Paige Smith Mrs. Cartier Honors English II September 11, 2011
Setting Influencing Story Plot
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart takes place in the Ibo village in Nigeria. Without this critical element of the location of Okonkwo and his family’s Umuofia clan, many of the instances that lead to Okonkwo’s eventually demise, would remain irrelevant. Despite Okonkwo’s desire to not kill Ikemefuna, Okonkwo assisted in Ikemefuna’s murder. “Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak” (61). If Okonkwo’s society didn’t have such strong rooted beliefs in their religion as well as the oracle, he never would have allowed the village members to kill his ‘son’. Okonkwo’s need to please others and fit into his village leads him to make choices that he regrets. The Umuofia clan’s long-time traditions require serious dedication. Okonkwo is forced to leave the role he works hard to create for himself after a tragic accident occurs, in which his gun explodes and he kills another tribesman, an act illegal in Umuofia.
The only course open to Okonkwo was to flee from the clan. It was a crime against earth goddess to kill a clansman, and a man who committed it must flee from the land. The crime was one of two kinds, male and female. Okonkwo had committed the female, because it had been inadvertent. He could return after seven years (124).
Because he is such a stickler for the rules and old school traditions that his village enforces, Okonkwo cannot accept a lesser punishment even if it was an accident. Other clans may have a more just legal system. The old traditions are not only wreaking havoc on his standing in the village, but within his family, a complication that wouldn’t arise without the setting being a factor. Okonkwo disowns his own son, Nwoye, because he converted to the “white man’s religion”.
“How is your father?” Obierika asked, not knowing what else to say.
“I don’t know. He is not my father,” Nwoye, unhappily said (144). Because Nwoye had chosen to study and practice a religion other than the one Okonkwo and his villagers believed, Nwoye was shunned by his father for having a mind of his own. If Okonkwo or the village had been more open minded, Okonkwo wouldn’t have had the struggles that made the story what it is. The village traditions are the reason that the story ends so tragically for Okonkwo, for if they could have been more understanding, the struggle between the old and the new wouldn’t have separated their society in such a profound way.