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Feminist study of Achebe's portrayal of women in Things fall apart
Theme of fear and violence as things fall apart
Feminist study of Achebe's portrayal of women in Things fall apart
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All Fairness in Things Fall Apart Things Fall Apart is not sexist. Achebe’s book made readers feel as if the book was against women, but it does not. In America, if someone hit a girl or hurt her in any way, they would go to jail, but if they did that in the clan in the book, no man would care enough to stop the beating. In those neighboring clans, most men of their tribe wished for a son and not a daughter. Also, when a man was weak, he automatically feels that they are an old woman. Even though Achebe made the book seem sexist, Things Fall Apart is not. In Okonkwo’s clan, a man can beat up a woman whenever they wanted if she did not do something she was asked, just not during the Week of Peace. “The novel describes two instances when Okonkwo beat his second wife, once when she did not come home to make his meal. He beat her severely and was punished but only because he beat her during the Week of Peace” (Chun). After Okonkwo beat his wife, many men and women of the clan pleaded with him to stop. An elder of Okonkwo’s clan came to punish him for beating his wife. Since the elderly is very well respected in the clan, Okonkwo took pride in his punishment like he knew what he did wrong by beating his wife. This example is not sexist because women have an important role in this clan, which is to clean, garden certain …show more content…
Something to keep in mind is when Okonkwo called himself an old, shivering woman, and everyone knows that most of the elderly people in this world do not have the best strength, even the elderly men. All around the world, men usually want to act tougher, and it is the way they were born. In Okonkwo’s clan, all the men were raised to be mature and very confident, and women were raised to do the same in their work. In fact, women probably didn’t want to feel like an old woman also, because they have just as busy jobs as men had in Things Fall
Within the Obi tribe, Okonkwo is an important man, who has risen from nothing to a man of great wealth and social status. Okonkwo is obsessed with masculinity, and he has a very narrow view of “manliness”. Okonkwo's relationship with his dead father is the root of his violent and ambitious conduct. He wants to rise above his father's legacy of laziness, which he views as weak and therefore feminine. This drive and fierce pride made him a great man, but they are also the source of all of his faults.
Okonkwo is a man of action, he would rather settle things with his strength rather than talk it out with the person he is mad at. This is very unsympathetic because not only is he going to use violence towards others, he is doing it just because he can not get his point across with using his words. This quote shows that he does not care towards others emotions because he would rather just fight them than talk it out. Another quote that shows Okonkwo’s unsympathetic behavior is,“He rules the household with a heavy hand” (Achebe 13). Okonkwo is shown to be someone who disciplines where he sees fit, if he does not like what is going on then there might be a high chance that the heavy hand is going to come down onto you. It shows how unsympathetic Okonkwo is because it shows how he might not care about his family’s feelings towards getting hit when they disobey him. His wives are more often beaten, especially Ekwefi, who has been beaten almost to death because Okonkwo was in a bad mood. It shows that he lets his emotions get the best of him and he does not control them very well, he would rather let it all out violently than talking it out with the people that he is mad at. Those quotes show how Okonkwo can be seen as a very unsympathetic person from his
In the book, “Things Fall Apart”, women are portrayed in a negative way. They are abused, hard labor workers and treated in a bad manner. The women are seen worthless in this book but in many other situations the women are actually portrayed in a positive way. They still possess significant roles, such as householders, educators of the children, caretakers of crops, and also playing important rules in religion. In the book Women are seen as caregivers in the Igbo society, they give power to men, and are powerful in religion. Women are portrayed in many powerful ways in the Igbo society.
Prior to the use of agriculture, life was extremely different for women. The information that historians have obtained is limited, but there are certain aspects of Paleolithic society that have been discovered and point towards a more liberal lifestyle for women. Generally, a woman’s job was to gather food and tend to her children while her male counterpart hunted. These simple divisions allowed both men and women to play significant roles in hunter-gatherer society, which further allowed women to be held in equal if not greater esteem then men. According to Elisabeth Gaynor Ellis and Anthony Elser, authors of World History: Connections to Today, women also held...
