Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe - A Short Summary & Review
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe - A Short Summary & Review
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review
A short summary:
Things Fall Apart traces the rise and fall of Okonkwo, a respected Igbo warrior whose strength, pride, and fear of weakness shape both his success and his undoing. Set in pre-colonial Nigeria, the novel explores how rigid masculinity, cultural tradition, and the arrival of European colonizers collide, fracturing both a community and the man who cannot bend with it.
My favorite quote from the book:
Questions to ponder while reading:
My review:
I did not have much sympathy for Okonkwo, and I think that response is intentional.
Achebe gives us a protagonist shaped by fear: fear of weakness, fear of failure, fear of being anything like his father. That fear hardens into cruelty, rigidity, and violence, particularly toward women and those with less power. Okonkwo mistakes dominance for strength and control for honor, and his inability to question those assumptions ultimately isolates him from both his family and his culture.
At the same time, Things Fall Apart is not a defense of colonization, far from it. Achebe makes clear that European intrusion dismantles complex social structures with devastating speed and arrogance. Traditions fracture, justice systems are undermined, and communal identity erodes. Two truths coexist uncomfortably: Okonkwo’s culture is deeply flawed, especially in its treatment of women, and colonization makes everything worse, not better.
One of the novel’s most enduring strengths is its refusal to simplify. Women suffer here, not as a footnote, but as a constant. Their marginalization is cultural, systemic, and tragically familiar across societies. Achebe does not romanticize the past, nor does he excuse its harms. Instead, he asks the reader to sit with the cost of inflexibility, personal and collective, and to witness what happens when change comes, and no one knows how to hold what matters without breaking it.
This is a quiet, devastating classic. Not because it offers answers, but because it refuses easy ones.
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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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