Outside Forces Influence the Life of the Protagonist

How Outside Forces Influence the Life of the Protagonist in Things Fall Apart by Achebe
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How Outside Forces Influence the Life of the Protagonist in Things Fall Apart by Achebe
Things Fall Apart, the title of the novel by Chinua Achebe, has been taken from ‘The Second Coming’ by W.B. Yeats. The poem gets engrossed into the racial bloodstream of tribal life in the novel. Yeat’s unbiblical prophecy of an ominous beast symbolizes Okonkwo's fear of Christianity's threatening to spread in Umuofia and other villages connected to it (Mbele, 2005). The theme of fear develops the plot and projects the protagonist's classically tragic downfall due to the outside forces and changing events.
The first out of three parts of the novel throws light on the protagonist's happy life in his village. Okonkwo is the son of Unoka, who ended up in failure due to idleness, recklessness, poverty, lack of masculinity, and addiction to music and entertainment. Okonkwo feared growing like his father and dying in frustration for being alien to his tribe's social and cultural norms, who valued masculinity over morality and sentiments. Confirming the current social conditions, Okonkwo adopted a highly masculine attitude as he seemed to ‘pounce on somebody’ when he walked (Achebe, 2015). He preferred to work on his farm rather than getting involved in conversations. As a result, he posed his father's opposite posture for being wealthy, thrifty, brave, violent, and hardworking. He despised everything with a tendency to be ‘soft’ like sentiments and gossips. He cut Ikemefuna himself despite the goddess's disapproval, only to boast the strength and verification of Nigerian tribes' cultural norms (Achebe, 2015). As a wealthy man, he marries three women and fathers many children while growing yams like a successful clansman in Umuofia.
An unintentional killing of a clansman caused him seven years of exile with family as an act of repentance. He moved to his hometown village and settled there with a dream to return to Umuofia one day and resume his happy life. As W.B. Yeats asserts that ‘the center cannot hold,’ Okonkwo’s ideals and struggles to live a socially, culturally, and financially flourished life could not save things from falling apart. When he arrived in Umuofia, the white men had already taken hold of other surrounding villages (Achebe, 2015). They had converted many youths to Christianity, calling their religious doctrine to be primitive...