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Gender Roles And Patriarchy In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

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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

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