“They will take him outside Umofia, as is the custom, and kill him there. But I want you to have nothing to do with it. He calls you his father. (57)” This quote explains that Ogbuefi expresses concern for Okonkwo, because the Oracle explains how it would be wrongful of Okonkwo to kill Ikemefuna. “Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak. (61)” This quote portrays that Okonkwo completely disregarded what Ogbuefi and the Oracle cautioned him about, because he was too concerned about his status of what others thought of him. “At last the man was named and people sighed “E-u-u, Ezeudu is dead.” A cold shiver ran down Okonkwo’s back as he remembered the last time the old man had visited him. (121)” At this point in the story, it appears that Okonkwo is starting to realize his wrongdoings, primarily because he takes religion and his spiritual life very seriously, in regards towards the Oracle. Okonkwo begins to lose trust within his family, especially with Nwoye. (As mentioned in the previous paragraph.) In the beginning of the book, Okonkwo relied on Ikemefuna to help Nwoye become more masculine and tough. After Ogbuefi warns Okonkwo about taking part in the murder, Okonkwo thinks about what could happen to him once the gods find out. Once again, Okonkwo lets his emotions
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
“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.
Throughout history, women have been mistreated as the weaker gender. It has been evident throughout the epic of Sunjata, the history of Greek society as well as Indian society. It is evident today with the social classes we have formed that there are predominant gender roles in our society; history as we know tends to repeat itself.
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.
Planet Earth harbors seven billion independent human minds, living seven billion independent, equally complex lives. Even more impressive, each mind contains unique perspectives and opinions. With so many different minds interacting, conflict between individuals’ perspectives and opinions becomes inevitable. Unfortunately, no single perspective, held by a single mind or a group of minds, dominates as the correct perspective. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the meeting of different cultures creates conflict between perspectives, in which both parties assume righteousness but neither is entirely correct. Though Okonkwo may draw a readers’ sympathy for his role as the tragic hero, the author’s sympathy sits with Obierika, who is positioned between the missionaries and Okonkwo as the most humane balance of the two cultures.
The first instance is when Okonwo beats his wife, Ojiugo, for not coming home to prepare his meal. He beat her severely and was punished, but only because he beat her during The Week of Peace. Any other time people would not have come over to see why a woman was screaming, but this was during the Week of Peace, and to beat someone during the Week of Peace was unheard of. The second instance is when he beats his second wife, Ekwefi for merely cutting some leaves from a banana tree to wrap some food.... ...
Although the reader feels remorseful for Okonkwo’s tragic childhood life. It is another reason to sympathize with a man who believes he is powerful and respected by many when in reality, he is feared by his own family and that is another reason that leads Okonkwo to his downfall. He started positive, motivated but down the line, Okonkwo treats his wife and children very harshly. When the author mentioned, “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children” (pg.13).
Throughout my research I've encountered numerous papers on the rights women do have in Igbo society, on the importance of women in this society. They site the role of widows in Igbo society as well as the respect given to the first wife as proof that while this society is not an ideal situation for women, it is hardly the misogynist society that some make it out to be. I passionately disagree. It is obvious to me that to the characters in Things Fall Apart, women are "things" to be exploited, abused and to serve as second-class citizens to the rank of male privilege. The theme of misogyny runs rampant throughout the text whether it is exposed by the absence of women in the text, the abuses women suffer at the hands of men, or the subtle ways in which society dictates and reinforces these negative statuses and images of women.
A main character in the novel, Okonkwo has several wives. He orders them around like dogs. They are never to question what they are instructed to do; they are expected to be obedient. We see this early in the story, when Okonkwo brings Ikemefuna into his home. Okonkwo tells his senior wife that Ikemefuna belongs to the tribe and that she is expected to look after him. She in turn asks him if he will be staying with them for a long period of time. This sends Okonkwo into a fury. He snaps at her in a very degrading manner, "Do what you are told woman. When did you become one of the ndichie (meaning elders) of Umuofia?"(pg.12) Clearly she receives no respect. Later in the story we see this woman try to comfort Ikemefuna. She "mothers" him as if he is one of her own children. She tries to put him at ease and can almost instinctively feel how much he misses his own mother.
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