In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe what is the meaning of the allegory of the Tortoise and the Birds proverb to explain why he never stopped...

I think this question
actually refers to a number of different myths and legends that are mentioned to us in Chapter
Seven, which describes the way in whichis growing up and how he comes to spend more time withand
his father in 's hut, listening to tales of battle, rather than the myths and legends he used to
listen to in his mother's hut, even though he secretly still likes them. Notice how two separate
stories are refered to in the following quote:

...but somehow he still
preferred the storied that his mother used to tell, and which she no doubt still told to her
younger children--stories of the tortoise and his wily ways, and of the bird
eneke-nti-oba who challenged the whole world to a wrestling contest and was
finally thrown by the cat.

As you can see, parables relating to a tortoise
and a bird are remembered fondly by Nwoye, but they are also two separate parables rather than
onethat is told together. Like all of his mother's parables and stories, these seek to explain
the world and why it is the way that it is through these colourful
stories.