Things Fall Apart III

Hello there!

Well there is much to respond to. To start off i just had to say that i found the ending to be very surprising. Never would I have imagined that Okonkwo would have taken his own life. Although Okonkwo's action is surprising and definitly out of character, as many of you have noticed, it does go along with the theme of irony that has been going on throughout the novel. The one man who was so insistant on keeping traditions, being a man, and holding a title within the clan, was the same man who ended up taking his own life as seen in page 207.

I never thought Okonkwo would have hung himself and instead I thought he might die battling the white men. My favorite part in this third part is when Obierika and the other clansmen lead the white men to where Okonkwo had killed himself. The entire time Obierika remained calm as he explained to the white man that he would need assistance in taking Okonkwo's body down. Obierika made sure to let the white man know that " that man was one the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog." (208). Those few wrods wre so simple and yet they were so loaded with emotion. I could practically imagine Obierika's stoic face as he said the words but at the same same time a sad intensity in his eyes.

As other people have already commented, it is obvious in this third part why the book is entitled "Things Fall Apart". It is ironic that after having waited so anxiuously to return to Umuofia, Okonkwo came back home ot find it succumbing to the pressure of the white men and their religion. This leads me to think about whta would have happened if Okonkwo had stayed in the clan. Would he have been able to stop the influence of Christianity from spreading? Or would he have just been powerless to the influence like the other men in the clan?

One final thought that I wanted to mention was how in the very end the District Commissioner mentioned that he would write about Okonkwo's death in the novel he was planning on writing. It is interesting how he would not even dedicate a chapter to Okonkwo's death due to the white men taking over and yet here we are reading an entire novel about htis one man's life. Does anyone find it interesting how ironic it is? By having made that commen the D.C. was just showing how insignificant the lives of the tribe's people really were to the missionaries. All of this says something about perspective...but I'm not excatly sure what. Help anyone?