Spiritual and Traditional Aspects of Things Fall ApartChinua Achebe describes in his book Things Fall Apart (1958) some interesting features of what life might be like in a African village during the end of the 19th century. The society presented by the Nigerian author is, in many ways, considerably different from our Western society today. Life in the African village of Umuofia was, among other things, spiritual and traditional. The spiritual aspect of life in Umuofia is well illustrated by the episode where Okonkwo and one of his wives finally have a child who does not die in infancy. . After having to bury several of their children, Okonkwo and Ekwefi learn from a healer that all the children are in reality so-called ogbanje; a child who dies repeatedly and returns to its mother's womb to be reborn. Parents are also told that it is almost impossible to raise an ogbanje without it dying unless its iyi-uwa is first found and destroyed. An iyi-uwa is a special type of stone that forms the link between the child and the spirit world. And so, at the back...