Short essays on Things Fall Apart on different subjects: Folktales/proverbs, a "pure" african culture, the impossiblity of the Ibo culture surviving, and Aristotelian model of a tragic hero

Achebe uses many of the folktales and proverbs that are common to the Ibo people along with some common mythology that exists in all cultures (such as the proverbs about the silence of night). The mythology/proverbs/folktales in which Achebe chooses to incorporate to the story is provided for the specific purpose of adding depth and reasoning to the decisions of all the characters that are part of the Ibo culture. Without having those …

…stood united. Okonkwo does not follow the view of a tragic hero in one respect - he is not nobility. Where Okonkwo's tragic flaw comes from the fact that he is not of noble blood, it is also what sets himself apart from Aristotle's defintion of a tragic hero. Okonkwo's father was not a nobleman, but instead was the complete opposite - Okonkwo's father was a lazy man that was the poorest of the poor.