Can the reader’s perspective of the text be changed, if read from a feminist perspective? According to the urban dictionary, a feminist “is a person who believes that men and women are equal, and should be entitled to equal rights, equal treatment, and equal opportunity.” In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe written in 1969, the author has established that the Igbo society has a patriarchal system. As a feminist, one can analyze how female characters in the novel are portrayed as insignificant, weak, and submissive due to the patriarchal system they live in. The author tries to create awareness of the social gender construction in the Igbo society throughout his novel. The main character Okonkwo is portrayed as a very masculine figure, unlike his father, Unoka who was looked down upon as a failure because he was a debtor and “weak like a female.” (Achebe pg. 4) “Even as a little boy he had resented his father’s failure and weakness.” (Achebe pg.13) His father was afraid of blood making him seem a coward. Consequently, Okonkwo feared been compared to his father more than fearing evil, gods, or magic. In chapter 3, it stated that “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand.”(Achebe pg. 13) He was …show more content…
In a kindred meeting a man contradicted Okonkwo, so he belittled him by saying, “That was why he had called him a woman. Okonkwo knew how to kill a man’s spirit.” (Achebe pg. 26) By comparing the man to a woman, he was ultimately embarrassing him in front of the other clan members. In the Igbo society that was the ultimate insult.Okonkwo never showed any type of emotion openly, because to show any type of affection was a sign of weakness. (Achebe pg. 28) Unlike women, men had to be strong physically and dominate. Okonkwo was seen as a great warrior and a successful clan member because of his fearlessness in battle and how he ruled his home and family with a heavy
One example of how the Igbo culture molds the fictional character Okonkwo into who he is is by the usage of the title system. The title system fuels Okonkwo’s hatred for his father, Unoka, and the fear of being like him in any way. Throughout Things Fall Apart, Unoka is constantly shamed for his lack of titles, which, in turn, causes Okonkwo to begrudge his father. On page thirteen it states, “Even as a little boy he had resented his father’s failure and weakness, and even now he still remembered how he had suffered when a playmate had told him that his father was agbala. That was how Okonkwo first came to know that agbala was not only another name for a woman, it could also mean a man who had taken no title” (Achebe). This quote illustrates how significant the amount of hatred that Okonkwo has for
Okonkwo is known throughout Umuofia to be extremely masculine. He rarely shows signs of fear or weakness. This is because Oknokwo promised himself he would be the complete opposite of his father Unoka. Unoka had passed away ten years prior to when the story takes place but he has always been remembered as a weak, lazy, poor man who could barely provide for his family. He was always in debt and didn't care to work, he would play his flute all day everyday if he was able to. "People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back" (5). Unoka was the laugh of the town and Okonkwo would never allow himself be that.
In “Chapter 24” of Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe adopts a spiteful and grevious tone, and utilizes diction, symbolism, and figurative language to capture the pinnacle of the extirpation of the Igbo tribe. Achebe uses intense diction throughout the chapter when construing Okonkwo’s feelings about his fellow clansmen and the Europeans. Since his tone is meant to provoke emotion, he laces his sentences with temerit words like “vengeance,” (Achebe 199) and “tumult,” (Achebe 203). The use of his diction emphasizes the agonizing feelings of the clan, especially those of Okonkwo. Alternatively, Achebe utilizes a surfeit of Igbo words such as “nno,” (Achebe 199) meaning “welcome,”and “Umuofia Kwenu,” (Achebe 202) a phrase used to show the tribe members were paying attention during
“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.
