Things Fall Apart (turtle Story Analysis)

Things Fall Apart (turtle Story Analysis)

Storytelling is a significant part of every cultural. Since the dawn of time human beings have passed down stories from generation to generation. Stories have many different purposes; perhaps the most notable is to preserve ethics and cultural traditions. In Chinua Achebe novel, Things Fall Apart, we observe the telling of many stories; most remarkable is the story of the Tortuous and the Birds. At its baseline, the story is purely entertainment. It is a way to past time during a long dark night. More importantly, it serves to teach the children a lesson in morals, and finally it could be argued that the story serves to foreshadow the plot of the novel.

Entertainment was very limited during the times of the Igbo people they had no means of watching television or even reading a novel simple luxuries that we take for granted today. Oral communication was one of the only means for people to communicate. Naturally this became one of the main forms of entertainment.

The underlying moral of the story is not to take advantage of people, to be fair and courteous. Upon looking closer we observe that the story deals with aspects of a clan (the birds) and a leader (the tortuous). The tortuous is initially