Close Cultured

On a broad scale, Things Fall Apart began spiraling downhill when the white people began entering villages. Two separate cultures with such drastic differences will not blend together like a melting pot, but fight for dominance.  This is because though fundamental morals are still the same, exceptions to those morals are different. An example of this is when Aneto is hung in Things Fall Apart because he killed a man whom he was disputing with. The Africans believed that sometimes murder was necessary in certain disagreements or for sacrifices, but the white men believed that they should only kill as punishment of a murderer. On a smaller scale, the book was doomed from the start. Okonkwo was so close minded and unwilling to at least contemplate views that differed from his- his stubbornness foreshadowed his suicide. He was so sickened by the moral code and ways of the other culture that killing himself was the only escape. He exemplified the fact that the morals we are raised with cannot be easily broken, even if challenged.