Things fall Apart
In the book “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe certain themes are present in the the
novel. Themes like Good and Evil, customs and tradition, and the one I picked Alienation and
Lonliness. The story begins with the main character Okonwko who is the son of Unoka, a lazy
sensitive guy, he has grown up to be very different than his own father. Okonwko is manly,
strong, and is competitive opposed to anyone who is weak.The main problem with Okonwko is
how badly he treats his family.
Okonwko uses violence to get his point across. For example, when Okonwko beats his
wife Ekwefi after she did nothing wrong was completely uncalled for. Okonwko has no concern
for the people he beats up and the people he hurts. He
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is careless and is a profound believer in gender roles. A couple weeks later during the Week of Peace which is an extremely huge holiday in the Ibo tribe. During this Week of Peace Okonkwo beats another one of his wives, Ojiugo, for braiding her hair rather than having dinner ready the right time. This just proves that gender roles are present in this book. In this book and in our world gender roles are always out there.
Women are just expected
to prepare food and just be at their husband’s sides at all times. It not only frustrates me
personally, but millions of woman all over the world. In Iraq woman are required to wear long
black cloaks and headdresses to cover themselves up. It's not only extremely unfair but they have
to wear it all the time. Woman should never be treated less than men and it's annoying that
woman are discriminated against. Honestly, I can speak for millions by saying that it's unfair and
totally sexist. In the novel “Things Fall Apart” Okonokwa is very sexist and feels the need to
beat all of the woman he is married to. The woman in his life are subjected to cooking, cleaning,
and raising the children. Okonkwo’s wives don't do much about the abuse they receive and it's
aggravating. Almost to the point where only one wife speaks up after she is beaten during the
Week of Peace.
“A gender role is a set of societal norms dictating what types of behaviors are generally
considered acceptable, appropriate or desirable for a person based on their actual or perceived
sex”. Why is this okay? Who decides what we as woman can wear, say, and do? We can
be whomever we want. Regardless of all the men who are subgegating woman telling them it's not right for us to be wearing anything else besides things that show too much of our body. Gender roles are not right and males should not be in charge of what we as woman can do. In conclusion, the central theme surrounding this novel would be Custom and Tradition. Although a lot of the things in this novel that Oknowko does do not make sense and it bothers me that he in his little set says and doesn't believe in change. Oknowko and his tribe are just stuck in gender roles along with stupid traditions and customs that have no way of ever changing due to fear. Regardless, the Ibo tribe has a lot of traditions and customs and that is the central theme for this novel.
Okonkwo is on two ends of a stick. Sometimes he can be shown to be a caring, sympathetic character, but others he is shown as a ruthless person that is very unsympathetic person. Okonkwo is a man of action that would rather solve things with his fists rather than talking it out. He is a great wrestler hailing from the Umuofia clan that has thrown Amalinze the Cat. Okonkwo is also a very good farmer, where he has been able to grow two barns worth of yams. He is someone that doesn’t know how to control themselves when they get angry as he will then resort to violence. Okonkwo’s family relationships make him a sympathetic character because of his caregiving nature and hospitality and he is shown to be an unsympathetic character because of his
In these few chapters that we read, we have already learned a lot about Okonkwo, his life, and how he shows sympathy to some, but to others he is heartless. Okonkwo is other wise known as an unsympathetic person. Okonkwo is a clan leader of umuofia who holds many titles and is well known among his people. Okonkwo's daily life consists of tending to the three yam farms he has produced and to make numerous offerings to numerous gods and to help himself and his family. Okonkwo's personality is hard driven, since his father did not provide for him and his family Okonkwo had to start man hood early and this led him to be very successful in his adulthood, Okonkwo is an unsympathetic character who only shows sympathy rarely because he believes it's a sign of weakness Okonkwo's family relationships make him a sympathetic character because when his children show signs of manliness or do their jobs right he shows sympathy towards them. He is an unsympathetic character because whenever he get a little mad he has to take his anger out on something and that is usually vented by beating his wife's.
