Things Fall Apart

Something I noticed while reading this was the struggle between change and tradition. The main character Okonkwo seems to be resisting political and religious orders because they aren't manly enough and he probably thinks he won't be manly enough if he joins with them. I think seeing the cultural change is interesting because then you see how Okonkwo's fear how his society is changing and that losing the status due to cultural change will pretty much change his world. I think that it's interesting that there was Christian value in parts of this community. Many of the villagers had European influence and villagers were also excited about the new additions that missionaries brought which I thought was super interesting. So in this community the European influence dangers the traditional culture of farming, harvesting, cooking, etc. Once upon a time this was a way of life and that was what they needed to live and survive on so now Achebe talks about how these traditions are mostly for storytelling and how English is leading to the end of these traditions.

Back to Okonkwo's masculinity. I saw this as a theme from what I read because he sees how his father is and he fears that his son will be like that, and it just seems inherent. We read about how his dad beats his wife and all these violent actions that his father has. So now Okonkwo's idea of manliness is matched with aggression and anger, which is obviously awful. I wonder if his dad was different, if he would have a better or just different idea of an image of a man would be. But since his father is beating his wives and threatening their lives, he has no other idea of what kind of emotion to display.

The way this was written was also a bit confusing because I feel like language is a huge barrier and having that translation from orality to being written is difficult to understand. In Things Fall Apart you see the African formal language and how it is difficult to translate to English. I think growing up we learned that Africa has many different languages. I believe that translating old stories in any language into written English is difficult. Stories started out as being told and passed down by ear and oral. So to have them written could be difficult because when something is spoken it could mean seven different things and then in writing you are limited by words. I just wonder how much is missed in translation. Even today in modern languages like French and Chinese for example, much can get lost in translation. So since Africa has many different languages, I can only imagine what it was like even from village to village, what the communication is like. I can imagine that some villages stay very consistent and can understand some things, but some things can get lost in translation and have different meanings, etc.