Paper on Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
The essay complete with footnotes and bibliography, must be at least 6 pages in length. Citations used within the paper should conform to the Chicago Manual of Style format. Any late essays will be marked down 10 points for each calendar day late (i.e. after one day, an 85 (B) becomes an 75 (C), etc.). Papers will be marked down for mistakes and improper grammar so please leave enough time to proofread your paper before turning it in. Moreover, and this holds true for all the courses you take, plagiarism is a very serious academic offense, which will result in penalties ranging from reduction of class grade to failure in the course. Plagiarism occurs when the ideas and words, published or unpublished, of others are presented as one’s own without citing the original source. Plagiarism also occurs when the papers, research, or works of another person are presented as one’s own work. Questions (Please answer one of the following): 1. Chinua Achebe has stated that he wrote Things Fall Apart as a corrective of the European colonialist worldview. In what ways can you see Achebe’s novel as posing a challenge to the perspectives European colonizers? 2. In what ways does Achebe’s book idealize Ibo society, and in what ways does he seem critical of it? (Is Achebe’s fictional work “history”? What advantages and disadvantages might Achebe’s approach offer to the study of African history?) 3. Compare the impact of white missionaries on Umofia with that of the British political officers. How were they different? Which was worse? What do you think Achebe is trying to tell us in the presentation of the two missionaries, Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith? 4. The novel includes a number of troublesome practices: the murder of newborn twins, the murder of the hostage Ikemefuna. Many, if not all, societies have what appear to outsiders to be harmful or unacceptable practices. Cultural conservatism tends to perpetuate such practices, like satisuttee in India. That many societies preserved such practices is partly why Europeans used to make free use of terms like “savages” or “barbarians”. Were turn-of-the-century Europeans justified in judging and condemning the other societies? Are we today?
