Resemblance

Like most in life, Okonkwo tried very hard to not be like his father, but, in my opinion, he managed to show that no matter what, you will always end up resembling your parents some way or another. Okonkwo grows up to be a strong young man who is the opposite if his father; for starters, he is successful and wealthy.  However, the years pass him by and his personality begins to change and his ability of containing emotions quivers.  In his later years, Unoka, Okonkwo’s father is portrayed as a failed man who lives a bohemian life, a vain life; he plays his flue and lives in a world of tranquility and calmness that doesn’t exist and will never exist. Like his father, Okonkwo lives his final years fighting for a loss cause and reminiscing about the days which will no longer again exist. In addition, like father, like son, the both die in a dishonorable way; Unoka dies of an awful illness and Okonkwo hangs himself. These ways to die in the Igbo society are illustrated as a disgrace and an offence to nature. Resembling your relatives is inevitable; one way or another, no matter how hard you fight it, genetically you will be almost exact replicas of your parents.

Life Threatening

There are incidents in life that cause us to change our way of life, for the better or worse. There are very different ways of dealing with these life changing events. Some people, those who are tied to the past and might even have been worshiped before the incident occurred are those most likely end up as 'the week ones' in the new situation. Unlike those who were never truly comfortable with the past society and lifestyle they were living in and always hoped for a new change; these people will be those who succeed. In things fall apart, Okonkwo is a character who is very linked to his people and way of life and is considered to be the perfect example of what the Igbo man should be. Therefore, we can understand why he could not truly adapt to his new surroundings and as hard as he tried he would always reminisce and this would certainly bring him pain. 

Things fall apart has a very similar theme to the novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell; a story that illustrates a rich southern society in the midst of the American Civil War that has to cope with the consequences of the South's loss. Like Things Fall Apart, these are two similar societies that due to 'the man's' power crumble and entire lifestyles are lost. 

The Igbos in Things Fall Apart lose their power and basically their freedom of speech due to the religion that takes over their society and manages to even convert some of the natives to Christianity.  This causes the people of Umuofia to rebel and bring the Christian church to ashes. In Gone with the Wind, slavery and a society of rich culture and strict costumes are the way that people use to coexist; in Georgia, where the story is set, many of the characters can’t seem to find a way to commence a new life and become accustomed to the new American ways.

On the other hand, we can see those like Nwoye, now Isaac, had a tragic loss in his previous years of childhood and he couldn’t truly grasp in to anything within his own society to help him through that period of time. Once ‘the white men’ settled into the villages, Nwoye, Isaac, was moved and found comfort and ‘someone to lean on’ in the Christian faith.

Okonkwo could not handle the situation and ended up hanging himself. Sometimes, there are life changing situation that are inevitable to begin with; one just has to learn to adapt to their surroundings and attempt to be open-minded in one way or another.

Intermediates

Language, to some, is a wall. It is barrier that separates those with opportunities and those who are crippled by lack of knowledge. To others however, it is an area of advantage where, in the case of Things Fall Apart, one can make a profit. In novel, when the villagers are asked for a fee to release the village leaders from jail, the request the translators make increases by a 25% so that they can take some sort of advantage of the situation in hand. When one is using a translator or intermediate so much can be lost and misinterpreted. In the story, the intermediates play a big role and I was very wise of the author to keep them making appearances throughout the end of the novel, especially the part in which Mr. Brown is replaced by Reverend Smith. The intermediated keep coming up in a way that helps us remember the times this story is set; they remind us that this is no ordinary 21st century conflict where English is most likely to do the taking. No, this is set in 1890s and the lack of communication caused many misinterpretations and complications along the way for any gesture the translator made even if it was a simple matter of word choice, the main stream of the idea being translated could be completely lost. The translators could also be interpreted as a weakness and a sign of vulnerability because of the lack of clarity in communication. 

Consequences

No matter what you do, karma will always come. There are always consequences to be faced. 


Okonkwo, once again, is stripped to his emotions for what he is left with is his feelings. After burning the church, and leaving the Christian colonizers in some sort of humiliation, the District Commissioner returns from his trips and finds basic chaos. He demands to see the leaders of the clan to discuss these happenings. Most of the leaders weren’t in agreement with ‘church burning’ decision and most people knew that, but not Okonkwo, he was proud of the destruction of the building because it represented strength and what we can name as some kind of an ‘Igbo come back.’ Once the District Commissioner had gotten all the participants of the meeting to cooperate when putting down their machetes and discussing the matters, the DC had them all hand cuffed and sent to jail. 


In jail the beatings were hard and revenge, or at least physical revenge, on behalf of the Europeans was not easy to bear. Onkonkwo here is left with nothing but his bare soul and his internal spirit and what the Igbos call chi. 

New Regime

On the annual ceremony to pay their respects to the Earth goddess, a convert, a very zealous one, Enoch, provokes the Igbos by unmasking an egwugwu. Unmasking an egwugwu is like taking out his heart with your bare hands; it was killing an ancestral spirit. Enoch does this because once Mr. Brown, the man who was somewhat in charge of the colonizers, leaves Umuofia, he is replaced by Reverend Smith. Reverend Smith’s ways are different from Mr. Brown; they are not so unorthodox for Reverend Smith believes that the regime before was far too lenient. At some point within the chapter, he has some feelings about the converts who are not fully sure of their new beliefs; he strongly feels that they should be either “black or white.”  This interested me particularly because it is quite a sarcastic statement which could be interpreted in several different ways. First, he means it in the obvious way in which the men should, like everybody on the face of the earth, make up their mind; there are no grey spots for these converts. They must either pick to be Christians on the European side or Igbos on the tribe’s side. On the other hand there is also a very powerful racial connotation for he, like most white men did, believed in a superior race and this was obviously the race of those who were colonizing Umuofia. This portrays Smith as what anyone would expect a European colonist to be. Due to him having no respect for those with other beliefs, he supports s Enoch’s ways. This causes the Igbos to burn down the Christian church.