The protagonists of this novel, Okonkwo, is an especially masculine leader in the Indu tribe in Nigeria. The novel starts off with some background information that Okonkwo was forced into independence at a very young age, mentally isolating him from other children and his family. Okonkwo reflects, "I began to fend for myself at an age when most people still suck at their mothers’ breasts." (Achebe, 9). Immediately this statement causes great sympathy for Okonkwo because of his parents terrible nurturing skills, as well as the lack of childhood that Okonkwo got to experience. Not only does it cause sympathetic feelings, but it also allows the reader to see Okonkwo's heroic qualities that he acquired at such a young age. Similarly to Winterson, Okonkwo put in effort to remove himself from the isolation that his family forced him into as well as making the reader feel compassionate towards
As a child Okonkwo was neglected by his father and even later in his life did not speak with him - until of course his father was on his deathbed - this made his made him very angry. Okonkwo always saw his father Unoka as lazy. Okonkwo worked hard to remove any trace of laziness from his personality. He is an extremely persistent man and a hard worker. He is given seed yams and even when heavy rainfall causes the yams to rot he does not give up and he continues to try. He shows emotion inwardly and is extremely temperamental. As shown by the following quote Okonkwo still favors boys over girls and men over women. This is because they do the “masculine” tasks. “...If Ezinma had been a boy I would have been happier. She has the right spirit”(Achebe, 66); Okonkwo kept saying that he wished Ezinma was a “boy” and that she “has the right spirit”, which shows that he likes her but will not show these emotions, this and many other choices Okonkwo makes are due cultural influences.
In his work Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe tells a story describing the decay and destruction of ancient African tradition caused by the invasion of white culture. His tone in the book seems to side and sympathize with the Africans and their religion. Interestingly enough, though, he uses biblical allusion, as well as onomatopoeia and symbolism to bring the book to life and captivate the reader. The following will describe how he uses these.
In the book women are being treated poorly. Okonkwo has three wives in which he expects for them to follow his orders or there would be consequences. Women do not get enough credit in the Igbo culture, they do so much stuff but yet receive so little credit for their work. They cook, clean the house and take care of their kids. They get disrespected by their own husbands. For example, when Okonkwo hit his youngest wife because she left the hut without making
Okonkwo believes that masculinity is one of the many branches to success. He doesn’t care about what his actions are only if they match masculinity. Chinua Achebe succeeds his goal of regaining the dignity of the Igbo tribe; through honouring traditions, describing multiple perspectives, showing that Okonkwo has human characteristics by having the fear of failure.
“It is better to die as a wolf than living like a dog,” stated Herbert Wehner, which was the way Okonkwo felt towards the Igbo village becoming feminized, in the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Okonkwo expresses anger and stress as his wife disobeys him, his son leaves the clan, and when the men in Umuofia stop defending themselves. In all these cases, Okonkwo found everyone weak and feminized, because the Igbo society was very male dominated.
It is another to sympathies for 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 wives 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). This is not power but a weakness when Okonkwo uses power to rule his own house, detaching himself from the emotional connection with this family rather than being frightening to live with. The sign of “gentleness” as like his father means weakness to Okonkwo even with his own family. Especially his wives, when the narrator demonstrated the lack of emotion to his wife, “Okonkwo was provoked to justifiable anger by his young wife, went to plait her hair at her friend’s house and did not return early enough to cook the afternoon meal… He walked back to his obi to await Ojiugo’s return. And when she returned he beat her very heavily. In his anger he had forgotten that it was the Week of Peace…But Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half –way through, not even for fear of a goddess” (pg.29-30). Okonkwo does not even fear the goddess and the Week of Peace and ends up beating his wife to show that he owes
The poem by Yeats conveys that things are falling apart and that “the center cannot hold” (Yeats). This applies to the African society in Things Fall Apart. At the beginning of the novel the society is pure and untouched. Throughout the book great changes influence the people. Christian missionaries come to the villages and threaten the African way of life and religion.
For example, Nwoye suppresses the fact that he would rather listen to his mother’s stories than Okonkwo’s because he needs to uphold society’s expectation that males would prefer to listen to something more “masculine”. In fact, Igbo society is so gendered that even the crops that are grown are associated with being male or female. Okonkwo is a character who is ruled by fear, which stems from his desire to be perceived as masculine. This need to be perceived as masculine leads Okonkwo to do what he wants regardless of how his actions will affect the clan. At times, Okonkwo goes directly against the will of others, which for him, proved to be consequential.
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
]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”).