Achebe's Things Fall Apart

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The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe mirrors the customs of a particular culture. Achebe shows the readers the different views on men and women. Women represent the social groups depicted in the novel through a form of being marginalized. Written in the 1950’s the novel speculates the restrictions women had by showing the way they were treated and seen. Through a subtle way Achebe reveals how women are marginalized, excluded, and silenced in the Ibo society. Women in the Ibo society are dominated by men. “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand.” (Achebe 13). Okonkwo's wives lived in “perpetual fear” because of his actions and temper. In chapter five Okonkwo beats his wife, as a result from it he was only punished because it was the Week of Peace. The text proves to the reader that wife beating in the Ibo society is okay. “Do what you are told, women,”.... (Achebe 14). Women are expected to obey men and don’t receive respect seeing that Okonkwo doesn’t call his senior wife by her name. Okonkwo’s actions are proof that men are superior in the Ibo society. Throughout the book “women” is used as an insult. “...he still remembered how he had …show more content…

Women are expected to do as men say and they have to be very careful with what they do. “Sit like a woman!” (Achebe 44). Women are expected sit with their two legs together and stretched out in front of them. This tells the readers that women have to act a certain way to be seen as a “women”. Women were seen as “ordinary” if they didn’t have enough power. Men were to be respected no matter what, but for women to be respected they had to have powers. “Anyone seeing Chielo in ordinary life would hardly believe she was the same person who prophesied when the spirit of Agbala was upon her.” (Achebe 49). This expresses how Chielo was seen differently when she was ordinary and she prophesied when the spirit of Agbala was upon

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