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In the “Things fall apart”, the author Achebe pictures the idea of how colonization destroys the possibility of heroes. In the novel the main character, Okonkwo, kills himself because he cannot accept the sudden reform of Christianity that was brought to his village. Okonkwo is the hero in the Umuofia clan, the lower Nigerian tribe that is a part of consortium of nine connected villages. Unlike the old traditional community, the new Christian community gives villagers the rights and helps them to raise the living standard. As a result of struggling between change and tradition, Okonkwo chooses an extreme way to end his life. He hangs himself on a tree to prevent him from losing his social status. Colonization enhances the living standards and advocates a civilized society. Therefore, the gap of social statuses gets narrow and leads to the limitation of heroism.
Achebe uses clever writing technique in the conversations among the characters to express the native villagers’ distaste to the outsiders. According to the text, author states that How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. (176) Okonkwo and Obierika discuss various events that have happened since the arrival of the colonists. Obierika believes that colonists do not have rights to mock their customs because they cannot speak Umuofias’ native language. This paragraph also represents the author’s thoughts about colonialism. Achebe is afraid that the outer religious forces would shatter beliefs of his nation.
During seven years of Okonkwo’s exile, the six missionaries enter the town and build a church to convert villagers to their religion. In spite of the objections from the villagers the head of the missionaries, Mr. Brown, helps to set up trading posts, and also villagers start using money to exchange goods and services. In addition, a hospital and a school are built to help the local inhabitants to get better medical help and education. The author states that “How do you think we can fight when our own brothers has turned against us?” Achebe uses these words in the worry and uncertainty of tone to demonstrate the dilemma of Umuofia’s villagers in choosing between the new Christian religious community and the old culture. The villagers slowly begin to believe missionaries and join the church. Obierika worries that his own brothers have turned against him. Obierika is afraid that after adopting the new civilization his clan is going to fall apart.

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At the beginning of the book, Achebe describes Okonkwo as an undefeatable super hero. Ironically, as the story goes on, after Okonkwo returns from the exile people treat him like a normal guy. Achebe wants the readers to believe that colonization has changed Umuofian’s lives tremendously. With more educations and outlooks most of villagers do no longer believe in superstitions and aimlessly admiring the barbarism because they are trained to live in a civilized world.
In this book there are many paragraphs revealing the unsophisticated life of the third world people who lives with lack of civilization. Readers can perceive this from the story of a tortoise “Once upon a time, all the birds were invited to a feast in the sky”(Pg. 96) The story about Tortoise and the birds that Ekwefi tells Ezinma is the Achebe’s way to expose the reader to Igbo folklore. According to the book, tortoise has bumpy shell because it falls off from the sky. This was a punishment for taking all the foods from the birds. The shell scattered and a medicine man put it back together. The word of scientific does not exists in the Umuofian’s world. The natives try to use logical explanations to answer a natural phenomenon of tortoise’s bumpy shell. Unreasonable stories from the folklore can reflect the uncivilized Umuofi’s culture and the hardship environment.
However, it is tough to be a hero under the civilized colonization. Unlike the old Igbo tradition, the new community has its own rules to overrule people and also grant certain rights to protect them. In the novel, Okonkwo kills a man from the church trying to reestablish his status and to express his anger towards the domination of the new Christian political power. As a result the majority of villagers do not appreciate his action. They blame him for his stubbornness and ignorance instead.
Achebe uses the locusts incident to illustrate one of the most important metaphors in this book. In chapter seven Achebe states that “And at last the locusts did descend. They settled on every tree and on every blade of grass; they settled on the roofs and covered the bare ground. Mighty tree branches broke away under them, and the whole country became the brown-earth color of the vast, hungry swarm”. In the paragraph Achebe uses locust as a metaphor to foresee the inevitable arrival of the colonizers. Omnipresent of the colonizers would change everything in the village just like the destructive locusts passing through the clans. “The whole country became the brown-earth color of the vast, hungry swarm” this sentence unfolds the fact that the swarm of colonizers go into the villages to satisfy the personal desire. They just like a swarm of locusts.
The locust’s metaphor is the way of acceptance for Achebe to prepare a vague future. The villagers know the locusts are coming. Unfortunately, they cannot do anything to prevent the disaster. This metaphor is used to show that changing of oglb culture is inevitable.
The author of “Things fall apart” expresses the thoughts of his fear that his own ethnic might fall apart due the intervention of different cultures and traditions. This book also enacts the idea that colonization destroys the possibility of heroes. Civilization is brought to the native villagers from European colonizers. As the villagers learn the advantages of being civilized, they abandon their foolish traditions and begin to move on to better live. Consequently, Barbarism gradually disappears under the civilized society which leads to the restraint of heroism.