Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a book about an Ibo man named Okonkwo who gets exiled from his home village so he and his family move to his mother’s land. One passage on pages 131 to 135 of this book addresses one of the common themes being gender roles and patriarchy. In this passage the author presents the idea that mothers in this society are supreme even though their culture puts emphasis on manliness. One way Achebe shows the significance of mothers is how they can be comforting. In this section of the passage Achebe uses a question and answer or dialogue style of writing. ““We say Nneka - ‘Mother is Supreme.’ why is that? . . . Can you answer my question?” They all shook their heads” (Achebe 133). “A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland” (Achebe 134). This style of writing shows how wise the old man is on the matter of women and how he wants to help Okonkwo understand the significance of going to his mother's land. The dialogue makes it feel like a real conversation instead of just having a long lecture from a village elder. He also uses words like good and sweet when he talks about the father's homeland but when talking about the mother's land words like sorrow and bitterness are …show more content…
In the passage a friend of Okonkwo's son is getting married. “The bride price had been paid and all but the last ceremony had been performed” (Achebe 132). The passage is written in a matter of fact tone which makes it seem like that is how it has always been and is a logical part of a marriage in Umuofia. Bride price for them means that the husband's family must pay the wife what she is worth in their currency which is cowries. This implies that the women are valuable because the family of the wife must get something in return for allowing her to marry and
During the course of the novel, it appears as though Achebe is prejudiced against women. However, in his crude remarks quoted in the novel by Okonkwo, Achebe is actually praising the female race. After Okonkwo accidentally kills a young boy, he is banished to his motherland. He takes this banishment as a direct insult to all of his values. During Okonwo's stay in Mbanta, one of his many wives has a child. Uchendu, Okonkwo's uncle, forces him to name the baby, Nneka- "Mother is Supreme." When Okonkwo refuses to call his baby a name that contradicts his strongest beliefs, he laughs out loud and asks why anyone would say, "the mother is supreme." Uchedu explains something that makes Okonkwo have more appreciation for his home in Mbanta. Uchendu states:
1. In traditional Ibo culture, women are not treated as equals and are equivalent to possessions. In a family, the children always belong to the father, not the mother. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family” (74). Okonkwo appears appalled to this blasphemy. It is common and ideal for a husband to possess multiple wives, and men beat their wives for even the smallest infractions. During the Week of Peace, the goddess forbids wife beating, such as when Okonkwo beat Ojiugo. “And when she returned he beat her very heavily …It was unheard of to beat somebody during the sacred week” (29-30). To live in a culture with so many threats to them, women are required to be mentally and emotionally
1. Achebe begins the novel with an elaborate description of the central character Okonkwo. What do we learn about the values of Umuofians through this characterization?
The Igbo society has laws in place that govern the people’s actions. Murder and acts of violence do not go unpunished. When a woman from Umuofia is killed in the market at Mbaino, the people of Mbaino must make retribution. When Okonkwo beats his wife during the Week of Peace, he must make sacrifices to the gods to atone for his wrongdoing. The Umuofia community also rituals, similar to today’s Supreme Court, to settle legal and personal disputes. Hospitality is also highly valued by the Igbo people. In the novel, we learn
Change is a reoccurring theme throughout history. It destroys and creates. It displaces and introduces. It can cause death and life. The movement of imperialism in Africa brought great change to the native tribal life. Forcing the indigenous people to turn away from their century-old traditions caused violent rifts between the European settlers and the tribes, as well as internal problems between once amiable members of the Ibo culture. With the introduction of the foreign Western Society in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the tribe’s life and ideals are drastically altered as the new ethics and principles collide with the old traditions and laws, causing the members of the society to either adapt or be crushed underneath the foot of colonialism. Achebe’s character, Okonkwo, was impacted immensely by the cultural collision, as his previous way of life was pulverized before his eyes, and he found no reason to live any longer.
