Essay #1: August 12/17 2008;

Catherine McCollum
Mrs. Bosch
Honors English 9
30 July 2008

In the novel Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, pride matters of dominance contained pride. Usually people ponder upon pride infrequently, and of no thoughts in discernment but of shallowness. Although the predominance of pride may be ruinous, minute amounts of pride may not. Chinua Achebe embellishes his pride in his novel. He illustrates his pride in family, heritage, memory, language, lives, and humanity in general. Possessing pride contains obligations to these dignified attributes in life. It is evident through his writing that he possesses great pride in all circumstances, and he desires to allocate them with the public. His prominence of family, heritage, memory, language, lives, and humanity in general exist ubiquitously. Encountering this pride and love in significant things induces pride in his existence. His parturition located in Nigeria consisted provided most of his allegories, and during the Nigerian Civil War his writings contained his dissatisfaction with what Nigeria transformed into since independence. The author persevered in pride over Nigeria, but in a different perspective since its transformation. Achebe retained his bygone memories, love, and pride in his heart. He illustrated the pride of family, heritage, memory, language, lives, and humanity in general in his book Things Fall Apart.
The author possesses great pride in the concept of family; the exemplifications provided by his book vary. Okonkwo's family, the Nigerian clans, the mothers, the wives, and the teaching of children operated as significant functions in Chinua Achebe's family pride. Okonkwo's family sustained him and complied with him. They indemnified him out of incarceration, prepared his viands, decontaminated the huts, implemented his commands, accepted his beatings, obliged him, and attended him in his exile. "No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man." (Achebe 1). His three spouses contributed goodness, and never felt repentant of their matrimony. A father nurturing his descendants had presents of honor to indoctrinate them; they would burgeon into success or misfortune, but their father's endeavors will consistently possess gratification. The Nigerian clans possessed identical qualities. All men possessed strength in order to be successful and all men governed their families; if a man couldn't dominate his women or family he was no man at all. Achebe developed in Nigeria and experienced family qualities; the clan together remained as a family. They altercated united, and they existed in collaboration; joviality bound them united as one, and the missionaries ruptured them. Achebe possessed pride for his family, but contained perturbation from the vanquishing of that bond. "We have heard stories about white men who made the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true." (2). They thought the white men to exist in legends; the thought that they possessed the power to destroy clans occurred to Achebe. Although the white men possessed power, the clan remained superior. Support for the men advanced from the mothers; they received large quantities of respect after their decease, and their children possessed privileges of refuge in their motherland. Okonkwo for seven years had been banished, and he sought refuge in his motherland. There his mother's kinsman and relatives inoculated him and his family. Achebe establishes evidence that family must protect each other in order to prevail.
Achebe adorns his pride in heritage; he inscribes stories, religion, traditions, and curses. Stories consisted of twins, evil ogbanjes, and an evil forest. One legend contained a turtle possessing greed. "Tortoise turned to the birds and said: 'You remember that my name is All of you. The custom is to serve the spokesman first and the others later. They will serve you when I have eaten.'" (3). The story contained morals that nurtured the children of the clan into virtuous adults. All stories possessed morals and reasons; their visualization and comprehension of their religion and curses contained wonderment that engaged in each mind of the attentive. The stories of Ogbanjes contained additional excitement throughout the town; they evoked fear even through their stories. "After such treatment it would think twice before coming again, unless it was one of the stubborn ones who returned, carrying the stamp of their mutilation - a missing finger or perhaps a dark line where the medicine man's razor had cut them." (4). Ogbanjes existed as stillborn or dying children. They unfailingly returned to be reborn subsequent to death; they caused their mothers desolation and people evaluated them as devil children. Ogbanjes possessed easy identification after mutilation for the medicine man mutilated their body, causing desires not to return. This curse throughout town contained much rarity, but all the clansmen took it humorlessly. The pain and suffering Ekwefi went through was unbearable; each time her baby died she grew more despondent. Occasionally she would name her children deadly names so that death may suit them. Achebe illustrated his pride for customs and traditions, for he identified the many traditions of his heritage. If the humans found the stone that tied them to Earth, their existence would be destroyed; Achebe apparently believed in such traditions and thought them necessary.
