- WW1 = war to end all ways but the aftermath ended up leading into WW2 (gyre)
- Gyre's represented two-thousand year cycles - all endings have a beginning - when one door closes another door opens etc etc
"The blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned..."
- Killing of Ikemefuna and his innocent blood being shed (ceremonial killing)
- Naivety of the clan as to what the white men were really up to
- Christianity that spread killed the culture, losing all innocence (not enough knowledge to understand) -> don't fight
"The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart the centre cannot hold...:
- Clansmen=falcon, white men=falconer and the attempted integration
Gyres
- end of culture in Achebe's mind and beginning of the mashed up Christianity and African traditional religions
- images of the past resurface in different contexts
"A shape with lion body and the head of a man' A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun..."
- Colonists view of the Africans (animalistic/unintelligent)
- Lion = powerful and destructive - white men look powerful and human but they really aren't...
- Blank stare - Africans not understanding the consequences
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Things Fall Apart - Part 2
- Cultural Traditions become an issue upon the arrival o the white men who introduce a "better and safer" religion
- Achebe may have written his story in response to this poem because it reflects the loss of cultural identities and a western perspective may help readers draw a parallel between WW1 and African colonization
- Many parallels between the two - focusing on the negativity of each of the events
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