Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart describes the colonization of the Ibo tribe by a group of white missionaries. The text details the life of Okonkwo, a successful yam farmer with many wives and great power in his village, from his early adulthood to his death. In the beginning, Achebe presents the readers with Ikemefuna, a young boy from the neighboring Mbaino tribe, sent to Okonkwo’s household as punishment for murdering an Umuofian woman. Ikemefuna integrates into the family rapidly, and is well-received by both Okonkwo and his biological son, Nwoye. Ikemefuna spent three years in Okonkwo’s family, which was much longer than what the clan elders had anticipated. During that time, Okonkwo treats Ikemefuna as his own son, and Nwoye views

While Okonkwo “opened up his sense of what is right and wrong/what he allowed”, Nwoye closes up and follows a committed path. Ikemefuna’s arrival provokes Nwoye to adopt more masculine features, in an attempt to please Okonkwo. When Ikemefuna comes to live with Okonkwo, Nwoye is immediately drawn to him and admires him greatly because “he seemed to know everything” (28). Not only is Ikemefuna skilled in knowledge and how to do nature stuff, he is also loved by Okonkwo. Ikemefuna makes Nwoye feel more mature and masculine--they spend more time with Okonkwo instead of staying in their mother’s hut. Nwoye’s close bond with Ikemefuna creates competition between the two, and Nwoye soon begins to imitate some of Ikemefuna’s habits. He tries to please Okonkwo with his “manliness”, thus acting more like Ikemefuna. For example, Nwoye pretends that he frowns upon woman-like habits. Although Nwoye enjoys listening to his mother's stories, he knew they were for “foolish women and children” and because he knows Okonkwo wishes for him to be a man, he “feigned that he no longer cared for women’s stories” (54). He attempts to make Okonkwo happy by adhering to traditional masculine values, even if it means going against what he believes. Okonkwo notices Nwoye’s change and is proud of him. He is “inwardly pleased with his son’s development, and [knows] it was due to Ikemefuna”, for now, he believes that Nwoye is better suited

They are affected differently by his death. Okonkwo takes on an even more masculine side, now that Ikemefuna, who he believed to be a threat to his masculinity, is gone. At first, he struggles to cope with Ikemefuna’s death and does not eat for several days, but realizes the best solution would be to work. He states that he just needs “something to occupy his mind” and calls himself “not a man of thought but of action” (69). This signifies Okonkwo’s return to pure masculinity; he “closes up” again. While Okonkwo transitions from opening up to closing up, Nwoye goes from closing up to opening up following Ikemefuna’s death. After first learning about Ikemefuna’s death, Nwoye is at first stunned, then begins to question certain Ibo customs in an attempt to come to terms with this event. He describes feeling like “the snapping of a tightened bow” and relates this feeling to the time he heard infant twins crying in the forest (61). Just like how Ikemefuna’s execution was ordered by the mysterious clan oracle, it was an Ibo tradition to leave infant twins in the forest to die--nobody questioned these practices. After experiencing these two occasions, the deaths of innocent people, Nwoye is not only skeptical of his clan’s traditions, but is also unforgiving towards Okonkwo. This results in him gradually distancing himself from the clan in order to find peace. When the Christian missionaries come to the