... falconer;/ Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold;/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world" (Lines 1-4 W. B. Yeats The first four lines of, "The Second Coming," by William Butler Yeats ring true throughout, "Things Fall Apart," and served as inspiration for Cinua Achebe. Reading those lines reminded him of what his ... ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best of which lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.," (Lines 7-8 W. B. Yeats) describes just how sudden the change was in Umuofia. The white man came in like a strong wave, and killed the customs of t...

• Word Count: 1420
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... Modern South African State; and Frederick D. Lugard's The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart derives its title from a line from William Butler Yeats' poem "The Second Coming," which foretells the end of the world. And Achebe's novel indeed foreshadows the end of a world: the incursion of the white ... over Africa. Belgium also held considerable amounts of colonial territory in Africa, and there the situation was no different; Anthony Butler, in his excellent book on South Africa, shows that the situation was the same there in an area originally s...

• Word Count: 2479
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... the white man, such as the mostly benevolent Mr. Brown, the zealous Reverend Smith, and the ruthlessly calculating District Commissioner. Achebe's Things Fall Apart derives its title from a line from William Butler Yeats" poem "The Second Coming," which foretells the end of the world. And Achebe's novel indeed foreshadows the end of a world: the incursion of the white man into the society of ... ...

• Word Count: 1731
• Approx Pages: 7