Two Characters

Paper Summary:

This paper shows how Okonkwo and Shaka Zulu are two African male characters that share many similarities, but ultimately are two very different men. Both share qualities that could lead them to greatness, but ultimately, one man will fail, while the other will triumph for a time. The writer examines differences in how the two characters react to white intervention and how this leads to the loss of both their cultures.

From the Paper:

""Things Fall Apart" is one of the greatest African novels. As one critic notes, "The book is at once a cultural resource, a historical novel, a morality tale, and above all a great literary work that celebrates its own cultural milieu and renders it familiar to others" (Aji and Ellsworth 170). It tells the story of the Ibo culture in a small village, Umuofia, in Nigeria, just as the white colonials began to arrive. The underlying theme of the novel is the struggle of the Ibo to hold on to their culture and language as Nigeria changes and shifts into a new century. The main character of the story is Okonkwo, a man in as much transition as his people. Okonkwo is a man who is wrapped up in the old world, and when it comes right down to it, he cannot change with the times, just as his culture could not change with the advent of the white man."

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