CHINUA ACHEBE; THINGS FALL APART
Chinua Achebe was known as the “patriarch of the African novel.” (biography.com) He was born in Nigeria in 1930 and passed away in 2013, he was an educator, publisher, and author. He published the novel Things Fall Apart in 1958, the novel sold 12 million copies and it was translated into more than 50 languages (bio.com). Things Fall Apart is a novel about the African culture and how the white man comes in to change it all, there are powerful characters that give a good explanation of the culture with their own stories to tell. The story was set in the 1890’s in Lower Nigerian villages, in Iguedo and Mbanta. The change in the village and the different traditions are hard to understand for some of the villagers especially Okonkwo who commits suicide because the villagers take on the traditions of the white people and in Okonkwo’s eyes that was a weak act. We also see the value of women in this novel, how important they are, but how unimportant they are to Okonkwo.
In Depth look at Okonkwo’s Family
Okonkwo had several children with his three wives, his children are Nwoye, Ezinma, and …show more content…
Beating women was acceptable in those times and Okonkwo did just that by beating his wives on a few instances in the novel. Okonkwo associates weakness with femininity, being called agbala, which was a name for a woman and also meant that a man has taken no title he made sure everyone knew how masculine he truly was. The wives in the novel had to do what Okonkwo says no questions asked, like on page 14 when he told his senior wife to take Ikemefuna and she asked him if he would stay long, he replied by telling her to do what she is told and so she did. These women knew that if they asked too many questions their husband would beat them and so the best thing for them was to obey the
Chinua Achebe was known as the “patriarch of the African novel.” (biography.com) He was born in Nigeria in 1930 and passed away in 2013, he was an educator, publisher, and author. He published the novel Things Fall Apart in 1958, the novel sold 12 million copies and it was translated into more than 50 languages (bio.com). Things Fall Apart is a novel about the African culture and how the white man comes in to change it all, there are powerful characters that give a good explanation of the culture with their own stories to tell. The story was set in the 1890’s in Lower Nigerian villages, in Iguedo and Mbanta. The change in the village and the different traditions are hard to understand for some of the villagers especially Okonkwo who commits suicide because the villagers take on the traditions of the white people and in Okonkwo’s eyes that was a weak act. We also see the value of women in this novel, how important they are, but how unimportant they are to Okonkwo.
In Depth look at Okonkwo’s Family
Okonkwo had several children with his three wives, his children are Nwoye, Ezinma, and …show more content…
Beating women was acceptable in those times and Okonkwo did just that by beating his wives on a few instances in the novel. Okonkwo associates weakness with femininity, being called agbala, which was a name for a woman and also meant that a man has taken no title he made sure everyone knew how masculine he truly was. The wives in the novel had to do what Okonkwo says no questions asked, like on page 14 when he told his senior wife to take Ikemefuna and she asked him if he would stay long, he replied by telling her to do what she is told and so she did. These women knew that if they asked too many questions their husband would beat them and so the best thing for them was to obey the