The major issue women faced with the standard issued protective body armor was the fact that they had breasts and hips. Women’s bodies are often much smaller than their male counterparts. The issues gear would often weigh them down and inhibit body movement. When someone is in the field body movement is the most important function a solder has. “Sgt. Bobbie Crawford, who is 5 feet 6 inches and weighs just over 100 pounds, said she struggled to maneuver wearing body armor when she served in Afghanistan in 2010 as part of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division.” Gear designed for men made it hard for women to get in and out of patrol vehicles, use their weapons, and even simple movements like crouch down. Crawford said, “It rubbed on my hips and limited my mobility…You definitely had to find a lot of workarounds, you had to learn to become creative.” How is that fair for women, having to alter either their bodies or gear to make it work. A temporary fix does not solve the problem. In 2012 there was new hard armor plate and soft armor being designed for women, however now in 2013, very little has been resolved.
The clothing issue goes farther than that. The fashion industry does make boundaries with clothing. There is women’s clothing and men’s clothing. Women can wear men’s clothing, and at times its the stylish thing to do. Young girls can dress like boys or wear boys clothing and at times will only be called a tom-boy, but that is acceptable to society. Let’s see a man in public wearing a dress, and we stop and go out of our way to break our necks just so we can get a good look....
The equality of women is a core Australian value and anyone whose culture allows such repression is simply out of step with the values of the nation he has chosen to live in. We must simply disallow such practices — we must ban the Burqa.
The Burqa Ban is a highly controversial topic, and the views vary to the extremes. Some people definitely argue that women are in fact being degraded through full body coverings which reduce the entity of a woman into something invisible or indistinguishable as a human. Also, they argue that most women are forced to wear coverings like the Burqa and niqab because of the Islamic Shariah law, which seems to be an oppressive and totalitarian tool of submission. But I can attest that some women will agree with me that the coverings do the exact opposite. They raise the value of a woman who cannot be judged by her body and her appearance, but rather has to be evaluated by her pers...
Unoka – Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, was considered lazy and a failure. He never worked and always took from others. Okonkwo considered him a complete embarrassment and vowed never to be like his father. He had to hate what Unoka once loved, and never borrow money or stop working.
Okonkwo is known for always reacting to every event with anger and physical punishment to please his ego which is to be seen as a strong warrior, hardworking, and powerful. Which you can see when Okonkwo kills ikemefuna “Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak.
Okonkwo, alongside his desire for power and strength, also becomes absolutely ruthless. He treats his wives as property, even if doing so is the norm in his culture, and
]k Adegbite O. came to a similar conclusion about Okonkwo’s views on masculinity and femininity when he makes the remark in his essay that, “Okonkwo is of the opinion that traditional men have lost their place in society and cannot be termed ‘worthy’ anymore as Western culture has softened their resolve; men have been turned to weaklings by colonisation and the white man’s religion” (Tobalase, “Masculinity and Cultural Conflict in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart”).
Things Fall Apart is a novel written by Chinua Achebe. I t takes place in the middle
In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe there are many characters with many different personalities. In the story you first get introduced to Okonkwo and his father Unoka. However they are related by blood but they have totally different personalities. Okonkwo and his father Unoka have very little in common but many differences that set them apart and make their future.
Okonkwo, the protagonist, is the first strongest character. He is the first strongest character that gets angry very quickly, but does care about his family, which makes him a tragic hero. Okonkwo was well known after he defeated Amalinze the Cat in the nine villages. “It was this man that Okonkwo threw in a fight which the old men agreed was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and nights” (Achebe 3). Okonkwo is strong to defeat
Okonkwo sees his father’s gentleness as a feminine trait. He works hard to be as masculine as possible so that he will be the opposite of his father and overcome the shame his father brought to his family. Okonkwo deals with this struggle throughout the entire book, hiding the intense fear of weakness behind a masculine façade (Nnoromele 149). In order to appear masculine, he is often violent. In his desire to be judged by his own worth and not by the worth of his effeminate father, Okonkwo participates in the killing of a boy he sees as a son, even though his friends and other respected tribe members advise him against it. (Hoegberg 71). Even after the killing of Ikamefuna, Okonkwo hides his feelings of sadness because the emotions are feminine to him. He goes so far as to ask himself, “when did you become a shivering old woman” (Achebe 65), while he is inwardly grieving. The dramatic irony of the secret fears that Okonkwo has will open the reader’s eyes to how important gender identity is to him. This theme is also presented among Okonkwo’s children. He sees his oldest son, Nwoye, as feminine because he does not like to work as hard as his father (Stratton 29). When Nwoye eventually joins the Christian church, Okonkwo sees him as even more feminine. On the other hand, Okonkwo’s