An Analysis of Language in Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart :: Things Fall Apart essays

Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was born on November 16, 1930 to Isaiah Okafo and Janet Achebe in the rattling unstable country of Ogidi, Nigeria. He was exposed to missionaries early in his childishness because Ogidi was one of the first missionary centers established in Eastern Nigeria and his arrest was an evangelist. Yet it was not until he began to study at the University of Ibadan that Achebe discovered what he himself wanted to do. He had gr deliver apalled to the superficial picture of Nigeria that many non-Nigerian authors were providing. That is when Achebe stubborn to write something that viewed his country from the inside. (Gallagher, Susan, The Christian Century, v114, 260) His first novel, Things Fall Apart, achieved on the dot this. Things Fall Apart is based on Nigerias early experiences with the British. It is the story of an Ibo village and one of its great men, Okonkwo, who is a very high achiever beingness a champion wrestler, a wealthy farmer, a hu sband to trine wives, and a man with titles. Okonkwos world is disrupted with the appearance of the first albumin man who tries to inflict his religion on the Umuofia natives. Okonkwo, a high temper man, later kills a British employed man and eventually takes his own life. Achebe himself once said, Language is a weapon and we use it, and theres no exhibit in fighting it. ( Gallagher, The Christian Century, v114, 260) These are words that Achebe lives by. He stood by this statement throughout his entire career with a language path that would change African literature. was no exception. He accomplished his goal by writing about his own culture and his own family in a poetic, proverbic style. The unique language style of Things Fall Apart not single changed Achebes career, but it also changed his country. Achebe himself once said, Art is, and always was, at the benefit of man. Our ancestors created their myths and told their stories for a human purpose. Any good story, any good novel, should birth a message, should have a purpose. Achebe used the weapon of language to urge outsiders that Nigeria is a nation with great potential.