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Portrayal of female characters in things fall apart
The role of women chinua achebe
Images Of Women In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart
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Chinua Achebe’s seminal novel, Things Fall Apart, portrays the difficult struggle of a native African society to preserve its beliefs and values when faced with a powerful and dangerous outside influence. The struggle is most poignantly captured in the story of Okonkwo, a warrior who cannot reconcile his most treasured principles with the changes occurring in his society. It is through the lens of Okonkwo’s passions that we come to know the subtleties of his tribal village, Umuofia, and their complex religious and cultural practices. One of the most complicated concepts in this close-knit community is the concept of womanhood – its weakness, its strength, and it sanctity. For both Okonkwo and the Umuofia society, the idea of the feminine is contradictory and difficult to sustain; it is at the same time a source of comfort and fear, pride and shame. These two faces of the feminine in Achebe’s novel are embodied by two of the most significant female characters: Ekwefi, Okonkwo’s second wife, and Ezinma, their daughter. In these two women, we find a concept of womanhood that is at odds with itself yet fully reconciled.
Though womanhood as embodied by Ekwefi and Ezinma is the most complex and enlightening vision of the feminine in the book, it is not the first. The reader’s first exposure to the role of the female is through the view of Okonkwo. As a result of his experiences as a child, Okonkwo has developed a simplistic and emotionally charged view of women. This view was inspired, oddly, not by a woman but by a man – his father, Unoka. Unoka was not a successful member of the clan. He did not value hard work, did not participate in violence, and was content to live off of the backs of his fellow tribesmen. This led ...
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... through their portrayal, suggests that the author was much more attuned to the subtleties of the female identity than the surface of his novel implies.
References
Achebe, C. (1959). Things fall apart. New York: Anchor Books: Random House.
Hamilton, R. (2003). “Fragmenting culture, fragmenting lives: Chinua Achebe’s things fall apart.” Women in Literature: Reading through the Lens of Gender, J. Fisher and E. Silber, eds. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Onyemelukwe, I. (2004). “Achebe and african womanhood in Things Fall Apart.” Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe, vol. 2, E. Emenyonu and I. Uko, eds. Trenton, NJ: African World Press.
Strong-Leek, L. (2001). "Reading as a woman: Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' and Feminist Criticism". African Studies Quarterly 5(2): 2. [online] URL: http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v5/v5i2a2.htm
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. First Anchor Books Edition. New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 1959. Print.
Chinua Achebe?s Things Fall Apart is a narrative story that follows the life of an African man called Okonkwo. The setting of the book is in eastern Nigeria, on the eve of British colonialism in Africa. The novel illustrates Okonkwo?s struggles, triumphs, and his eventual downfall, all of which basically coincide with the Igbo?s society?s struggle with the Christian religion and British government. In this essay I will give a biographical account of Okonwo, which will serve to help understand that social, political, and economic institutions of the Igbos.
Gallagher, Susan. "Encounter with Chinua Achebe." The Christian Century New York State Writers Institute. "Chinua Achebe." Internet. http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/achebe.html.
Nnoromele, Patrick C.. “The Plight of a Hero in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.” Chinua Achebe's
Achebe writes Things Fall Apart to revise the history that has been misplaced. He writes to the European and Western culture. This fact is evident because the book is written in English and it shows us the side of the African culture we wouldn’t normally see. Achebe is constantly ...
middle of paper ... ... The "An African Voice. " Interview with Chinua Achebe. N.p., 2 Aug. 2000.
Cook, David. “The Centre Holds: A Study of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.” Critical Insights: Things Fall Apart(2010): 124-144. Literary Reference Center. Web. 30 Jan. 2014
Before the arrival of the Europeans, Achebe did a excellent job portraying how the life of Igbo was before they were forced to oppose their own culture. To support this theme, Achebe included detailed descriptions of social rituals within each family, the justice system, religious practices and consequences, preparation and indulgence of food, the marriage process and the distributing of power within the men. Achebe shows how every man has an opportunity to prove himself worthy to achieve a title on the highest level, based merely on his own efforts. One may argue that the novel was written with the main focus on the study of Okonkwo’s character and how he deteriorates, but without the theme that define the Igbo culture itself, we would never know the universe qualities of the society that shaped Okonkwo’s life. The lives of the Igbo people was no different to the actual lives of the Ibos people back in the early days of Africa. Just like in Things Fall Apart, in actual African tribes there was never a ruler. “Very interesting thing about these villages is that there is no single ruler or king that controls the population. Decisions are made by including almost everyone in the village” (AfricaGuide). Using the theme, Achebe educated readers on by mirroring real African life in her
Okhamafe, Imafedia. "Geneological Determinism in Achebe's Things Fall Apart." Modern Critical Interpretation: Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2002. 125-44. Print.
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.
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.
In “Things Fall Apart,” Chinua Achebe incorporates the theme of marginalization. Instead of the typical scenario in canonical works, the focus is on the tribe Umuofia in Africa:
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”).
Gikandi, Simon. "Chinua Achebe and the Invention of African Literature." Classics in Context: Things Fall Apart. Chinua Achebe. Portsmouth: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1996