Heroes In Real Life

Since we are little we know that heroes are those people who are able to do good things for others, that will fight the evil to save lives. Most of the times we find this type of characters in books, T.V, comics, movies or in places that aren’t from the real world. So, who are the real heroes? Who are those real people that will be considered admirable?

Heroes in real life may not be as we think they are. They don’t always have to be popular or to be known by everybody else. They don’t have to have great skills or a long preparation to become a stunning person. They don’t wear flashy and fancy outfits and they might not even have a cap. Heroes can be found at any time, any place, and any hour. All you need is to look carefully at how people in our world act. Being a real hero means having the willingness and desire to be there for someone else, to help those in need regardless their situation or the way they are, to put someone else’s life as your own and to put everything you have to help them and make them move forward.

Heroes will always have good actions in their hands and will always have others first. Becoming a hero comes from helping an old man to cross the street, up to achieving to save a whole town from a disaster. The important things is the way you do it and the reason of the things you accomplish. This people have love for others, love for humans and for our world. They show a positive attitude towards life and want everyone to have the privilege to live and enjoy the path.

We should all be heroes, we should all try to find that spark inside of us that will make us be willing to help and cooperate, to be able to save others from what is bothering or banning their lives. If we have the opportunity and have the ability to help someone, what prevents us from doing it?

People who are capable of reaching this things, are heroes, not those who have the ability to climb walls or the power to fly. An admirable person is one that puts all others example to make things as they really are and show the world that there is nothing more important than the value of life.

"Fall down seven times, stand up eight."

"Fall down seven times, stand up eight."
Japanese Proverb

Never give up, never give up on the things you want and the things you wish and love with all your heart. At the end the effort will be worth it. Stay positive and don't let the bad things stop you. This quote shows that you have to keep on going, life may bring many problems and adversities that can make you fall, but you have to stay focused and keep trying. You should always be prepared for what's coming next, if you fall seven times you should be ready to rise the 8th time and keep on walking throughout life.
The most valuable people in life are the ones that are ready to stand up whenever something bad comes. You should learn about life and take you mistakes as lessons, use your problems as an example of what you should not do, to grow as a person, to get to be who you really are. There is not such thing as pefection, if everyone was perfect and no one made errors, life wouldn't be as sweet as it it because although we believe the problems ruin us and make us feel like nothing is worth it, they are the ones that give a real taste to life.

This quote relates to me because I think that I'm not a person that gives up things easily, I like to accomplish my goals and reach my dreams. My attitude in life is not of a person that will stay sitting down to wait for things to happen. I know the most important thing in life is being happy and staying positive. People who live in strong depressions are not very likely to fight for the things they want. As bad as something can look, as bad as something can make you feel, I know there's always a way out of it and instead of letting that problem beat me I find a way to solve it, so things can get the way they should I can keep moving forward. Don't let anyone or anything stop you.

Things Fall Apart Summary: Chapters 20 - 25

Okonkwo is just about to return to his old life. He starts planning his arrival in Umofia, although he knows he might have lost all his hopes in becoming someone important for the tribe, he returns with big enthusiasm to puta ll his efforst and move forward. Ezinma, his daughter, is now a beautiful and charming woman and Okonkwo is doing everything to rebuild this time better and bigger.

When he finally arrives to his loved town, he finds everyhthing changed. Christians are now all over Umofia, the church gets more and more followers everyday and his tribe is starting to lose all his power. Okonkwo can not believe how important the church is now and how all the members of his powerful clan have lost interest in everything that had been important for them once. White men are being able to control them and bring them to believe their ideas and form of government.

Although Okonkwo refuses to like Christians, Umofia starts to grow bringing money and economic benefits with it. Mr. Brown, a white christian, talks with Akunna, one of the leaders of the clan, about their Gods and beliefs. He explains how there is just one trae God, but the people of Umofia refuse to accept that. Mr. Brown accepts what others believe and is not in a place to fight for that.

He builds a school and a hospital in the town and convinces everyone to enter their children telling them that if they didn’t others who Could read and write might be able to control them. Mr. Brown comes to Okonkwo to tell him that Nwoye is in training to be a teacher, and after this retires due to his bad health condition.

After the reitirement of Mr. Brown, another man comes to take his place. He is a harsh and inflexible man called Mr. James. He is very strict and is not happy with how good Mr. Brown was. The ceremony to adore the egwugwu spirits is being celebrated in Umofia when Enoch, decides to unmask one of the spirits. This means that he has killed and ancestral spirit. At the next day, the tribe decides to burn Mr. James Church.

