What things fall apart in Things Fall Apart?

The "things" that fall apart in the book are really the Ibo way of life, and Okonkwo's life as he knows it. Okonkwo had built himself up to be a self made man, who had aspirations to be a leader in the tribe. In a incident that involves his gun blowing up and fatally wounding another clansman, he is banished to his motherland for 7 years. It is in this way that Okonkwo's life falls apart, in a split second. The way the Ibo culture and values fall apart is when Christianity comes to the villages. The missionaries come and try to convert some tribe members, when they have converted some people, the old tribe members began to question their old faith and belief. It came to the point that Enoch disrespected the Ibo tribe by unmasking an Egwugwu. By the doubt that the Christianity put into the minds of the Ibo clansman, it made the structure that the Ibo tribe was built on fall apart.


The significant steps that cause Okonkwo's life to fall apart are:

1. He is punished for beating his wife during the week of peace, when nobody is allowed to display violence.
2. Ikemefuna, the boy he has taken care of, Okonkwo's ideal son, is sentenced to die.
3. Okonkwo ends up delivering the killing blow to Ikemefuna.
4. Okonkwo kills a clansman accidentally at the funeral from a gun misfunction.
5. The impact of Christianity particularly Okonkwo's son, Nwoye, abandoning the Ibo faith to join Christianity.
6. Okonkwo gets fed up with his fellow clansmen betraying the Ibo culture leads him to kill a colonialist messenger.
7. Okonkwo kills himself at the end of the story.