what is the setting of things fall apart
Things Fall Apart Things Fall Apart is a novel written by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. Published in 1959, its story chronicles pre-colonial life in the south-eastern part of Nigeria and the arrival of the Europeans during the late nineteenth century. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, one of the first to receive global critical acclaim. It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and is widely read and studied in English-speaking countries around the world. Achebe's debut novel, it was first published by William Heinemann Ltd in the UK; in 1962, it was also the first work published in Heinemann's African Writers Series. The title of the novel was borrowed from W. B. Yeats' 1919 poem "The Second Coming".[1]
Problem solving Mental set was first articulated by Abraham Luchins in the 1940s and demonstrated in his well-known water jug experiments.[26] In these experiments, participants were asked to fill one jug with a specific amount of water using only other jugs (typically three) with different maximum capacities as tools. After Luchins gave his participants a set of water jug problems that could all be solved by employing a single technique, he would then give them a problem that could either be solved using that same technique or a novel and simpler method. Luchins discovered that his participants tended to use the same technique that they had become accustomed to despite the possibility of using a simpler alternative.[27] Thus mental set describes one's inclination to attempt to solve problems in such a way that has proved successful in previous experiences. However, as Luchins' work revealed, such methods for finding a solution that have worked in the past may not be adequate or optimal for certain new but similar problems. Therefore, it is often necessary for people to move beyond their mental sets in order to find solutions. This was again demonstrated in Norman Maier's 1931 experiment, which challenged participants to solve a problem by using a household object (pliers) in an unconventional manner. Maier observed that participants were often unable to view the object in a way that strayed from its typical use, a phenomenon regarded as a particular form of mental set (more specifically known as functional fixedness, which is the topic of the following section). When people cling rigidly to their mental sets, they are said to be experiencing fixation, a seeming obsession or preoccupation with attempted strategies that are repeatedly unsuccessful.[28] In the late 1990s, researcher Jennifer Wiley worked to reveal that expertise can work to create a mental set in persons considered to be experts in certain fields, and she furthermore gained evidence that the mental set created by expertise could lead to the development of fixation.[29]