Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

802 Words4 Pages
The culture of Things Fall Apart is extremely primitive; especially compared to the western culture because the western culture is not at all considered primitive, everything is new and industrialized. The western culture was very reluctant on the thought of polygamy, polytheism, and patriarchy. But these lifestyles were very common in Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart. In the book, Things Fall Apart, family life and structure of the family is tremendously different from families that lived in the western culture. For example, the wives were exceptionally afraid of their husband and were treated with minimal to nothing respect; same goes with their children. Their children and wives were often beaten. For families that reside in the western…show more content…
Polygamy, is the state of marriage to many spouses. I feel like Polygamy was a major tradition because the amount of wives a man had. During this time that meant the more wives he had the wealthier he was. In Things Fall Apart, a very wealthy man had nine wives and thirty children. Okonkwo only had three wives and eight children. In the western culture, polygamy was not something that the westerns were adapted too. That was out of the norm for westerner’s; it wasn’t right at all to them. In the western culture, they learned that monogamy was the way to go, and polygamy was not the appropriate way to live. The westerners placed these rules into their people usually around youth. In Umuofia having one wife was reassured by most of its people; other than in the western culture, having more than one wife led to a divorce. Which is what was “normal” to the…show more content…
To these civilians it is custom for them to make sacrifices to their “Gods”. Western Culture on the other hand, does not rehearse the ritual of sacrificing. Most people that lived in the west would look down on the cruelty of sacrificing. The civilians (members) of Umuofia frequently found faults in their beliefs. The religion bothers and hurt many of the Umuofia members. Although, the western religions seemed to offer the people of Umuofia ease and approval in a residence where they wouldn’t be hated and treated poorly at. The western religion (Christianity) was dominant and offered approval and passion; even though Umuofia’s religions offered hate and expulsion. In Umuofia their religion commands many traditions and ceremonies including the communal ceremonies. The civilians of Umuofia were very dedicated to their religion and magic. There ancient beliefs were supposed to give the civilians some sort of power over there ruler. These communal ceremonies almost always took place when the sun became less brutal; usually later in the day. You can tell when the ceremony is for a man or not by the way the crowd sits/stands. If any women were there, they were forced to stand off to the side like they were nothing. In the western culture this just wouldn’t be done. No western religions were done to threaten or scare
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