Chinua Achebe Essays

After I finished reading Things Fall Apart, my mind was left pondering certain aspects of the book. The major issue that continued to nag at my thoughts was the relationship between the main character Okonkwo and his son Nwoye. We see through the book that these two characters, with their vastly different character traits, can […]

Sam is the president; Chris is the minister of information, while Seem is the editor Of the national gazette. As the Story unfolds, it is seen that the president is consumed by his pursuit for absolute power; he becomes a dictator and kills his friend Seem for standing in his way, and still strives to […]

This splendid short novel demonstrates Achebe’s continuing ability to depict the challenges posed to African societies by modernism and Western influence. It details the plight of three educated, upper-class Africans attempting to survive in an atmosphere of political oppression and cultural confusion. Set in the fictional African country of Kangan, it is clearly patterned after […]

In his essay entitled An image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Chinua Achebe makes the claim that Joseph Conrad was a ‘thoroughgoing racist’ giving specific examples from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. This essay will attempt to show that while Heart of Darkness may contain certain racist elements Joseph Conrad was not a […]

Achebe’s “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” (The Massachusetts Review.18 (1977): 782-94) passionately criticizes Conrad’s portrayal of Africa and Africans in his novel Heart of Darkness. Achebe’s own novel, Things Fall Apart, directly opposes Conrad’s perspective and is a challenge to Western views. This analysis will examine the validity of Achebe’s […]

The first novel by Chinua Achebe is a modern-day authoritative picturing a masculine- based society even before the British settlers arrived. The nature of the great extent of female subjugation by work forces has been the topic of baffled argument among the literary. The authors Ama Ata Aidoo of Ghana every bit good as the […]

After the stock market crash of 1929, hundreds of people ended their lives because they just couldn’t cope with the fact that they had lost such a great deal of money. Some had lost their life savings – but most hadn’t. In fact, most of them still had enough to live better than a lot […]

This essay discusses the impact of Colonialism as depicted in the book Things Fall Apart. The tribe, various individuals, and the interactions between the white and black communities are all influenced by Colonialism throughout the narrative. “Does the white man understand our custom about land?” “How can he when he does not even speak our […]

In his novel Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe draws a lively portrait of a Nigerian people, the Igbo, at the end of the nineteenth century, when the British colonization began in Africa. Chinua Achebe’s main achievement in the novel is that of accurately rendering a complex picture of the African cultural tradition and identity from […]

The two short stories under analysis here, Bruno Lessing’s The Americanization of Shadrach Cohen and Chinua Achebe’s Dead Men’s Path both represent the conflict between different cultures, traditions and generations. The main characters in the two stories, Shadrach Cohen in Bruno Lessing’s story and Michael Obi in Chinua Achebe’s narrative, are modern figures who search […]

Whenever blacks and women are linked in discussions by Western feminists, black women are ignored in two ways – as black people and as women (Hooks 1981, 8). Apart from using the analogy between women and black people, Western feminism has also regularly made use of the image of colonial annexation, whereby the Western white […]

What might be good for one person might be bad for others and what might be bad for one might be good for others. This and more were my realizations while reading the novel  Things Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe (1958/ 1992).

Religion all around the world can be considered to account for many habitual activities in people’s daily lives. Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart, gives insight on this matter in the eyes of the Igbo people by demonstrating how their set of beliefs dictate the life they lead. When examining the religious doctrines […]

In “The Sacrificial Egg”, the author, Chinua Achebe “presents the conflict between an African civilization called Igbo and Westernization, specifically European. ” (Joaquin, 2003) The protagonist, whose name is Julius Obi, is a product of European and African culture– he is a Western educated Igbo. The story begins in the empty market named Nkwo. Since […]

Compare and contrast Vultures by Chinua Achebe & What Were They Like by Denise Levertov. In both of these poems the poets are concerned with war and both poets write like they have a negative attitude towards it. Both poets talk about the presence of evil in war and what the consequences of war are […]

Dead Men’s Path Analysis “Dead Men’s Path” by Chinua Achebe is a short story about a young headmaster and his conflict with a village’s people when he wants to close a path that is important for their belief. In this story we can see the conflict between modernity and ancient believes. The story is set […]

This deepens/extends the meaning of Achebe’s title and novel because the main center of the Igbo tribe was losing its strength and conflicts were bound to happen because of this. Okonkwo was quite popular throughout the villages. After a wrestling match he began to gain fame. He was tall, huge, and had bushy eyebrows with […]