ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
Respect and Reputation Videos 16 videos
A cheap shot at a bestseller or a deeper book with connections relevant to the human race? In The Call of the Wild, the protagonist is a dog named...
What is the American Dream? Is it popularity? Or is it being content with what you have? In Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, the American...
Meet Emma Woodhouse of Jane Austen's Emma. She’s a rich young woman with a good social life living in 18th-century England. We bet she has an aw...
Things Fall Apart 49851 Views
Share It!
Description:
Anyone who has ever bought anything from IKEA knows this to be true.
Transcript
- 00:04
Things Fall Apart, a la Shmoop. Okonkwo[1] is one manly guy.
- 00:11
Really manly.
- 00:12
That all you got?
- 00:13
He’s spent his entire life trying hard not to be like his father, who he thought was
- 00:18
lazy and cowardly.
Full Transcript
- 00:20
So Okonkwo works hard to be an awesome farmer.
- 00:23
He wrestles like a champ.
- 00:25
And he’s a brave leader of his people. But when Okonkwo hangs himself at the end
- 00:32
of Things Fall Apart....
- 00:33
…sorry… belated spoiler alert…
- 00:35
Is he acting as a brave martyr, living up to his manly reputation?
- 00:40
Or is he being a coward just like his dad? When white missionaries invade the land...
- 00:48
Okonkwo is ticked off.
- 00:49
Really ticked off.
- 00:51
The missionaries are shoving the tribe’s beliefs to the side....
- 00:54
And replacing them with Christianity.
- 00:57
Before, the village elders made the laws.
- 01:01
Now, it’s a foreign Queen.
- 01:07
Okonkwo wants to free his people from this foreign power.
- 01:15
He tries to rally his tribe to fight...
- 01:17
But many refuse... Some even join the other team.
- 01:21
Enraged, Okonkwo even beheads a kotma <<CAHT-muh>>,[2] one of the Africans who collaborate with the
- 01:27
white men.
- 01:28
But still his people won’t rise.
- 01:30
So for the first time in his life Okonkwo purposefully breaks the laws of his community...
- 01:36
By committing suicide.
- 01:37
Sounds like a bold move, right? He bravely faces Death rather than submitting
- 01:41
to the white man…
- 01:42
And dies on his own terms… just like he lived.
- 01:46
On the other hand...
- 01:47
Is it possible that Okonkwo kills himself because he’s afraid of change?
- 01:52
Should he have had the courage to adjust his warrior ethics?
- 01:56
To lead his people toward a peaceful compromise with the missionaries?
- 02:00
Or should he at least have stayed in the world of the living to fight some more?
- 02:04
He lived his whole life afraid of the ghost of his father...
- 02:07
Afraid he’d turn out to be a coward just like him.
- 02:10
But in the end, did he do the cowardly thing?
- 02:13
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
- 02:14
[1]y particular pronunciation here? [2]any particular pronunciation here?
Related Videos
This video defines utopias and dystopias, and investigates how a utopia might become a dystopia. Can a seemingly perfect world actually be a dystop...
They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...
Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.
Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...