What is the significance of Okonkwo’s character? What does he represent or is symbolic of? He is symbolic of everything that the Umuofian society stands for. He is materialistic, and loves being successful. He aspires to reach to top ranks of his society, and is determined to achieve his goals. He is hard working, strong, and brave, everything that a man should be in his society. He does not follow in the footsteps of his father but rather deviates from him and will do anything to not end up like him. His society does not believe in a man that benefits from his own father's success but rather must build his own success. He is significant in that he is considered important within his society. He is well known and someone that the young men of Umuofia should aspire to be like. However, he is also human. He deals with a lot of internal conflict, mainly centered around the fact that he will do anything to not be like his father which has it's downsides. His father was a very lo...
David Foster Wallace's 'This is Water' and Zora Neale Hurston's 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' are at times quite similar. The default setting that Wallace describes in 'This is Water' is similar to the way Hurston describes Janie's emotion while she is married to Joe. She is forced to stay at home or at the shop, while Joe is working as mayor of Eatonville. While there is no mention of routine, Hurston does describe Janie feeling like she does not know where the last twenty years went, which is similar to the automatic or default setting that Wallace describes in his text. And you can assume that a contributing factor to this feeling, would be the fact that every day Janie is doing the same thing. When you are stuck in a constant routine, your grasp of time tends to get weaker and weaker the longer it goes on for. In terms of empathy and emotional intelligence, at times it is quite difficult to empathize with characters in Their Eyes Were Watching...
Chinua Achebe as we all know is a proud Igbo and a devote Christian. He was a member of the Nigerian independence movement, and published the novel shortly before they gained independence. Having this information at hand, you can understand why he incorporated certain elements of structure into the novel. In the first part of the novel, he aims to educate his audience about the Igbo culture. An example of this would be in the first chapter when Okoye is talking to Unoka about the debts that he must repay him. The third person omniscient narrator mentions the fact that in Igbo culture, conversation is considered an art, where proverbs are respected, and one does speaks around the point their trying to make, rather than directly at it. This is reflected in the first part of the novel, as the story is told in a very circular motion, rather than linear. This is intentional, as it gives the novel a certain Igbo authenticity. In terms of the narrative voice, Achebe decides to use a third pe...
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