An Identity in Crisis Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a story about personal beliefs,customs, and also a story about an identity confliction. There is struggle between family, culture, and religion of the Ibo tribes. It shows how things fall apart when these beliefs and customs are challenged and how a personal identity changes for a man. The novel concerns the life of Okonkwo, a leader and local wrestling champion throughout the villages of the Ibo ethnic group of Umuofia in Nigeria, Africa, his three wives, and his children. Throughout the novel, Okonkwo is internally challenged and slowly becomes someone that is no longer recognizable by his friends or his family. When Okonkwo faces change, his identity starts to fade. …show more content…
The more wives and children that the man had defined him; it showed that he had power, respect, and wealth. There was also a group of elders and they were men in the tribe who had achieved high- ranking titles. They are the members that kept the order in the village. Their culture respected the seniors because they were filled with knowledge and wisdom. They had their own political structure; it was their way of life. Okonkwo believed in his tribe. He wanted nothing more than to be revered by his fellow tribe members. Okonkwo wanted to one day lead his tribe. He truly believed that there was no sacrifice too great for his kinsman. Okonkwo was dedicated to the life of the tribe. Early in the story, starts Okonkwo’s personal conflict between himself and his father, Unoka. “Okonkwo was ruled by one passion – to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness” (Achebe 13). Unoka was considered to be a failure. Okonkwo did not receive anything from his father. He inherited no farm, no money, and no title. Okonkwo was determined to have it all? money, wives, food, and a farm. If there was daylight, Okonkwo was working his farm; if there was warrior to wrestle he was wrestling, and if there was an internal-tribe war he was fighting in it. It was in spite that Okonkwo became whom he did. The tribes hold great respect for men who had a title. A man within the tribe, who didn’t have .
