There are constant struggles between gender, identity, commodification, and class. Among the men and women in many African tribes that still exist today, there are divergences, which will always remain intact because of the culture and the way in which they are taught to treat each other. Chinua Achebe wrote the novel, Things Fall Apart, which is a great piece of African literature that deals with the Igbo culture, history, and the taking over of African lands by British colonization. The ongoing gender conflict is a prominent theme in Things Fall Apart presenting the clash between men and women of the African Igbo society. Throughout history, from the beginning of time to today, women have frequently been viewed as inferior, men’s possessions whose sole purpose was to satisfy the men’s needs. Maybe it's because men are physically stronger than women and have always had the ability to control them that way. In Things Fall Apart, the Igbo women were perceived as being weak. They received little or no respect in the Igbo society and were harshly abused. The recurring theme of gender conflicts helps drive the novel Things Fall Apart by showing how important women are to the men, yet they do not receive the treatment they deserve. Women have many responsibilities in the Igbo society such as having children, cooking, cleaning, and farming. These are important function for women, yet they are not given much credit or meaning for their existence in the roles they fill. As Rose Ure Mezu points out “The world in Things Fall Apart is one in which patriarchy intrudes oppressively into every sphere of existence. It is an andocentric world where the man is everything and the woman nothing.” In some way Mezu is correct in saying that the man is everything and the woman nothing. The man holds the highest importance of the family and it is he who holds the titles. In Things Fall Apart, the reader follows the troubles of the main character Okonkwo, a tragic hero whose flaw includes the fact that "his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness" (2865). For Okonkwo, his father Unoka was the essence of failure and weakness.
The role of men in the Igbo culture is to provide food. Meanwhile, women are given easier tasks as to just serve the men. Work is shared equally in American culture.
While reading the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, there were big differences within the roles of men and women in the Igbo culture, but now there are even bigger differences between them and how they used to be. Both women and men are important in the Igbo culture, mainly because each gender has a specific value. Women in their culture have always been seen as caregivers and nurturing to children. They are expected to cook and clean, and they are expected to plan parties and feasts because their husband asks them to. Men, however, primarily have to farm, hunt, fight as warriors, and run the household with a strong hand; the Igbo culture even allows men to beat their wives if they
The idea of women holding authority was unheard of in ancient times and more recently in Colonial America up through the mid twentieth century. It has always been thought that men are superior to women and that women are not strong enough physically and mentally to hold any true authority. For instance, women did not receive the right to vote in the United States until 1920; the first female senator wasn’t appointed until late 1922. In Chinua Achebe’s novel Thing Fall Apart, however, women do hold authority and some even hold more authority than men. Achebe describes how in the Ibo culture women hold the main positions in Ibo religion as priestess and Oracle and that even the strongest man in the Ibo village and the main character of the novel, Okonkwo, must obey the commands of these women.
Culture makes us who we are. Each individual has their own culture from their experiences in life and is developed from societal influences. The various cultures around the world influence us in different ways which we experience at least once in our lifetime. There are occasions, especially in history, where cultures clash with one another. For instance, the English colonization in Africa changed their culture. Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart, portrayed this change in the Igbo people’s society, especially through the character Okonkwo in the village of Umuofia; the introduction of Western ideas challenged him. In the novel Things Fall Apart, the author Chinua Achebe introduces to us Okonkwo whose character’s response to the
During post colonial times men and women in the Igbo society had several different roles in the household, the tribe, and in the fields. The male and female roles in the Igbo tribe are determined by many different things throughout the tribe. Genders help determine what that person will be doing. Men and women both have very important roles in the household, tribe, and fields. The women in the Igbo tribe are more in charge of the children, the cooking and the cleaning and the males are in charge of the fields and taking care of the family. The males are the more incharge gender within the tribe and the women must obey everything that the male wants.
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is a powerful novel about the social changes that occurred when the white man first arrived on the African continent. The novel is based on a conception of humans as self-reflexive beings and a definition of culture as a set of control mechanisms. Things Fall Apart is the story of Okonkwo, an elder, in the Igbo tribe. He is a fairly successful man who earned the respect of the tribal elders. The story of Okonkwo’s fall from a respected member of the tribe to an outcast who dies in disgrace graphically dramatizes the struggle between the altruistic values of Christianity and the lust for power that motivated European colonialism in Africa and undermined the indigenous culture of a nation.
