Chinua Achebe s Things Fall Apart - 1808 Words

What effects can fear have on a person? And how can these effects influence that person? Fear is defined in the Oxford dictionary as ‘an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain or harm’. The tragic novel â€Å"Things Fall Apart†, written by the renowned Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, is an incredibly influential text. The novel is also an example of how fear can be utilised as an approach to characterisation. Achebe composed his novel in a manner, which portrays a complex and dynamic community to represent Nigerian cultures to a western audience. Achebe was able to attain this through the Ibo communities and the main character Okonkwo. In the beginning of the novel, Okonkwo is represented as a man of pride, success, and hard†¦show more content†¦These aspects will be explored further, during this presentation. Firstly, Okonkwo’s fear of being akin to his father plays a major role in characterising Okonkwo. This fear, in particular, is one of the earliest, in-depth portrayals of what motivates Okonkwo’s hard working nature and determination. Okonkwo’s distaste for his father, or men akin to his father, is first revealed in the characterisation of his father, Unoka. The quote: â€Å"He had no patience for unsuccessful men. He had no patience for his father† (ch1, pg3) shows the comparison of Okonkwo’s father to an unsuccessful man. This comparison allows the reader to infer that the Unoka held traits, such as inertia, and idleness, which made him unproductive. This is built upon further with the quote: â€Å"Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness... It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father†¦ And so Okonkwo was ruled by one pa ssion – to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness.† (Ch2, pg 12). This use of direct characterisation to portray Okonkwo’s father reveals what Okonkwo is afraid of becoming by describing the attitudes displayed by Unoka that Okonkwo, therefore, avidly tries to avoid. This allows the reader to infer a reason for