Things Fall Apart Culture Essay

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In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the Ibo people from Umuofia based their lives on their beliefs and culture. The Ibo culture mainly evolved around the men, making them superior to the women in every possible aspect. Women are made to seem unimportant in the Ibo culture. The Ibo culture associates women to weakness, handled as objects, and given no power. Throughout, the book Chinua wrote, he set many examples in which women were treated as inferior to men. The main character of the book which is Okonkwo, feared his whole life of becoming like his father, Unoka. This is so because in the Ibo culture a man had to have power, multiple women and fortune. On the contrary women couldn’t have anything that eventually would allow them …show more content…
This is because the women in the book had no say in anything. Especially the young women in the Ibo culture. For example, when they were to marry a man, not anybody could marry them. The men had to pay a fine, practically the men would buy off the women from her family. Also, women were just seen as an opportunity for the family to become more wealthy and have a better social status. “ With two beautiful grown-up daughters….The poor and unknown would not dare to come forth.” (page 173) There was an instance where Okonkwo told his daughter Ezinma that he would like her to marry a man from his motherland but that he would prefer it if she married somebody from Umuofia. That way he could regain his status, wealth and respect. It was not up to the actual love the women and man had but what the man buying the girl to marry and the father. Until the family was satisfied with the amount of money they received they were okay with giving their daughters away to …show more content…
The women on the other hand had to follow and say as their husbands told them. If it wasn’t like that then the men had no good reputation. That is why Okonkwo’s father had no respect and wealth like the rest. He gave equal authority to his wife, he liked telling stories, sing and if possible solved every problem by talking. Everything the men considered to be only to be done by a women. Women were used to just give birth the men children, help feed them and used as trophies. For if a man had multiple women he was considered to be a very well respected and wealthy man to be able to maintain so many women. Okonkwo was planning on buying a new wife once he returned from exile to bring his reputation up. He also wanted to show that he could gain what he had lost and gain even more than before. Women were just used by men in any way to make them accomplish their personal desires. Women were not only mistreated used as objects but also were given nothing for her to

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