Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart: Inevitable Suffering in Tragedies

What makes a tragedy so tragic is that the tragic hero, frequently because of his hamartia, falls a great distance from the high point where he is above many of us to the lowest point possible. In addition, they tend to be conductors of suffering as critic Northrop Frye says. These heroes catch the attention of the divine power and inevitably serve as instruments that bring suffering to both themselves and the people around them. …

…were in that exact situation they would behave differently. Tragic heroes are not simple people who can be stereotyped by their hamartia. The complexity of the characters often gives that inevitableness to the pain that give the catastrophic feeling in tragedies. Achebe's Things Fall Apart is a work that shows the struggle between both individuals and society and also change and tradition, realistically depicting that no extreme can be the ultimate solution to life's problems.