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What is an Archetype?

In Jungian psychology, an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from the past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious.

Religious Symbols

Religious symbolism is the use of symbols, including archetypes, acts, artwork, events, or natural phenomena, by a religion.

Enoch’s killing and eating of the python symbolizes the transition to a new spirituality and a new religion. His disrespect of the python illustrates the incompatibility of colonialist and indigenous values.

Positive:

  • rejuvenation and rebirth

Negative:

  • Destruction
  • corruption

The culture has to change due to the colonialist ways. The snake is a clear foreshadow for the people of Umofia on how life will not stay the same.

"'We know you too well,' said the birds when they had heard him. 'You are full of cunning and you are ungrateful. If we allow you to come with us you will soon begin your mischief.' (Achebe 97)

  • The poor treatment of women in Umofia is part of their culture and religion
  • The tortoise is known for being persuasive, having "a sweet tongue"
  • The culture labels the tortoise as female to belittle them
  • The tortoise lives off of others = women depending on males
  • The males gets a strong archetype, serpent = dominance
  • Birth
  • Death
  • Resurrection
  • creation
  • purification
  • redemption

River:

  • baptism
  • transitional phases
  • phases of the life cycle

"You, Unoka, are known in all the clan for the weakness of your machete and your hoe. When your neighbours go out with their axe to cut down virgin forest, you sow your yams on exhausted farms that take no labour to clear. They cross seven rivers to make their farms; you stay at home and offer sacrifices to a reluctant soil. Go home and work like a man." (Achebe 17-18)

  • water represents birth, creation, and growth in this passage
  • the men cross seven rivers that leads them to land of growth
  • gardening is a part of religion because part of it is for sacrifices to the Gods

"Yam, the king of crops, was a man's crop." (Achebe 23)

  • The men take pride in their crops
  • The better their crops are the closer they are to paradise (heaven)
  • The success of the crops determines their manliness
  • since their religion is slightly based on male dominance, their garden is very important

"Behind them was a big and ancient silk cotton tree which was sacred. Spirits of good children lived in that tree waiting to be born. on ordinary days young women who desire children came to sit under it's shade." (Achebe 46)

  • The tree represents growth in this passage
  • It's an example of a folklore from their religion
  • The tree is used as a resource not only for men, but for women too

"Okonkwo always asked his wives' relations, and since he now had three wives his guests would make a fairly big crowd." (Achebe 37)

"As he was speaking the boy returned, followed by Akueke, his half-sister, carrying a wooden dish with three kola nuts and alligator pepper." (Achebe 71)

  • The number 3 pops up for any male relations
  • since the number 3 represent male principles it shows how much the culture is based off of males
  • It also shows how in their religion men are the closest one to their Gods with all of the references to 3

"There were seven drums and they were arranged according to their sizes in a long wooden basket. Three men beat them with sticks, working feverishly from one drum to another." (Achebe 46)

  • 7 represent the drums that are used for religious means
  • 7 also represents the perfect order and in the novel the drums were arranged according to sizes
  • They also use the drums as way to worship their Gods, the drums are a religious symbol to them

Religious Symbols

and Archetypes

In Things Fall

Apart

Conclusion

overall

  • Each archetype in the novel represents Umofia's religion
  • some foreshadows as to what is going to happen to their religion
  • the others represents the importance of symbols, such as the drums and locusts
  • The archetypes creates a pattern for us to follow along and to look deeper into what it all means and what will happen

Number Archetypes

  • most potent of all symbolic numbers
  • signifies union of three or four
  • completion of a cycle
  • perfect order
  • perfect number
  • religious symbol

7

  • light
  • spiritual
  • Unity
  • Male principle

3

Connection to the Book

Pictures

Connection to the Book

Animal Archetypes

Archetypes of Nature

Water

Locusts

Garden

Trees

  • Plague
  • Death
  • Destruction
  • New Arrival
  • Renewing

Tortoise

  • paradise
  • innocence
  • unspoiled beauty

Positive:

  • growth
  • man's life as a primal source of food, shelter and tools

Negative:

  • symbol of immorality

Serpent

The turtle appears in fertility rites (A religious or other solemn ceremony or act).

It represents the feminine to the serpent's masculine power.

Positive:

  • Symbol of energy and pure force
  • Rebirth & rejuvenation
  • Fertility
  • Special knowledge

Negative:

  • Evil
  • corruption
  • sensuality
  • destruction
  • The underworld
  • Universal fear

Connection to the Book

  • Locust foreshadows the white colonizers
  • . A cultural trait of the Igbo is their hard work and diligence.
  • The arrival of the locusts stops them from working, breaking the cultural trait.
  • The locusts, just like the colonizers, arouse cultural changes within the people, weakening their communal strength.

Connection to the Book

Foundation

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