The comissioner comes to the leaders of the clan and says that they should solve and discuss what happened in the church in a friendly way. When the members of Umofia left their machetes on the floor they were captured and thrown to jail for some days. They were kept in bad conditions and were threatened to be hanged if the people from Umofia didn’t pay a fine of two hundred and fifty bags of cowries.

Once they are left out of jail, they return to the village. Ezinma and Obierika go to see Okonkwo and they notice that he has been mistreated. The members of the clan gather in a meeting at the next day, which is interrupted by five court messengers. Okonkwo gets upset and mad and kills the messenger without reason.

Okonkwo leaves the town before anyone could find him. The comissioner gets mad and threatens the whole clan to tell him where Okonkwo was. Obierika decides to take him. On the way to find him, they suddenly find Okonkwo’s body hanging from a tree. Since they can’t touch the body because he comitted suicide which is considered a great sin for the clan and now the body is evil and can only be touched by people they didn’t know, they ask some strangers from another village to help them take the body down and bury it. Obierika blames the comissioner for his best friend’s death. Maybe Okonkwo knew that his very loved clan, would never return to what they managed to be once.

Reference:

Achebe, C. (1994). Things fall apart. New York, Anchor Books.

Things Fall Apart Summary: Chapters 14 - 19

Okonkwo travels to Mbanta, the new town where he will be staying for seven years to pay for his sin. His family receive him with joy and gives Okonkwo some yams to start working in his new farm. He had always loved working but now he starts to feel depressed, he is not as motivated as he had always been and is having a hard time because his biggest dream had always been to become a leader of his town and with the situation he was facing he was starting to lose all his hope.

While he is in the new village, Uchendu, Okonkwo’s uncle, talks about the importance of woman. How mothers are the one’s that take care of the children and form a very special part in families.  He tells Okonkwo how he must take care of all his wives and children. Okonkwo keeps thinking women are weak.

Some time later, Okonkwo’s best friend, Obierika, comes to visit him. He brings some bags with money since he has been taking care and selling his yams. Obierika tells him that a white man who was riding an iron horse had gone to Abame where he was killed and some time later, more white men returned and killed almost all  the members in the clan. Since the first man who was killed, didn’t say anything they can’t know what will happen next or what situations they can be exposed to.

Two years later, Obierika returns to make another visit to Okonkwo. He tells him that he has seen Nwoye with the Christian missionaries. Nwoye has converted because a white man called Mr. Kiaga has convinced him, that there’s only a true God who is Jesus. The clan starts to discuss with this man since he starts talking about the Holy Trinity when he had said at the beginning that there was only one God. Everyone thinks he is insane. They all get mad because the white man tells them that all their Gods in which they believe are false and don’t really exist.

The evengelists starts to get more powerful and ask for a piece of land to build their church. The memebers of the clan decide to give them a portion of the evil forest, which is the place where the people with evil diseases were buried. Nwoye’s cousin sees him with all the Christians and goes immediately to tell Okonkwo. Okonkwo gets very mad and almost chokes Nwoye he asks him to tell him where he has been or he will kill him. Okonkwo feels confused and disappointed since he considers Nwoye behaves like a woman.

People start joining the church, which has more and more followers everyday. Outcast persons start to feel identified with Christians and they start becoming very popular since they accept all kind of people they even take care of twins and such strange things. One day a man gets the church into serious conflict with the clan since he kills a royal python who was the most revered animal in most of the surrounding clans.

Finally seven years have passed and Okonkwo is ready to return to Umofia. He gathers the members of Mbanta and makes a big feast to thank everyone. A man starts greeting Okonkwo and shows his gratefulness for all the food and attentions he has had with all of them.

Reference:

Achebe, C. (1994). Things fall apart. New York, Anchor Books.

Things Fall Apart: Chapter 15

Obierika comes to visit Okonkwo to his new village, to see how he is doing and to take him some money from his yams that he had been selling. Obierika tells him about the White man that arrived to the village, he came riding in an iron horse, everyone was afraid and the Oracle ordered to kill him. They tied his horse to a tree and didn’t say anything when he was killed. Some time later other white men came to Umofia and shoot everyone in the market place.

