Culture Clash - Things Fall Apart and Lolita - Term Paper Example

14 March Culture Clash: Things Fall Apart and Lolita of the Things Fall Apart and Lolita covered the different cultural aspects of their respective societies of twentieth century and showed in their fictitious characters the experience of the “lost generations”. The influence of the outside culture had already confused them and the way they were following the trend of mixed culture made them lose their particular religious dictates, norms and conventions. Both Lolita and the Things Fall Apart are different novels yet both reveal their same sentimental judgment, their attempts to walk into the alien culture and their lost identity. The following essay is an effort to portray the clash of cultures as the main protagonists interact with the people of different culture, the difficulties they face and the differences they experience. Igbo Okonkwo is a Negro whose interaction with British colonialists’ causes much of chaos in his life and the same is true with Humbert who is unable to understand what is going on in Lolita’s life. In both the novels, protagonists’ lives end in misery making us to think about our lost roots of heritage and our own identity. Chinua Achebe tells us the life of an Igbo who has himself experienced and seen culture of the people falling under the walls of the British colonial power. When British and other whites interfered in simple lives of Africans, it brought chaos and disturbance in their cultural and religious lives. Throughout the novel, people are seen facing conflicting situations in their daily affairs and even in their religious lives. Okonkwo is both a good farmer and a warrior and has gained two titles for his clan; has three wives, is owner of two barns full of yarns and a considerably big house revealing his achievements. He has got this success because of his father’s failures in life, which shows us type of the difficulties he must have borne in his life. He is revered and respected by his clan, as per his custom “Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings” (Achebe 6). While in Lolita, when Humbert of European origin and Charlotte Haze as well as Lolita, both Americans, get to know each other, it leads to conflicting situations in their lives. The glamour and intellect of Humbert fascinates Charlotte while on the other hand Humbert laughs at the superficial aspects and civilized nature of the Americans. He looks at Charlotte not more than a simple housewife whereas considers Lolita as a sexual symbol. He is passionate about Lolita’s freedom of thoughts and her vulgar postures. He also loves to travels and observes everything what makes America but at the same time enjoys the freedom on its roads. Yet when Humbert and Lolita travel together, there is a gap between them as there is no harmonized relation between each other. Their inability to understand each other tear them apart to the extent that Lolita leaves Humbert for Clare Quilty. When life becomes difficult, it splits the lives of Lolita and Humbert in Lolita and a tragic end of Okonkwo comes in Things Fall Apart. Lolita leaves Humbert alone depressed and unhappy. On other hand Okonkwo also cannot see the lives of people coming under the influence of Christianity and westernized culture. Okonkwo believes that these aliens’ rituals have destroyed their male egos and are against the image he has so valued all through his life. Moreover the system of evaluating the status symbol in their clan is also one of reasons for the outcasts to find peace and get themselves recognized in Christianity. When Christian missionaries start exerting their influence on the lives of the people of Umuofia, Okonkwo’s own son Nwoye could not also remain aloof and adopts Christianity. He names himself as Issac. Both the father and son’s relation get hostile and are unable to find any method to get closely linked with each other. Obierika tells him that the white man has placed a “knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart” (Achebe 125). Unfortunately the circumstances destroy the Okonkwo’s character to the extent that he gets mentally distorted. He behaves without thinking, hardly shows any emotions except anger, and always remains in a fear of being considered by others as powerless. Slowly the traits that were being seen earlier in the life of Okonkwo die away which change the course of his life. The first incident happens when Okonkwo by mistake breaks the Week of Peace. He gets so angry with his second wife that he beats her in a very brutal way when she forgets to prepare meal for him. In a fit of anger, he even forgets to appease the Goddess of Peace. Humbert and Lolita lives also get changed when they get alienated from the society they belong too. They find themselves in unclear circumstances and environment where the old norms of their own society do not apply. Humbert feels himself free in this exile while Lolita is forced to enter into exile when Charlotte dies. She finds herself totally isolated from her community of Ramsdale and readily travels along with Humbert on an American route. As they travel, they make their own rules and cross all the borders of the sexual limits. In this situation, they are not even able to realize how separated they have become from their own roots. Lolita has to remain with Humbert as she has no other place to go and Humbert finally decides to spend their life in America until he dies. However, as soon as Lolita sees the opportunity, she leaves him for Quilty and final to Dick Schiller. Humbert gets offended and when he comes to know that Lolita loves him, he recedes back his steps but finally when Quilty gets rid of Lolita, he kills him to find himself landed in the prison. Finally Lolita also dies after giving birth to a still baby. Their experience with the alien cultures becomes an ultimate cause of their tragic end. Since millions of people enter Unites States of America, clash of the cultures become a norm among the people. It is also explained by Barbara Wyllie, “the conflict between the high and low cultures can also be regarded in terms of emigration, of there being a necessary degree of concession by the alien to the host culture; whether that concession is partial or total depends on the individual (46).” In Lolita, Humbert always abuses American culture when he is staying in the home of Charlotte but at the same time adores Lolita and her love for music, cinema and radio and her free nature. Obsession for the beauty of the young ladies and their sexual appeal is also the most contributing factor for Humbert to show his interest in American way of life but on the other hand he is European from his heart and considers himself as the representative of his European tradition. On the other side, Lolita is forced by the circumstances to surrender to the whims of Humbert and to move on an American trail with him. She is allowed to listen to radio only if she fulfills Humbert’s request for sexual appeasement. This has a symbolic meaning as she is allowed to follow her American dreams but only under the whims and desires of Humbert, a European expellee. If we try to understand the gaps between the two different cultures, people of the different cultures constantly lose their individual identity and also fight among themselves to find out different ways to modify themselves according to these changes. But many are not able to reshape their identity as our protagonist, Okonkwo’s in Things Fall Apart, who gets annoyed and even exiled from his own tribe. Okonkwo always finds himself in a constant conflict with his personal pride on one hand as well as his conscience that forces him to perform in a very gentle way but Okonkwo ignores. His arrogance forces him to act violently resulting in murders and brutal beating of his wife, which causes him to be thrown out from his own society resulting in suicide. Not just Okonkwo suffers but his whole tribe also sees complete change. The whole economy of Umuofia comes under the control of the whites who make their traditional occupation worthless and bring changes in the religious affairs as well as in their administrative functioning. The cultural conflicts and contradictory circumstances that prevailed in the society have been portrayed in the literature of the twentieth century. People were completely influenced by the alien culture feeling totally alienated from their ancient roots on the one hand while trying to mold themselves into the waves of these changes. Okonkwo kills himself as he is not able to stop the influence of western world in their day-to-day affairs and rituals. Through Okonkwo’s brutal ways, Achebe wants to show African lives through different perspective. The author wants to show the Africans who are thought as barbaric and savaged people love their culture, social system and religious rituals too much and can go to any extent to protect them but on the other hand these people also get influenced by the westernization and their norms. On the other hand Lolita and Humbert also come under the influence of the opposing cultures whereby they are not able to identify their own identity. Both these novels represent their respective societies which show the varying tendencies of the opposing cultures. Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Oxford: Heinemann, 2000. Wyllie, Barbara. “Resonances of Popular Music in Lolita, Pale Fire and Ada.” Nabokov at the Limits: Redrawing Critical Boundaries. Ed. Lisa Zunshine. New York, NY: Garland Publishing Company, 1999. 43-68. Print. Read More