Discerning the role of women in Things Fall Apart by author Chinua Achebe requires an attentive and open-minded reading of the novel. At first, the women in the plot may seem to be oppressed and hold little power- and this characterization rings true to some extent. Women are viewed as second-class citizens, property, laborers, and producers of children. Often times, a woman has no identity of her own; the status and position of her husband defines her. However, this characterization of Igbo women reveals itself to be limiting once the reader is able to detect the diverse roles of women throughout the novel. Despite the fact that women suffer many great losses in the story, in certain circumstances they are able to hold tremendous power. …show more content…
In this society, women hold somewhat of a subservient role compared to their male counterparts. This passiveness can be observed from the very beginning of a family: marriage. Often times, men take more than one wife as a mark of status. However, women never take more than one husband. In fact, women have little say in who they marry and it is their father who decides if their suitor is acceptable. Furthermore, a woman’s duty in the home is to provide meals for both her husband and children. In the novel, the audience reads of an instance where Okonkwo beats his second wife for being late to bring his dinner as a result of going to get her hair braided. His negative response towards his wife’s tiny mistake demonstrates how inhumanly Okonkwo and presumably other members of the clan behaved towards women. Overall, it is evident that he valued the idea that women’s role should be restricted to the domestic sector as he “ruled his household with a heavy hand. All his wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper” (Achebe 13). In addition, yet another aspect of the home is farming, in which both men and women were in charge of crops. However, women were limited to ‘women’s crops’ such as melons, beans, and cocoa yams. Igbo society restricted women from growing yams, as “Yam, the king of crops, was a man’s crop” signifying that men were the sole providers in their families and that nearly everything was gendered, even crops (Achebe 23). Although this viewpoint of women can be disheartening, if you read deeper into the writing Achebe’s words are ultimately revealing that women are the foundation of the clan and its people. Without women, the men and children would not eat. In addition, ironically it was the women who “weeded the farm three times at definite periods in the life of the yams, neither early or late” (Achebe 33). Without women, the clan wouldn’t have yams- the
In the book “The Things They Carried” four female characters played an important role in the lives of the men. Whether imaginary or not, they showed the power that women could have over men. Though it's unknown if the stories of these women are true or not, they still make an impact on the lives of the soldiers and the main narrator.
In the novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, women play the roles of oppressed homemakers that are perceived as weak and defenseless second-class citizens, as the educators of children, and as spiritual leaders in traditional Ibo culture. Through the life of Okonwo, the main character of Things Fall Apart, the roles of women in traditional Ibo culture are presented through various events that take place in the village of Umuofia. In traditional Ibo culture, women were to stay at home and tend to their husbands’ needs and satisfy them. The women were viewed as property of their fathers and were then sold to the suitor that was willing to pay her bride price. A woman had no identity of her own, the status and position of her husband defined her.
“No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.” (53) This quote demonstrates one of the traits of masculinity that Okonkwo values, which is the ability to control his family. Okonkwo is the man of the household. He provides them food from his crops and a roof over their heads, and by his beliefs of masculinity he therefore holds all the power in his family. He wants to maintain the role of the man or authority figure of the household and whenever any of his wives try to talk back to him or argue, he would beat them. There was an example of this control in the novel with Okonkwo’s wives, Ekwefi and Ojiugo. Ekwefi was Okonkwo’s second wife, and in the novel, he beaten her in a fit of anger because he thought she had killed a banana tree.
Yam, the king of crops, was a man’s crop.” (28) Men sow the yams, climb palm trees, wrestle, and keep loyal to their personal God. Both men and women shared the same amount of labour. The Igbo culture had clear and distinctive gender roles. However, as of today, Igbo women are changing those roles.
Chinua Achebe?s Things Fall Apart is a narrative story that follows the life of an African man called Okonkwo. The setting of the book is in eastern Nigeria, on the eve of British colonialism in Africa. The novel illustrates Okonkwo?s struggles, triumphs, and his eventual downfall, all of which basically coincide with the Igbo?s society?s struggle with the Christian religion and British government. In this essay I will give a biographical account of Okonwo, which will serve to help understand that social, political, and economic institutions of the Igbos.
Although the women bring the family closer together, they also help preserve important traditions in the tribe. Women play an important role in the Umuofia’s culture because they help continue important traditions, which might disappear if the women did not find value in these customs. The women of the tribe preserve their heritage by telling folk stories to their children. This is depicted in Okonkwo’s family, when Achebe writes, “Low voices, broken now and again by singing, reached Okonkwo from his wives’ hut as each woman and her children told folk stories” (Achebe 96). Women telling these stories to their children helps pass down the skills of storytelling and helps teach the children important life lessons.
In life people are very rarely, if ever, purely good or evil. In novels authors tend not to create characters with an obvious moral standing not only to make their novel more applicable to the reader, but also to make the characters more complex and dynamic. Chinua Achebe uses this technique to develop the characters in his novel, Things Fall Apart. The main character, and protagonist in the novel, Okonkwo, is very morally dynamic showing some sensitivity to his family and friends, but in an attempting to rebel against his father, Okonkwo also exhibits the tendency to lash out violently.
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart explores the struggle between old traditions within the Igbo community as well as Christianity and "the second coming" it brings forth. While on the surface, it appears the novel narrows its focus to a single character, Okonkno and his inner battles, one can read deeper into the text and find an array of assorted conflicts in the realm on human vs. human, human vs. nature, human vs. society, and society vs. society. For the purposes of this paper I shall focus on the labyrinth of human vs. human and human vs. society in the framework of the role of women in Igbo society and how men assign and dictate these roles. I will also briefly explain the importance of women in terms of motherhood and wifedom.
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.
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.
Almost everyone has heard, or knows something, about the Holocaust. The real question is how should the Holocaust be taught to those who don't? The answer to that is simple. Through non-fiction texts, the stories of survivors, and actual artifacts, the tragedies of the Holocaust can be communicated effectively to younger generations. The devastation caused by the Holocaust may be hard to understand, but non-fiction works can better educate our youth about the subject.
Women are presented as being insignificant individuals to the African societies. The way in which Achebe portrays the women, shows their not treated with much respect but have an unrecognizable impact on the village. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe isolates ...
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
According to David Whittaker, Achebe’s work “proved to be an immensely influential work for African writers, becoming the progenitor of a whole movement of fiction, drama, and poetry, which focused on the revaluation of Africa’s history and cultures, and on representations of the culture conflicts that has their genesis in the colonial era.” This novel became a pivotal point of realization not only for Africa, but also for the world. All at once the world, afraid of what change may bring, pushed the same question to the back their mind: “What if we have it all wrong?” Suddenly, the culture of Africa was influencing the culture of America, Asia, Europe, Australia, etc. Achebe’s novel was a catalyst in the process of nationalist renewal and decolonization of African culture as a whole (Whittaker). A principle in this novel’s thematic course is the inter-generation conflict faced by not only the village as a whole, but also, on a microscopic level, in Okonkwo’s household. As the culture in Umuofia begins to shift, the predecessors of the current generation heavily rely on the cultural norms initiated by their father’s fathers. While tradition should be honored in a society, it should also be modified; this concept is not fully grasped by the older generations of
The author Chinua Achebe, in the novel, “Things Fall Apart,” shares the extreme diversity between the female and male characters residing in Umofia. Okonkwo, the male leader of the tribe, carries qualities such as power and manliness, as all men are expected to. As for the females they are commonly referred as being weaker for child bearing and more responsible because they are expected to cook, clean, and take care of their children. Although the traits of the Igbo culture vary in the determination of the sexes, both genders share both positive and negative aspects of their community.