Achebe unfailingly writes of the clan's beliefs. Enumerable amounts of these significant beliefs clash the missionaries' stipulated religion. "The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart." (5). The religion of the white man pried itself into the roots of the clansmen. It strategically placed a knife on the strings that clenched them together; from the commencement of accessing the villages and forming companionships with the clansmen they seeded their crops of evil. They converted countless clansmen, constructed housing and worship, provided an exceptional system of government, and dilapidated their methods of life. The missionaries converted highly respectable people, friends and family, stipulating the opposing to turn their backs on their cognizance. The missionaries built a church that all were permitted to attend, which they declared a protected sector beneath god. The missionaries built a government which the clansmen provided no expectations; the white men scoffed at their traditions and religion. All their knowledge dissipated, and the wait in fear commenced. Achebe possessed trepidation with this revelation and illustrated his fear in his novel. All known of family possessed restored destruction, but his pride for family would stand resistant. Achebe possessed pride of the clansmen's beliefs; they believed in the gods, having personal fortune, and following the traditions of the clan. Traditions contained clan trials judged by the spirits. "Uzowulu's body, I solute you," he said. (6). Spirits always addressed humans as "bodies." The egwugwus judged fate, and their roles were taken humorlessly. When the clansmen possessed controversies, they presented themselves before the spirits for recommendations. Although the spirits possessed the bodies of clansmen, their treatment was respect and the success of all orders.
The spirits possessed significant and defective qualities, and presented themselves during the apex of celebrations. "The elders consulted their Oracle and it told them that the strange man would break their clan and spread destruction among them." (7). Confrontation arose when an egwugwu's mask was withdrawn by a clansmen who converted to Christianity. Bewilderment twanged, for it had never occurred prior. Achebe illustrates his pride in tradition and customs by the reactions of the clansmen and Christians. He conveys his pride as an everlasting tribute to his beliefs, and the identical beliefs of the clansmen; all hindrances became unimportant in their presence. An additional significant traditional custom of the clansmen is the presenting of the kola nut. "Thank you. He who brings kola brings life." (8). The presenter of the kola nut before visitants granted copious amounts of honor. The kola nut brought existence and vigor, and clansmen relinquished it to the presenters of gratitude. Achebe illustrates his pride when he allocates the experience of the kola nut custom; he provided his pride with the accommodation of the kola nut, and the depleting of time between friends.
Achebe also conveys his pride of language; the language differences between the missionaries and the incomprehensibilities of the clansmen. "He said something, only they did not understand him," said Obierka. "He seemed to speak through his nose." (9). A missionary exerted to establish tranquility with the clansmen, but the oracle of the clan had proclaimed the missionary's intentions to destroy the clan. The language contradistinctions became onerous, and influenced the destruction of numerous clans. Achebe exemplified the momentousness of reminiscence, and the knowledge conveyed from it. Reminiscences of existence prior of Christian missionaries, traditions, customs, time, and life captivated the intellect of the clansmen. Achebe moreover emphasizes the significance of lives, and humanity in general. "It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it. That is why we ask your people to bring him down, because you are strangers." (10). They consider the body to retain righteousness, for it exists as a vessel that the gods bestowed upon them. Chances at life remained scarce, and the clansmen took heed of their retributions; if they had lived a an unsuccessful existence they would possess the assurance of serendipity. Ending one's life contained the assurance of ignominy, forcing the evil body to be dragged by presumptuous missionaries; Okonkwo's body possessed the indistinguishable custom of rotting away in the evil forest, and becoming a banquet for the scavengers. Achebe emphasizes the odiousness of suicide, and how momentous the very contemplations become. Achebe esteems life, and prospered believing the entirety of life's righteousness. All who desire to perish become abominable, and unworthy of existence.
Chinua Achebe possessed dignity in his home Nigeria; his life progressed there, posterior to his parturition. He acquired knowledge of appreciation that consisted of diverse yet identical qualities. He possessed pride in family, heritage, memory, language, lives, and humanity in general. He embellished his pride within the text of Things Fall Apart, and had desired exemplification of the morals and pride of each value of his country. Achebe's family provided him with memories, traditions, and heritage so that he may advance successfully. They provided language, memories, living, and ideas of humanity in general. They nurtured him into a fortunate man, possessing the virtue and morals of life. He acquired pride for his country, and pride for his morals; he was fond of his life and deemed it extraordinary. Chinua Achebe inscribed his book, so that we may distinguish his pride for family, heritage, memory, language, lives, and humanity in general.



Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1994. New York: Anchor Books, 1958.
Achebe, Chinua. "Chinua Achebe." Books and Writers. 31 July 2002. Bamber Gascoigne. 31 Jul 2008 www.kirjasto.sci.fi/achebe.htm>.