Things Fall Apart Socratic Seminar Reflection - AP Engllish Literature - Essay

Ruvva
Ruvva
Adithya Ruvva
Mrs. Maas
10 Scholars English Period 6
25 October 2015
Things Fall Apart Socratic Seminar Reflection
A Socratic course is for people to collaborate on comprehension of literature, reflection, and social values presented in a particular text. Personally, the Socratic Seminar presented on the 21st of October allowed me to grasp a greater comprehension of the text let alone the mind dazzling questions answered thoroughly by my scholar like peers. But alone the preparation itself took quite some time and effort. One “roadblock” included the recognition of the literal meaning of the text compared to the inner meaning of the text. For example Achebe compares the protagonist, Okonkwo, to ‘’fire’’. The book describes Okonkwo as ‘’uproaring’’ as fire and the owner of a righteous and successful soul; yet every fire can only withhold its own attributes until the stick burns completely. That’s when Okonkwo’s events had taken the point of turn and a series of misfortunate events had taken place, hence the grieving ‘’extinguish’’ of Okonkwo himself. The next step after completely deriving the inner meaning of this piece of literature comes reflecting upon these unique meanings and considering them into practical use. For example, I realized that fear was incorporated in the book to communicate the message that what we fear to create precautions for our daily lives just comes to hit us back creating a disaster. Just like in the book, Okonkwo feared being a failure like his father, created precautions that led to his success but enforced these precautions rather harshly upon himself resulting in bringing his fears true. But, what am I supposed to do? Why should I care? What if this is just some myth? Who cares? Questions popped in my mind that were in attempt to contradict this statement of fear but that was due to my lack of contemplation. I learned it was part of my nature to be stubborn and ignoring what I comprehend. So I decided to test this theory/message formed by the Achebe. I put this into use, only to find out it was really true. Only to find that fear is a matter of the mind’s judgement. Making these rather stupid judgements will get me nowhere.
Achebe once stated, “People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck.” Achebe states this to create a visualization of ‘’procrastination’’ itse...