Life free essay sample

Sight came first, an artists palette of grays and blues. Clouds large and billowing. A horizon hidden, gilded with a single sheet of silver leaf. Then came feel, a subtle shift in temperature. Ripples of wind upon the water. Trenchant winds buffet me. With elan, the storm rushes forward. The far shore of the bank dips out of sight. All landmarks disappear. And then the first rain drop touches my skin. Thirty feet ahead can I see, and no more. * Days such as this can only be described with one word: surreal. For a moment one can vaguely grasp at an understanding of something bigger, something that cares so little for human trivialities. They stand as hints of raw power that remind us that we are not quite as important as we fancy ourselves. And on that day, in those ephemeral moments, my life changed. It is sobering to realize that day would not have differed from any other, save for one cause: the little choices. We will write a custom essay sample on Life or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page On that day, instead of watching the television set in a mindless stupor, I chose to go outside, down to the dock, and to live, truly live. The mundane can be the bane of a full existence because of this, I am firmly of the opinion that in order to truly live, one must be doing something worth living for. By playing video games or watching television, one can burn through the small hours of the day, never realizing what he has missed. We have so little time to live that to squander even a second is to do a disservice to the thing we supposedly appreciate the most — our own lives. When I discovered this train of thought, I realized a dramatic overhaul was in order. I stopped watching television, I stopped playing video games, I even broke up with the girlfriend I had long since stopped enjoying being with. I devoted my time to making every conscience second to be more fabulous than the last. I was significantly altered, for good or ill. Ironically, I would probably have been happier without such thoughts. I probably would have been content. I probably could have continued on with nothing but a nagging sense to tell me something was wrong. However, for the sake of appreciating this one-in-a-thousand chance to exist, I will live on. * The brunt of the storm is upon me in its full eclat. The experience becomes ineffable. All internal sensation disappears. The ego is lost. My self now rides somewhere upon the storm. In the thunderclaps. On the roaring wind. In the drops of rain that drench my now-abandoned body. An endless ten minutes passes. Then a distant shout. I am jerked back to my body. My father is calling for me to get off of the dock. He is worried for my safety from the lightning. Before turning to go back, I look back across the water. I glance once more into the natural brilliance and sheer power. â€Å"Ill return,† I promise it. I smile. Life free essay sample I think that these events foreshadowed Okonkwo’s and the Ibo tribe’s demise because every single one of the events affected Okonkwo negatively and led to some of change in his life. It starts with Okonkwo’s father being a bum in the tribe and neglecting his responsibility to his family. His death was also degrading because his body was thrown in the forbidden forest and Okonkwo always worked towards not becoming someone like him. However, at the end Okonkwo’s â€Å"burial† is the same and he becomes the failure he tried to avoid. He considered himself a failure because he was unable to rid the tribe of the colonists because he could see that the culture was diminishing but he failed to bring the tribe to fight after his exile. He was exiled because he killed a boy at the wedding which he was invited to after he killed Ikemefuna so that he could clear his mind with a distraction. We will write a custom essay sample on Life or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Overall, every event led to something which foreshadowed Okonkwo’s demise as well as the tribe’s. 13. How does the last chapter of the book differ from the other chapters? Why do you think Achebe chooses to narrate the last chapter from the point of view of someone who has et to be introduced in the novel? The last chapter of the book is different from the rest because Achebe allows the colonists to have the last words which were, â€Å"The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger,† the name of another book that would be in the perspective of the colonists which degraded the Africans as uneducated and barbaric individuals who lacked the basic understanding of religion and government. The title refers to the killing of numerous Africans to take their resources and â€Å"pacifying† the people because they were savage and didn’t know the ways of civil life. The pacification is not peace, but it the ruin of the culture and tradition set forth so long ago and trampled on by the colonists. Achebe’s focus throughout the novel was to debate the colonist’s view on his people and the reader can see that the colonists were people who took over and negatively impacted some tribes with the biased viewpoint from Achebe which is good and bad. The positive aspect is that we get to see how many Africans felt about the colonists and how power-hungry they might’ve been. On the other hand, the negative part is that we do not know the colonists’ perspectives on the same events that Okonkwo sees such as the killing of the messenger. Achebe wants to change the focal point of the last chapter to other novels written by the white men who he wrote about because he wants to leave a biased impact on the reader. The reader can see how the commissioner is â€Å"evil† when Obierika gets mad which is weird for him because he is usually so neutral/calm. He blames him for Okonkwo’s death and praises his friend’s greatness. The commissioner decides to honor the group’s request, but he leaves and orders his messengers to do the work. As he departs, he congratulates himself for having added to his store of knowledge of African customs. Achebe makes the colonists seem like the villains with this biased view and the reader feels resentment towards them and sympathy towards the tribes. We do not know the colonists’ point of view on everything just from this chapter. It is true that the colonists brought change upon the tribes but they brought both good and bad, however, Achebe chose to focus on the bad.