Why do you think Achebe chooses to create a protagonist for Things Fall Apart that hardly develops across the novel? How does this choice affect...

The power of Okonkwo's story in Things Fall Apart is the relatively static nature of his daily life. He is very comfortably entrenched in the social order established, and questions little of it, even when he is made to feel sad or conflicted (as when he is forced to watch Ikemefuna's murder). The reason Achebe creates an essentially immovable character is so we can feel the monumental shift the story takes when the colonizers appear....

The power of Okonkwo's story in Things Fall Apart is the relatively static nature of his daily life. He is very comfortably entrenched in the social order established, and questions little of it, even when he is made to feel sad or conflicted (as when he is forced to watch Ikemefuna's murder).

The reason Achebe creates an essentially immovable character is so we can feel the monumental shift the story takes when the colonizers appear. When the outsider is introduced to an already functioning society, Okonkwo finds himself in a situation that leads him to despair. This despair motivates him to act in a way that is a 180-degree turn from the man he has been.

Okonkwo's suicide and the shift in point of view at the end of the novel reinforce the theme of social structures falling apart. Moreover, Ibo society has been corrupted by an outside influence, with no motivation or input from those who have built the society. This represents the loss of personal agency endemic to postcolonial literature.