Many readers and critics of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart come to the easy conclusion that the hero of the novel, Okonkwo, exemplifies or represents Umuofia or Igbo culture and traditions and that the author uses Okonkwo's story to show the process of the collapse of those traditions when they came into conflict with a more powerful colonial culture. Bernth Lindfors, for instance, understands Arlene Elder as saying that Okonkwo is "a typical Igbo man," used by the author to ...