In Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, the gender role of women in the Ibo society plays a significant role on the male gender, identity, and class. In our lives today, there is still oppression of women due to the beliefs of certain cultures, in which women are frequently viewed as inferior, not equal and used to only satisfy a man’s needs. Things Fall Apart, represents how women are supposed to be nurturing, innocent, and express emotions, but on the other hand, men are known to others as brave, powerful, and the right of expressing anger. Overall, women in the Ibo society achieve an important role in male and children’s lives, yet at the same time they are treated harshly, which puts an affect on the culture. The Ibo women play a dominant role in male live’s to serve them as a bride for an “honorable” man. The men see the women as possessions and for them to fulfill their needs. This treatment of the women of the Ibo society perceives them as a weaker class, in which they are given no respect and are harshly abused. As said on page 73 of Things Fall Apart, “Marriage should be a play and not a fight; so we are falling down again. Then he added ten sticks to the fifteen and gave the bundle to Ukegbu. In this way Akeuke’s bride-price was finally settled at twenty bags of cowries.” This quote represents the Ibo society’s idea of buying a bride as if they are the male’s possession, yet in the case where the women are a major key to the …show more content…
“He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women (183).” The breaking of the people of Umuofia people is a signal of weakness femininity and weakness of the Ibo culture. It is clear that within the society, the women are viewed to hold significant tasks compared to the men, yet they are treated in perspective as a lower
As wise John Berger once said,“Never again shall a single story be told as though it were the only one”. A “single story” is the story of a culture that we learn from stereotypes and conspiracies developed throughout time in our society. In “Things Fall Apart”, Chinua Achebe defies the single story of African culture while still tying their native language in to show the importance between a physical differentiation of culture, and the similarities with morals and values they have in common. Through gender roles and proverbs used in the language of this book, we have a cultural insight of Nigeria through a new set of eyes given to us by Achebe that detures us from the single stories that we were taught to by our society.
The idea of women holding authority was unheard of in ancient times and more recently in Colonial America up through the mid twentieth century. It has always been thought that men are superior to women and that women are not strong enough physically and mentally to hold any true authority. For instance, women did not receive the right to vote in the United States until 1920; the first female senator wasn’t appointed until late 1922. In Chinua Achebe’s novel Thing Fall Apart, however, women do hold authority and some even hold more authority than men. Achebe describes how in the Ibo culture women hold the main positions in Ibo religion as priestess and Oracle and that even the strongest man in the Ibo village and the main character of the novel, Okonkwo, must obey the commands of these women.
In Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the theme of perceived masculinity is prominent and portrayed as a critical characteristic which has the potential to shape clans, families, and the safety of others. Because of the emphasis placed on masculinity, women are widely disregarded and downplayed, as they are seen as property. In African culture men are revered due to their warrior-like natures that can uphold the functionality of a clan, but frowned upon when deemed as weak; the result of this fear of weakness led to the dominance of men over women.
In many countries there are distinctive gender roles. For almost every culture there are male and female “traits and roles”. Men are usually seen as masculine and completes all the hard work. On the other hand, women are seen as fragile and meant to stay home and tend to the children. An example of this is in Indian culture. Although women are working alongside men in today’s society they are still looked down upon. Women who are well educated suffer from a social stigma. Women are not appreciated for the things they do. Gender roles in Igbo culture share some differences and similarities with cultures around the world. The Igbo people hail from Nigeria, they have a very rich culture and history. Things Fall Apart is a wonderful novel created
When you mention gender roles in society the first thing that comes to mind usually are stereotypes, or the set labels that society has established on how everyone acts based on the different biological, social, and cultural categories they fit into. Throughout history these stereotypes that pertain to genders roles in society have been proven true. Gender roles refer to a behavioral and social norms that are widely accepted for people of a certain sex. In this report I will discussing the gender roles of the two most recognized types of gender, man and woman, from the perspective of a man and a woman who have lived 65+ years. I will also discuss how those roles have influenced society and how they have changed gradually over the years.
Gender differences are influences on gender behavior in the way that one must fit through the assumptions and inevitable confusion to distinguish the reality of the assumption. Men and women are obviously different inherently, but not in what they can and cannot do. Men and women are different and have different roles because this is society presented them to the world. Women have the most difficulty getting through these complicated times. There should be equality among all men and women of all races and ethnicity. This is a never-ending issue. We as a society should always know and act on the importance of gender roles, gender equality, and challenges with education in developed and developing countries.
