proceeding their true beliefs.
When being faced with an opposing force that overwhelms an area, changes occur within the lifestyles of the people. Okonkwo and “the boy” both experience the effects of having to adjust to new ideas that are brought upon their beliefs. Okonkwo learned that his reputation isn’t praised as strongly anymore
“The boy” begins to reminisce on the times he had with his father, and the slightest details linger in his mind. “The boy” would imagine his father and “whenever the boy thought of his father on his last Sunday at home he did not remember the blue suit. He remembered the white flannel…”(Otsuka 551). The reflective thoughts were brought upon “the boy” during harsh times, revealing the development of nostalgia. Okonkwo also begins to reveal nostalgia after he learns that he has been exiled and once his village has been bombarded. He deeply regrets his exile and believes that, “in these seven years he would have climbed to the utmost heights. And so he regretted every day of his exile”(Achebe 162). After Okonkwo encountered a change in his life, he was full of regret and hoped to go back to his old ways of life. The advancement of nostalgic characteristics within the works, reflect the new personality to the change in