I was born and lived in Haiti for eight years of my life. The poverty there is so high that it has been labeled the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. That is where I grew up. People had homes, but they could often be blown away by strong winds. Our materials for building homes was of very poor quality and limited. We had so little money that I often saw kids and their families sleeping on the side of every street corner. I was one of the most fortunate kids. I remember sleeping on a dirt floor in my grandmother’s little hay house when I was around six years old. At least I had a home. I was put in an orphanage where I was later adopted and brought to the United States. Almost everyday, at the orphanage, the kids and I talked of how
Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, follows the tragic life of Okonkwo, a man who suffers a miserable fate due to the fear of failure that controls every action he makes. Though the fear of failure acts as motivation to become a successful and respected man at first, it later cripples Okonkwo in such a way that failure ultimately defines his life. Okonkwo is constantly afraid of being a victim of weakness and desperately tries to remain a strong and unyielding man. It is his overwhelming fear of weakness that causes things to fall apart in his life, as his attempts to avoid failure and weakness eventually lead to the ultimate defeat: his shameful suicide. Fear of failure and weakness dominates Okonkwo throughout his life.
As wise John Berger once said,“Never again shall a single story be told as though it were the only one”. A “single story” is the story of a culture that we learn from stereotypes and conspiracies developed throughout time in our society. In “Things Fall Apart”, Chinua Achebe defies the single story of African culture while still tying their native language in to show the importance between a physical differentiation of culture, and the similarities with morals and values they have in common. Through gender roles and proverbs used in the language of this book, we have a cultural insight of Nigeria through a new set of eyes given to us by Achebe that detures us from the single stories that we were taught to by our society.
In the novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is portrayed as a respected and determined individual whose fatal flaw eventually works against him. Throughout the novel the readers are shown that Okonkwo has many of these Characteristics because he is obsessed with the idea of becoming just like his father. This becomes his flaw in the novel that puts him into exile and makes it hard for him to adjust to the changes that were made with in his village.
In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe women in Igbo culture seem to have a complicated life. In the story Okonkwo has three wives which in their culture is normal to have. Women are marginalized and silenced by being poorly treated, being possessions of men, and being treated as objects.
In accordance to defining a tragic hero, the protagonist is conflicted with opposing forces. In the novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the main character Okonkwo, is the depiction of a tragic hero. Okonkwo is a man who accomplished his success by hard work and the motivation to be stronger. In the beginnings, Okonkwo created his own farm by borrowing yam from the rich village man named Nwakibie. His strong willed and the dedication to never end up to be like his father, made Okonkwo strong and power. Okonkwo grew up from poverty to wealthy enough to support three wives, and many children. He was well respected by his clansman from his village. Although, Okonkwo has many great aspect in his life, his tragic flaw is the fear of becoming
While the outside world considered Nigeria to be a united and monolithic entity, even the British colonial administration was wary of the reality of Nigerian politics; the nation was not so much a “country” as it was more than three hundred different groups coalesced into one.4 5 These tribes were divided between three main spheres of influence: the Yoruba, the Igbo, and the Hausa. Historically, their interests were often opposed, and their cultures did not come into regular contact with one another until the British occupation. In spite of the differences British administration a...
In Umofia, manliness is associated with strength and womanliness with weakness (Okhamafe 127). There is no such thing as a strong woman, and all men should disdain weakness. In Umofia, “all men are males, but not all males are men” (Okhamafe 126). Only the strong men who hold titles deserve to be called “men”. The Igbo word “agbala” is an alternate work for “woman” and for a man who had no title. Women in Igbo society are expected to act a certain way. Okonkwo scolds his daughter, Ezinma, when she does not “sit like a woman” (Achebe 44). He will not let Ezinma bring his chair to the wrestling match because it is a “boy’s job” (Achebe 44). Eve...
Okeke, Phil E. "Reconfiguring Tradition: Women's Rights and Social Status in Contemporary Nigeria." Africa Today 47.1 (2000): 49-63.