Things Fall Apart is an extraordinary novel by Chinua Achebe. The story is written in third person omniscient point of view. Which the narrator knows all of the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters in the story, or it can be limited.
In the first place, The novel's most fascinating aspects will be introduced. Secondly, I will explain the developing standpoints in the novel. Finally, what I have understood from "Things Fall Apart".
At first, one thing about the novel that I have really enjoyed is that, I have learned a lot of things about Igbo people and their culture, specially, their customs and rituals. One of the most interesting things about them is the fact that they praise lots of gods in their religion such as, Chukwu, who they thought created all of the other gods. Another thing that grabbed my attention was that for men success was defined in how many wives they had. And the last thing that I really liked was their ceremonies like Egwugwu in which they thank their planet. In summary, I believe that the best part for me was Igbo people's customs and social structure.
My favourite thing about the novel is Okonkwo's personality that had a great character development. The reason behind it is that it always reminded me to one of the old kings in Iran which is my home country. While I was reading about Okonkwo It really stood out to me was the fact that he had a very similar personality to "Agha Mohammad Khan Ghajar" who is the king that I have mentioned. They both were great leaders for their people but at the same time they both were cruel. For instance, Agha Mohammad Khan settled the country but he often killed many people because he was very deluded and nothing was enough for him and Okonkwo had the same situation in some ways.
The relationship between Igbo people was astonishing. For example, fathers cared a lot about having sons because only men could be able to make a successful career and life by having wives and children as many as they could.
In feminism point of view, this type of actions and behaviours are not acceptable. Furthermore, men had the priorities over women. Women were often known as objects and trophies for men. They were expected to have the stereotypical household duties such as cleaning and cooking.
Moreover, the first part of the novel was more comprehensible compared to the second part, and the character development was more major.
Iconically, I started realizing that I have something in common with Okonkwo. He had to leave his hometown because of the situation that he had been through. Similarly, I have moved from my country to another one. I may have lost a lot of things in my life but I just found myself after a few years.
In brief, one thing that influenced my point of view was many aspects of the story, like society status and rituals of the Igbo people. Consequently, I have learned an important lesson that people should not ridicule other people’s culture because the world has no end and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.