“Tragedy arouses not only pity but also fear…” Things Fall Apart doesn't tell you what “has” happened, it shows you what will happen. In Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe dramatizes what could happen and what was happening. The district commissioner suggested a title for the book at the end of the book. I think the main purpose of the book's title was to suggest what might happen. "...The pacification of the tribes of the Lower Niger." A tragedy has a protagonist, the protagonist is someone who is famous or prosperous, and has a change of fortune from good to bad or vice versa. The driving force or protagonist of Things Fall Apart is undoubtedly Okonkwo. Okonkwo was an important member of the Umuofia clan. He had three wives and eight children. Okonkwo had many changes in fortune during Things Fall Apart. He started out as a sharecropper for Nwakibie. Sharecropping is an agricultural system in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop produced on the land. From there he acquired his own farm. When he thought he could never fall, Okonkwo had a cruel twist of fate. His gun went off and killed Ezeudu's son. Okonkwo was then banished for seven years, and from there everything began to fall apart. Things Fall Apart and Okonkwo both evoke many emotions; fear, pity, anguish, compassion and hope. There is a lot of compassion when his son turned against him and there is hope that the Ibo culture will remain intact even if the outcome of the white man's contact with the Ibo culture is known. According to Aristotle, tragedies use many metaphors. Things Fall Apart has metaphors accompanied by many proverbs from Ibo culture. “…Okonkwo was as slippery as a fish in water.”(1). In Things Fall... middle of the paper... achieve that level of success he wanted."... Clearly his personal god or chi was not made for great things. A man cannot rise above the destiny of his chi ” (121) His elders said “if a man said yes, his chi asserted himself.” Okonkwo said yes but, despite his elder's affirmation, his chi said no. His life is It was a constant buildup and then a collapse. He managed to escape mistakes of his father and built a prosperous compound and family. This success was overshadowed by the arrival of the white man and Nwoye changed his name in Isaac and what he symbolized. Everything "truly" fell apart when Okonkwo finally killed himself "The lizard would like to stand upright, but his tail does not allow him to do so." Works Cited “Things Fall Apart” Chinua Achebe