Things Fall Apart Media Analysis

Throughout the years many media sources use social constructs to make their audience conform to an ideal. This essay uses three media sources to show that making the audience conform to a set ideal can be detrimental to people and their culture. The first source, Minik: The Lost Eskimo, expresses how conforming too much to surroundings can make a person become the other in society and could lead to the objectification of that person. The second source, The Stranger, expresses how conforming to people’s expectations and seeking their approval and acceptance, leads to dependency, abuse of influence, and creates a person viewed as different. The last source, Things Fall Apart, expresses how not conforming leads to a person becoming an outsider to their own world. A trend found within all three sources is that with conformity and nonconformity comes a separation between society and people who are outsiders, or the other.
Though Okonkwo was strong, he still had “the fear of failure” (p. 13). By Okonkwo being afraid of failing, he pushed himself and his family to be the best, which made them the model for their tribe. By Okonkwo and his family becoming the archetypal family in their community, they’re objectified by others as people aspire to be like them. Due to his insecurities, he also permits others determine his actions as “he was afraid of being thought weak” (p. 61). Due to Okonkwo becoming the archetype for his tribe, he limits his autonomy as he begins to make decisions based off of people’s opinions of him. Okonkwo’s action of making decisions based on other’s opinions resembles how Meursault based his actions on people’s expectations. Because Okonkwo constantly struggled to stay the best in others’ opinion, he relinquished his autonomy, therefore subliminally conforming to the goals others’ set for