Igbo Gender Roles

“Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe followed the story of Okonkwo as he maneuvered the hardships of becoming successful in a Nigerian Tribe during the turn of the 19th century and how he handled coped during the Era of European Imperialism. As Achebe brought the reader alongside Okonkwo he highlighted the culture of the Igbo Tribe and how it changed as a result of the imperialism. Throughout the novel, the role of women in the Igbo society and the various interpretations of masculinity were visited often as the comparison between Igbo culture and European culture collided.

The vision of the ideal man fueled much of the plot in “Things Fall Apart”. Okonkwo, Umuofia Society, and the church all had different views on what qualified

Nearly all aspects of Igbo life are structured around gender roles. Everything from the characterization of crimes to what crops to plant are based around genders. When Okonkwo accidentally killed the son of Ezeudu, it was considered a female crime and his punishment was being exiled for 7 years. Where as if he killed another man of the tribe on purpose, it would have been considered a man’s crime and he would’ve been exiled for life. Overall, woman carried less worth than a man in Igbo society. They were treated as replaceable and when Ogbuefi Udo’s wife was killed, she was replaced in a matter of days by a virgin girl from another tribe. “At the end, they decided as everybody knew they would, that the girl should go to Ogbuefi Udo to replace his murdered wife.”(Achebe 12). The ease in which the wife was replaced showed how women were considered to be interchangeable, as long as they could bear a child they were all considered to be the same. Achebe also showed Nwoye’s conforming to his prescribed stereotype from his childish innocence. “So, Okonkwo encouraged the boys to sit with him in his Obi, and he told them stories if the land-- masculine stories of violence and bloodshed. Nwoye knew that it was right to be masculine and to be violent, but somehow he still preferred the stories that his mother used to tell … But he now knew that they were for foolish women and children, and he knew his father wanted him to be a man.” (Achebe 53, 54). The stereotypes that the characters conformed to were always present in the novel showing up in the form of major plot effects like Okonkwo beating his wife during peace week, to small subtleties such as women being referred to based on their relationships with men instead of their given