When Okonkwo and other tribe leaders are unjustly imprisoned, they are starved and kept hostage until the tribe pays dues for their release. Their time in captivity is told as, “the six men ate nothing throughout that day and the next. They were not even given any water to drink, and they could not go out to urinate...At night the messengers came in to taunt them and to knock their shaven heads together” (Achebe 195). The most venerable men in the community were being made a mockery of. According to Jennifer Gibb, English professor with a Master’s in English and a Bachelor’s in Sociology at Dixie State College, the arrest of Umuofia’s tribal leaders is “a pivotal point in the novel that signals the complete loss of indigenous rule” (Gibb 237). Paying money to the missionaries keeps money out of yam and other crop production; time spent combating the imperialism pervading their community also takes away from time that would usually be spent
The way in which the women of the Igbo village are presented, by Achebe, make it seem as if they serve very little purpose to the society. The main character, Okonkwo, is infatuated with making sure he does not turn out to be like his father. By living in a village where manliness was crucial and weakness was not, Okonkwo viewed his father as being a weak and cowardly mean because he could barely support his family. To make sure he did not become an adult that resembled his father, he developed the characteristics of being brave, wealthy and even violent. Since he acquired these traits, it gave him a sense of superiority over his wives and the other women of the village. Perhaps because of Okonkwo’s behavior, the women of the village are treated with less respect. It is portrayed by Achebe that the women of the Igbo village only purpose is looking after the children and helping their husbands when or if it is needed. Although the women of the Igbo village are described as being insignificant, the women are the people that fill in the gaps in the society. For example, the women are the ones that cook, clean, take care of everyone, help harvest and grow food, as well as all the other everyday tasks that are easily overlooked.
Throughout history, specifically African heritage, wife beating and other forms of abuse are acceptable. Power and strength are pillars of African culture and can not be jeopardized by women and femininity. Many of the men in Umuofia, the main setting of Things Fall Apart, look up to Okonkwo and his actions. In order to demonstrate his strength (or lack thereof), he continually berates his wives. Along with his wives, he also abuses his children hoping that someday they will be as successful as him. Throughout Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo victimizes his family.
In the novel Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, introduces the reader to Okonkwo, the son of an agbala who built his entire life independently. Throughout Okonkwo’s life, he experienced many difficulties which directly correlated to his father's poor sportsmanship. Okonkwo adapts an egoistic personality, that creates a personal obsession with embodying extreme characteristics of masculinity in all aspects of his life. Okonkwo’s perception of masculinity drives a wedge between him and his family. Okonkwo’s belief that masculinity is the end all, be all creates confusion amongst his family.
Upon an initial reading of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, it is easy to blame the demise of Okonkwo’s life and of the Umofia community on the imperialistic invasions of the white men. After all, Okonkwo seemed to be enjoying relative peace and happiness before then. He did have a few mishaps; one of them resulted in him being exiled for eight years. Nonetheless, he returned to his home town with high spirits and with prospects of increased success. However, everything has changed. The white men have brought with them a new religion and a new government. Okonkwo’s family falls apart. The men in his village lose their courage and valor; they do not offer any resistance to the white men. Consequently, Okonkwo kills
The narrator states,“The law of Umuofia is that if a woman runs away from her husband her bride-price is returned” (81).This shows that if a woman of Umuofia leaves the village, the price that was paid for the woman could be refunded to the man like a piece of property. When Obierika states, “My daughter's suitor is coming today and I hope we will clinch the matter of the bride-price”(57), it proves that a woman’s can be negotiable, and that they are looked as property and not women.
The only thing he (Okonkwo) fears most is not ending up like his father, Unoka. However, Achebe ‘‘makes an insightful comment on the nature of masculinity through his representation of the tribal leaders. Achebe basically, was conducive in creating four alter egos of Okonkwo: one of which were the masculinity; next of his fatherly abilities; and the last of his family progress and four of his likelihood of success’’ (Achebe.179). My paper will explain how Okonkwo’s Masculinity from Achebe’s Things Fall Apart will be characterized by his fears, beliefs, and emotions for several reasons.
In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, women of the Ibo tribe are terribly mistreated, and viewed as weak and receive little or no respect outside of their role as a mother. Tradition dictates their role in life. These women are courageous and obedient. These women are nurturers above all and they are everything but weak.
Women are often thought of as the weaker, more vulnerable of the two sexes. Thus, women’s roles in literature are often subdued and subordinate. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, women are repressed by an entrenched structure of the social repression. Women suffer great losses in this novel but, also in certain circumstances, hold tremendous power. Achebe provides progressively changing attitudes towards women’s role. At first glance, the women in Things Fall Apart may seem to be an oppressed group with little power and this characterization is true to some extent. However, this characterization of Igbo women reveals itself to be prematurely simplistic as well as limiting, once
Okonkwo thinks that his mother’s clan is too womanly compare to his father’s clan of Umuofia, however even when he returns to his father’s clan after the completion of his exile he is also very much out of place there also. This is due to his obsessive masculinity and also because he just cannot adapt to the changing of times. Okonkwo “had lost his place among the masked spirits in the village” in addition to that “he had lost the chance to lead his warlike clan against the new religion” consequently he lost any voice he ever had and was a “stranger” in his land seeming as nobody appeared to have taken any special notice of the “warriors” return. He speaks with his friend Obierika about the strangeness of his home land saying,