Things Fall Apart Final Discussion

After re-reading the last two pages of the book--Why are these pages told from the point of view of “the District Commissioner”? What is the effect of this change in narrative focus?

What is important about the title: "Things Fall Apart?" Is there a reference in the novel that explains this title?

What are the conflicts in "Things Fall Apart?" What types of conflict (physical, moral, intellectual, or emotional) are present? Please identify at least 3 examples of conflict within the text.

What proportion of the book is devoted to the coming of white men to Umuofia? What are the cause(s) of the clash of cultures between the Igbo culture and European colonizers?

How do the egwugwu, masqueraders who impersonate the ancestral spirits of the village, help organize and control others? What methods do the Christian missionaries use to displace Igbo beliefs and practices?

Umuofia is a patriarchal society founded on the balance of masculine and feminine qualities in Igbo culture. What are these masculine and feminine qualities? Okonkwo, ashamed that his father Unoka failed to be a "real man," seems to over-compensate. How does this result in conflict throughout the novel?

Describe the complex relationship(s) that exist between Okonkwo, his second wife Ekwefi, and Ekwefi’s only surviving daughter, Ezinma.

This story is told in a roundabout way, with digressions, folk tales and proverbs, and passages or whole chapters (i.e., Chapter Five) devoted to description of everyday life. What does this achieve?