In every society, the difference between genders leads to different roles and lifestyles depending on the culture of each society. While there may be similarities between gender roles among many societies, the explanations tend to be different from culture to culture. The society depicted in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is reminiscent of an Ancient Greek or Roman society, where the men are considered to be strong warriors and breadwinners, and the women are looked at as objects, whose main duty is to tend to the children and obey the husband without a question. While at first glance, the Shakespearean play Tempest seems different from Achebe’s book, in reality, similar themes lie at its center, including the abuse of women and male power dominating throughout the play. While the only female character is a young girl, who is a puppet of his father’s will, she has courage to be honest and to stand up against her father on more than one occasion, exhibiting an innate female power like Ekwefi in Things Fall Apart. Hence these two works, while written three hundred years apart and showing two societies at the opposite ends of colonization, illustrate that the gap between them is not as big as one would think when it comes to society’s gender roles.
” Without looking at the man Okonkwo had said “This meeting is for men.” The man who had contradicted him had no titles. That is why he had called him a woman. Okonkwo knew how to kill a man’s spirit”, by Okonkwo saying this he is basically indicating that women are seen as weak and are not highly valued in Umuofia. Where the author says Okonkwo knew how to kill a man’s spirit, that can be a reason as to why he thinks women are weak. One more example on how women get treated poorly or not highly valued is “It was clear from the way the crowd stood or sat that the ceremony
Patriarchy is a form of social organization in which a male is the head of the family and has all the power to control and be a dominant individual. Male dominance is an ever present concept in society but women found a way to challenge this notion and overcome the hardships of male elitism. In “Nervous Conditions” by Tsitsi Dangarembga is focused on the colonized African clan called the Sigauke clan. The novel examines unequal power relations between men and women in the Sigauke clan which is largely steeped in tradition. The women in the story challenge the practices of male dominance; usually unsuccessful but each of these women make an effort to question some of decisions that were righteous of the patriarch. The women also break out of the role of domesticity and servility to the surprise of the men. “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin and “Things fall apart” by Chinua Achebe are very similar to the notion of woman challenging male elitism.
Throughout this semester, we have learned many different techniques that authors use when writing African stories. These techniques include rites of passage, myths, the characters of trickster and hero, and many others. One of the important things that was taught in the very beginning of the semester about African stories was that authors use these techniques in stories to make different kinds of social commentary. There are two authors in particular that have stood out in their use of heroes in order to comment on gender roles in society. One of the authors is Chinua Achebe in his novel, Things Fall Apart, and Nawal El Saadawi in her novel, Woman at Point Zero. In both of these novels, there is the struggle of masculinity and femininity that
Throughout history, there have been many instances of people struggling to identify and cope with change and tradition, and this is no different in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
Things Fall Apart, a novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe is a story about an Igbo village in Nigeria and a man that once was a powerful influence in the tribe, but begins to lose his influence as Nigeria is colonized and Christian missionaries come to evangelize. A deeper look at the novel, with a feminist critics point of view, tells a lot about the Igbo people as well as the author’s thoughts about women in the novel. Feminist critics look at female authors, and female characters and their treatment as well as women’s issues in society. Since Achebe is a male, the main focus of feminist literary criticism for Things Fall Apart is the women in the novel and their issues as well as the Igbo view of gender identity. Many issues that women
First, the book introduces the many inequalities between men and women. In the novel, Achebe tells of Okonkwo beating his wives and it still being socially acceptable. A woman is never allowed to fight back or stand up for herself because she is the equivalent of a servant to a master. Achebe also mentions, "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” (Achebe 53). This excerpt from the novel exemplifies the controlling and dominance the men have over women in this Nigerian culture. Unfortunately, this inequality, although not completely tolerated, still exists today. It is proven that every woman has or will experience discrimination from men in their life (Crawford). While the abuse of women is not generally accepte...
In the play Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka, the author uses the representation of woman as the defenders of the Yoruba tradition. Soyinka tells us in this “Author’s note” that the play is based on an incident in Nigeria in 1949. In Yoruba tradition, it is the sacrifice of the king’s horseman that plays the essential role in bringing good fortune onto the community. While these leaders of the Yoruba culture are predominantly male, the role of the Yoruba woman as both defender and keeper of these traditions are of equal importance. The representation of men and women in Death and the King’s Horseman, demonstrates that nationalism is a gendered construct; in which the women are the stability in masculine nationalism. The characters Iyaloja, the daughters of the market, and the virgin bride play a role in persevering the Yoruba tradition from the colonizer, and also the males in their village.
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.