After hearing the story Obierika told them, Okonkwo used this situation to show his family a lesson. He tells a tale about Mother Kite, who sent his daughter to buy food. When her daughter returns, she had brought a duckling and told her that the duckling’s mother hadn’t said anything to her. Mother Kite asks her daughter to return the duckling, her daughter goes to the market and this time returns with a chick. Mother Kite tells her that they will eat it beacause the chick’s mother had cried for him.

Okonkwo says that there is something rare and mysterious hidden under silence. You must not kill someone who remains silent because you won’t know what that person can make later. When the daughter of Mother Kite went with the chick’s mother, she shouted and cried so they knew that if they killed and ate the chick the mother would shout and cry. 

For example, if everytime your friend gets mad she screams, cries and makes a fuss about it, you will know that when you do something bad to him he will react that way. In the other side, a person who says nothing and when he gets mad stays in silence, will not show you his feelings and you will never know what he can be thinking or what he is planning to do. So this is what happened with the white man, he was killed and stayed silent but then his clan returned and killed everybody else. “Never kill a man who says nothing.”

Reference:

Achebe, C. (1994). Things fall apart. New York, Anchor Books.

Things Fall Apart Summary: Chapters 7-13

Okonkwo starts to feel very happy and pleased since Ikemefuna is a very hard worker and will never be lazy to do some work, he wants his son Nwoye to become a good man who will succeed in life. Nwoye is getting influenced by him and is finally learning how to be a man, how to put effort on the things he does and to be determined. Okonkwo calls both to his obi frequently to tell them masculine stories of violence and blood.

One day Ezeudu comes to tell Okonkwo that Ikemefuna should be killed for the Oracle and he can´t interfere with the murder. Two days after, the boy was supposedly taken to his real house, he started thinking about his home, his sister and mother and suddenly he looked back and was killed by a man with a machete, Okonkwo didn’t know what to do, instead of protecting him he went to where the kid was and threw his machete to kill him, he couldn’t show any feeling or regret since those were signs of weakness.

Okonkwo felt strange, he stopped eating and the more he tried to stop thinking about Ikemefuna, the more he thought about him. He went to see his friend Obierika for some good advice in the situation. Okonkwo thought he hadn’t do anything wrong, he had been obedient with the Goddess, but Obierika made him think. He said that it didn’t matter what the Goddess had said, if it he was in Okonkwo’s situation, he wouldn’t let anything happen to his kids. Although Okonkwo didn’t showed, he felt very bad, Ikemefuna had the correct spirit unlike Nwoye who was a lot like his father Unoka.

The first night Okonkwo could sleep after what has happened, Ekwefi, his wife came to wake him because Ezinma had a fever. She was very worried, since she was a special girl for her, they were as one, and she was the only one who had survived from the 10 babies Ekwefi had had in her life. They had already destroyed Ezinma’s iyi-wa but she was sick now. Luckily she relief quickly from the illness.

All the men from the village attend to a secret house to talk to the Gods; there are 9 men who wear a mask who will communicate all the things that the Gods have to tell. They discuss all the village issues that have to do with the implement of justice.

Ezinma and Ekwefi were sitting after eating dinner in the floor, chatting and telling stories. Ekwefi tells a story about a tortoise who convinced birds to invite him to a party and ended feeling possessive and abusive about the attentions and things the birds had gave him. It was Ezinma’s turn, she was about to start her story when they heard a loud sound. It was Chielo, possessed by a Goddess; he came for Ezinma and took her out carrying her in her back. Ezinma followed in secret because she was afraid something bad could happen. They ran until they got to farthest village and then returned to a sacred cave, Ezinma was waiting outside when Okonkwo arrived to stay with her. Chielo returned Ezinma to her house at dawn.

In the morning, the family started to prepare for Obierika’s daughter wedding; Ezinma and Ekwefi were going to get a little bit late because they haven’t slept well form what had happened last night. When they arrived, everyone gave their blessings; they danced, sang and had a very fun and big party.

The next day the ekwe told the village that Ezeudu had died. All the clan attended his funeral; he was a strong and courageous warrior. Okonkwo was sorry he remembered when he had come to his obi to tell him that they should kill Ikemefuna, he was still looking good and never imagined he could have died. During the funeral they were shooting guns and firing guns, men were jumping and shouting between the smell of gunpowder. Suddenly everything became silent and they noticed a man was lying in the floor in a pool of blood. It has been Okonkwo, nothing like this had never happened; killing a man from the clan was considered one of the worst crimes against the Goddess, now he had to abandon the village and couldn’t return in seven years.

Reference:

Achebe, C. (1994). Things fall apart. New York, Anchor Books.