Okonkwo Analysis

Okonkwo is introduced in the story as a very powerful and strong willed character. We can see in the story that he is a brave person, he values a lot of important things in his life and he represents the kind of maturity that one would expect from a leader and a top figure of his town. Okonkwo does have a solid personality and he is a brave person but his fear of failing and weak gets the better of him as the story continues, he experiences misfortune as he accidentally shoots his wife, kills Ezeudu's son at his own funeral by mistake and is forced to kill Ikemefuna. Okonkwo is portrayed as a tragic hero as at the beginning of the story, he was portrayed as the person who had everything and then by the end of the story Okonkwo took away his life. The story encapsulates Okonkwo's rise and fall with his own bad luck and doubts which therefore cast him as a tragic hero.

Achebe chose to have a tragic hero in the play as a way to portray the struggles in an African environment and city. Achebe used him as a tragic hero in a way to show that no matter how privileged Okonkwo was in an African place, his status and his life will never be safe in an African place especially in one set in a colonization period.

I think Okonkwo is portrayed as an example of an African person, whose life turned for the worse due to the invasion of Western nations that came to colonize African places. Okonkwo is used to show how colonization really impacted Africans in such a horrible way and the fact that he hung himself in the end really showed that the colonization impact took Africans to highly drastic measures. Okonkwo's fall also sets a function to show how the rest of the characters in the story have fallen victim to the colonization but Okonkwo's decline standing out the most in the story. 

Chinua Achebe Discussion

Last week, we had an in class discussion about an interview with author of Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe. In the interview, Achebe spoke about his book and most notably his African culture. A key moment from our in class discussion was discussing about the Western world's perception of Africa, how they are biased and how one must look at the situation in Africa from 2 different perspectives.

When looking at the situation from the British perspective, the British can sense a lot of superiority and power over them and it brings them a good feeling in their hearts. Their goals of colonizing more countries around the world is getting fulfilled. Looking at it from an African perspective, we can see the misery they must feel as they are forced to change their entire culture and go through a brutal change in their lifestyle. This discussion made it more clear to be able to look at colonization from 2 different sides and see a clear difference on the impacts of colonization. I could also takeaway how when we perceive luxurious things in Africa, we still picture the poverty and the abandoned land as opposed to the Western countries, where we envision actual luxury and wealth.

Paper 1 - Speech Analysis

The given extract here is a speech by Winston Churchill called "We shall fight on the beaches". The speech was delivered to the House of Commons to the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This text analysis will explore how Winston Churchill uses literary techniques/rhetoric devices to warn the parliament of Great Britain of a possible attack from Nazi Germany and how they must be prepared for it if the worst case scenario comes true. This speech was delivered in 1940 during world war 2.

From the line "At any rate, that is what we are trying to do. That is resolve of His Majesty's Government-every man of them. That is the will of the parliament of our nation". This is able to make us understand who the target audience of the speech is more clearly, the target audience is shown here through this line to be the entire nation of Great Britain but more specifically the Parliament as his speech is being delivered to the Parliament and he says that is the will of the parliament of our nation. “Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail.The overall purpose is shown through both of the statements already quoted in this paragraph. In the latest statement from Churchill, he states that even though many other nations have fallen badly in Europe and been destroyed (especially to Nazi Germany), his nation of Britain will not succumb to any one in Europe and they will stay strong and stable. The line also discreetly shows that Churchill is empowering his nation that they will stay strong and telling them about the other nations falling in Europe as a warning to his audience that if they don't organize themselves together then they will fall hard just like those nations. “I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.This line is the opening of Churchill's speech and it further more makes the purpose a lot more clear as he says that if the best decisions are made then Britain should be able to defend their nation successfully and outlive the carnage in the war. The overall purpose is to empower his nation of Great Britain to take action against possible attacks that could be targeted towards them in the future by other nations and in the process warn his people about the worst case scenario of being attacked.

In this speech, Churchill continues on to elaborate on how Britain must take action as fast as possible in order to be successful. Churchill brings up on how other nations have fallen too and that Britain doesn't want to be like that and therefore they must take action, in order to stay intact as a powerful nation. He starts by stating if they do take the right action, he believes Britain will be successful. He then installs a little bit of fear into the parliament "Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the"grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail." The fear shown through this quote being that if Britain doesn't make the right decisions or take the incorrect action, then they will falter badly like the large nations of Europe who fell to the superior nations. The very last 11 lines of Churchill's short speech encapsulates what Britain overall needs to do. The last 11 lines show what Britain must do as they must fight in any place at any time in any location no matter the circumstances. Churchill in the last 11 lines installs empowerment into the people as he tells his nation and his country's army to fight extremely hard no matter what and fight till the end as that is what they need to do. A recurring theme of fight is constantly displayed throughout the speech as Churchill is encouraging his country's army in particular to find and he letting the parliament in the House of Commons know about it.

Churchill speaks in a very inspirational tone with a lot of optimism and belief in what he is saying. Churchill's optimistic tone is displayed in the very first passage of the speech as he clearly displays confidence and faith in his country by saying "I have,myself, full of confidence". He has belief that his country will survive everything and stay strong, that is IF they take the right actions and right steps. Churchill continues on with most of the speech, speaking in a very motivating and inspirational tone. His motivational tone is highly illustrated in the last 2 passages as he is motivating them to take the right action, he is telling the entire nation of Great Britain on what exactly they are going to be doing and he believes that what they are going to do will eventually guarantee them success in the war. Churchill's tone creates a rather upbeat mood as the entire speech is to motivated and inspire the parliament, the army and the entire nation of Great Britain. His words are used to help the British people lift their heads up. The last 2 passages are able to represent the mood as well as Churchill's powerful words are used to empower and motivate everyone around him.

Several rhetorical devices are used in this speech as ways to motivate, inspire and empower in this speech.“I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone". This is the first passage of the speech and the underlined portion highlights the use of parallelism, using parallelism helps Churchill describe what Britain's goals are and what Britain needs to do. The bold is the usage of an expletive, the expletive helps the speech be more direct as the expletives helps the clarity of speech and explains more on the situation.  The last passage of the speech uses anaphora as Churchill constantly repeats "We shall". The assonance helps the motivation of Churchill's words greatly as he uses we shall to let Great Britain know what they must do and they will have to do in order to get through the war safely and remain a powerful country. " all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule", "we shall not flag or fail". This is the 2nd last part of the speech before the final large passage, here Churchill uses assonance in the underlined portion of the statement. The assonance is used to insult but at the same time recognize how dominant Nazi Germany has been and how Great Britain should never fall beneath them. The bold is alliteration as Churchill encourages his country that they will not falter and that they will accomplish their goals and it helps add to the motivation component of the speech.

Overall the speech is very well structured and Churchill has been able to use several rhetorical devices in speech in order to make himself easier to understand and have a more clear speech. The rhetorical devices also help add the motivational part of his speech and it helps the inspiration component greatly as many of the inspirational parts of the speech contain a rhetorical device.
http://www.presentationmagazine.com/winston-churchill-speech-we-shall-fight-them-on-the-beaches-8003.htm