Post on Part 1 Things Fall Apart

I'm steadily realizing that many of the chapters are just meant to be little vignettes depicting various aspects of village life without necessarily relating (at least directly) to any overall storyline across the course of the book (now that Okonkwo and his family have fled that might change, but that still remains to be seen); for instance, the ceremony depicted in Chapter 10 with the arbitration between the man and his wife's family doesn't seem to relate to anything that comes before or after, as opposed to the chapter when Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna, which I think he discusses in the chapter after. I like this break up of chapters analyzing the mundanity of village life. I've also noted a lot of parallels between aspects of the society depicted by Achebe and contemporary society in the United States (the most obvious example I find is the love of public competitions of physical prowess, like the village wrestling matches vs the modern love of watching Football or other sports). I'm also interested to see how Okonkwo deals with himself in the aftermath of the accidental death; the way that it is discussed, as the "feminine" version of killing someone, intrigues me, as Okonkwo's obsession with masculinity might make him feel shame at having killed someone in that way even though it is probably a more socially acceptable form of killing and offers him the eventual opportunity to return the the village (I assume the purposeful killing of someone else wouldn't allow this, or at least would require much longer than seven years). 

Post 1 of Things Fall Apart

I really like what I've read of the book so far. The descriptions of the religious and sociocultural traditions of village life are especially interesting (and I'm curious as to whether they represent the belief of an actual tribe or are just meant to be representative of the kinds of mythology and traditions many African tribes ascribe to). However, I have mixed feelings about the main character Okonkwo. I admire his drive but find his personality and its similarity to modern toxic masculinity to be a bit irritating, though I can respect how his upbringing led to it. I do like that the story is mostly scrubbed of all opinion in regards to his action and that it remains neutral, allowing the audience to reach it's conclusions. I think the mundanity of events also works to normalize the characters, which offers an interesting lens into the problem that the author's essay on racism and Joseph Conrad discusses. I'm mostly curious as to how the story will progress, and whether it will remain as a simple examination of everyday village life as it follows Okonkwo or if some extraordinary event will occur that will inspire some journey or other greater conflict (I'm inclined to believe that won't happen). 

Image of Africa Response

I find Achebe's indictment of Western society's assumption as to the lack of African society to be both interesting but also very important; we can even see these cultural problems within Severn. The history curriculum focuses on US and and European history, with the only African history education I've ever received having been for a few weeks during Honors World Civ in freshmen year (non AP students take Global History as sophomores, which may discuss more African History, though it is still little compared to Western history, and the fact that this is taught to less advanced students but not considered important enough for AP students is also insulting). What's more, I imagine the elitist undertones typically reserved for discussions of culture (things like the fine arts, music, etc...) that connect it with wealth have further acted to erase African culture in the western mindset. This is because Africa as a continent has been continuously stripped of its wealth because of colonialism, while this same colonialism has also augmented the wealth of Western powers (especially the US, which was built on African slavery). The fact that pre-colonial African history has also only tangentially influenced Western history (as opposed to things like Greece, Rome, and European history since the Renaissance) has also probably led to scholars undervaluing it, despite the immensely powerful and interesting civilizations that developed (like the city state of Benin, which was at one point described as surpassing European cities at its time in cleanliness and architecture before it was destroyed).