The passionate anger he felt towards the commissioner caused him to kill one of the commissioner's messenger, out of fury and revenge for his humiliation in jail. Okonkwo himself, decides to kill the commissioner’s messenger, knowing the village will probably not resist the authority of the white men, but still commits the act because his logical reasoning had succumb to his rage, “Okonkwo’s machete descended twice and the man’s head lay beside his uniform”(209). This presents Okonkwo killed the man on a whim because he cannot contain the raging emotions that were caused by prior humiliation from the commissioner. Okonkwo’s rage and his desire for revenge managed to mute any logical reason, causing him to commit such savage acts, because Okonkwo himself felt provoked and ridiculed after submitting and feeling inferior against the commissioner. Out of his desire to harm the commissioner, Okonkwo had killed one of the commissioner's men.…
Okonkwo was a self-made man and created his riches with minimal help from anyone else. He was also held in high esteem within his clan of Umuofia. His estate included his personal hut, huts for his three wives and children, shrine room, storage for yams and kola nuts, and shelter for the family’s chickens and goats. A large earthen wall then enclosed this estate. In addition to the physical riches he held, yams, kola nuts, and livestock, he also had achieved two out of the four tribal titles that a person could hold, and well on his way to attaining the third (Achebe, 1994).…
Nwoye serves as an example of a cultural collision having a beneficial effect, since becoming a Christian drastically improved Nwoye’s mental state and protected his physical health. Throughout the novel, Okonkwo regularly torments his son in order to fulfill his necessity for Nwoye to be absurdly masculine. Also dealing with his internal conflict between personal morality and gruesome cultural traditions, Nwoye was in desperate need of emotional resolutions. The arrival of Christianity in Umuofia provided Nwoye with an unfamiliar and benevolent spiritual figure, as well as a community with ethics similar to his own. In Things Fall Apart, author Chinua Achebe uses Nwoye’s character development to convey that a cultural collision may be able to positively alter one’s life.…
Every country around the world has different customs and traditions. In the book, we are introduced to Okwonkwo’s lifestyle and his traditions also. For example, China would be one of the many countries that have many different customs and traditions. Their population is over 1 million people, they have about five religions that are legal to practice, and they speak Mandarin, Xiang, Gann and many more. They have many festivals and popular traditions that most of them participate in.…
Many of us act on habit, whether we realize it or not. We wake up in the morning, dress, and leave the house. Some of us go to work, while others go out on a jog or head to school. When these habits are disturbed, some people become irritable and still try to go about their usual day with little fluidity. If these habits are not altered in the face of this opposition, then the men can be hurt because of their rigidity.…
Anagha Bandaru 12/14/17 Pd. 5 Things Fall Apart and Gilgamesh Comparison Essay: Gender Roles Women always have been undermined in society. Though now, in the 21st century, they have more rights and freedom, it wasn’t always like that. They were always the lesser sex, including in today’s society, always coming after men.…
Cultural collisions between different groups of people that are forced to live together are bound to happen, especially if those two groups have completely different ways of life. Chinua Achebe depicts what cultural collision can do to two different groups of people in his novel Things Fall Apart between the main character Okonkwo and the colonizers that come to his village, Umuofia. Okonkwo, an aggressively over-masculine, hot-tempered, traditional man, comes to face his old traditions and ways of life crumbling and falling apart before his very eyes, as colonizers plague Umuofia with their religious beliefs and customs. Cultural traditions are deeply rooted in old cultures but when something or someone interferes with these traditions it…
In Ibo culture, men and women were often treated differently, with men holding a higher status than women, and women often being abused and treated poorly. The view of men was a man had to be strong, a fierce warrior, and important. Women were percieved as weak, with their only purpose to serve their husbands and take care of children. In the novel Things Fall Apart, Chunua Achebe reveals the difference of status between men and women by describing ways in which men are often treated well and woman are looked down upon.…
If you are a woman, you would not want to live in Igbo society. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, he describes a society where men have more power than women. The main character, Okonkwo, has many conflicts regarding his masculinity. He tries to be an excessively masculine figure in a society that has more of a balance between masculinity and femininity. Achebe promotes many stereotypes about masculine and feminine traits in his novel.…
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a novel that takes place in a time of great conflict in a Nigerian village called Umuofia in the 1800’s. The inhabitants of Umuofia, the Ibo, are a very “tribal” type people whom bring a question to the thought of truly is a civilized society. In Things fall apart , the Ibo culture is depicted by the author Chinua Achebe, as being both civilized and uncivilized based on their primitive tribal ways, yet sophisticated social, civil, and justice system. In the story the Ibo society shows signs of being civilized through their systems of unwritten laws of the the land , and civil justice systems.…
I think the most interesting and relatable cultural idea is the simultaneous societal acceptance and individual questioning of the traditionalist Igbo way of life. Tradition, including oral tradition, as Anthony mentioned, is imperative for the survival of the Igbo people. Because a bountiful harvest is necessary for survival, for example, those with the most bountiful harvests are honored and given titles. This tradition essentially positively reinforces the necessity of harvesting crops. There are negative reinforcements, too.…
“The Importance of Customs and Traditions” “ ‘Every year,’ he(Unoka) said sadly, ‘before I put any crop in the earth, I sacrifice a cock to Ani, the owner of all land. It is the law of our fathers. Also kill a cock at the shrine of Ifejioku, the God of yams. I clear the bush and set fire to it when it is dry. I sow the yams when the first rain has fallen, and stake then when the young tendrils appear” (cp.17, p.3) It is customary to make animal sacrifices to the earth goddess when planting crops.…
He mourn[s] for the clan, which he s[ees] breaking up and falling apart, and…for the warlike men of Umuofia, who ha[ve] so unaccountably become soft like women” (182-183). Here, Okonkwo struggles to cope with the imposition of British rule. Iguedo operates on a different political and economic level than before and it seems to him that the Ibo people have renounced tradition and weakly submitted to the imperialists instead of exercising their own power. Okonkwo’s fear of effeminacy has become permanent enough that, at this point, he is physically and pathetically saddened by the village’s loss of tradition and…
“In Umuofia’s latest war he was the first to bring home a human head” (page 10). This is one of the lines in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart that make the story extremely primitive. The story is set in the 1890’s, where things are very different than they are in today’s world. Throughout the book Okonkwo and his tribe live in huts, he beats not only his wife but his kids, and beheads many people; and kill people.…
Title Cultures have a variety of customs, and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe literates the customs of an African tribe well. Currently I am at the part where Okonkwo beat one of his wives during the Week of Peace because she was out getting her hair plaited. The actual violence did not surprise me awfully because females have been oppressed for centuries through a multitude of ways from systemic tyranny to violence. What struck me as fascinating is the fact that a man’s success is determined by the number of wives he has, and not solely on the amount of wealth he has, although it is important. Okonkwo has three and is respected throughout the village; however, there is a man more respected called Nwakibie who has nine wives.…