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Chinua Achebe 's Things Fall Apart

Decent Essays
Ekwefi, the second wife of Okonkwo, in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, had endured a lifetime of hardships and heartache. Once the village beauty, she became smitten with a fierce wrestler named Okonkwo after he defeated the notorious Cat. After leaving her first husband and marrying Okonkwo, she was determined to raise a family of her own. Over the years she lost nine children, and with every one she buried the happiness she had exuded in her youth was slowly draining out of her. Finally, she gave birth to a beautiful daughter, Ezinma, but that did not mean that her struggles were over. Upon further analysis, it is evident that Ekwefi’s sole motivation in life is to be the best possible mother for her only daughter, Ezinma. Despite her painful past, her journey to follow Chielo when she took Ezinma to meet Agbala, and the near death of Ezinma, Ekwefi is motivated to be the best possible mother to her daughter even if she has to overcome struggles and hardships. It is undeniable that Ekwefi had an excruciatingly painful past. Ekwefi wanted nothing more than to be a mother; unfortunately, the birth of all but one of her children “became mere physical agony devoid of promise” (77). Nine of the ten children that she bore had been buried before the age of three, and “her sorrow gave way to despair and then to grim resignation” (77). Her husband, Okonkwo, visited the medicine man to try and figure out what was going wrong. He was told that “the child was an ogbanje, one of
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