Religion

Imagine there were no religion. As an atheist, I write this thinking of the possibilities of mankind if there were no religion. Imagine no crusades and the Twin Towers still standing. Do not get me wrong I am not against the fact that there are different cultures out there, some richer than others, some more ignorant then others, but the moment the culture starts to mention a god or a holy being or an object to worship spiritually then that starts getting in the way of fulfilling an independent life. Think of all the wars we could have prevented with no religion, then again, most excuses behind wars were religion though the true purpose was the rulers’ thirst for power. It would do so much good for the people at this point of the book to just drop their religious beliefs and dedicate their lives to their crop and families and their own happiness; even the missionaries and the conquerors because for sure there is a wife or a relative waiting for the day in which their loved on arrives from Africa. It turns things upside-down.

I did not mean to hurt anybody’s feelings or insult any form of lifestyle.

Things Fall Apart

The main theme and purpose of this book is disintegration; it illustrates the disintegration of a whole culture of rare richness that is taken over by Christian missionaries and conquerors.

A few years before the land was taken from the clans’ grasp, Okonkwo was paid a visit from an old friend from Umuofia who told him about this strange white man with an iron horse – which we suppose is a bicycle – who was riding past Abame who got killed by the people of the village. Some days later in the midst of the marketplace the people saw there were a whole crowd of these white people. Out of the blue, the white men started shooting and it turned into a massacre in which there was no one but the white men standing.

Later, around three to four years later, the narrator describes a scene in which we could the land of Umuofia and Okonkwo’s land full of Christian churches with missionaries and white men speaking their foreign language all around.

The conquest of the white man was so thorough that Nwoye, Okonkwo’s oldest son was converted to the Christian faith. Apparently, “it was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him. He did not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow. The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul – the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikefuna who was killed He felt relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul.” (pg. 147) Nwoye was a Christian and denied his father.

Things were definitely falling apart. 

Gender

Throughout the entire novel, the reader can witness the sexist aspects within this society. To begin with, Umuofia is some sort of democracy in which the men meet at decision-making time, discuss the options and come up with conclusion; some of the men are more ‘powerful’ than others, however women have no absolute say in any single matter. Then, there is also the fact that depending on a man’s fame and his titles he can have a certain number of wives. This undermines the women’s role in society for the author illustrates a picture which shows that they are basically treated as reproductive machines. Okonkwo has three wives and several children with most of them; he treats them as maids who are only useful when they are in the kitchen and conceiving babies. Then again, when Okonkwo is exiled, he seeks comfort in his mother’s homeland, Mbanto, and lives there for the next seven years. The author states:

"It is true that a child belongs to his father. But when the father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother's hut. A man belongs to his father land when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness, he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme." (pg. 134)

This shows that even though women aren't much respected in their youth by their husbands, they are respected by their sons and daughter. Mothers are a form of refuge; they are acknowledged and not taken for granted.

Shame and Exile

Ezeudu, one of Okonkwo’s friends, suddenly died tragically and so they had a very traditional burial ceremony. Ezeudu had been one of his true friends; he was the one who told Okonkwo that he should not go to Ikemefuna’s, a boy who was bound to be sacrificed whom Okonkwo grew very fond of, killing. And Ezeudu was right; he shouldn’t have. While the clan was at the funeral performing ritual after ritual, Okonkwo’s gun explodes killing one of Ezeudu’s sons. Due to this, Okonkwo and his family are exiled from Umuofia or seven. Okonkwo finds himself returning to his mother’s village to attempt to continue their lives.

It is curious because Okonkwo did not take Ezeudu’s advice and maybe this was the form of revenge his spirit takes towards the situation.

Okonkwo appears to be the perfect example of the man who worked for a ‘cause’ his entire life just to see it all get ripped out from under his nose. Though this does not only take away all the material things Okonkwo has worked for but his faith in humanity and will itself. However, what happened to Okonkwo was inevitable. It would be as silly trying to stand in front of a tsunami shouting STOP! Yet, Okonkwo, as a middle-aged man is left to start a new life and the best he can do is move on.

Agbala do-o-o-o!

One day, Ezinma, the daughter of Ekwefi, Okonkwo’s third wife, gets very sick. Apparently, according to the Igbo culture and the ‘doctor’ of the clan Ezinma was one of Ekwefi’s previous, now dead babies that came back to her to basically haunt her; she was a bad spirit. Later, once Ezinma is well, she is taken by Chielo, the Agbala’s, or God, priestess claiming that Agbala wanted to talk to Ezinma. The way the narrator explains the course of events helps us sense the tension in the atmosphere while the whole commotion is going on. Ekwefi is so nervous that, breaking the rules, she follows the priestess all the way through the villages to her Agbala’s cavein the hills. Shortly, we find out that Okonkwo, even though he never presented any affection towards Ezinma, always saying how he wished that she had been born a boy, also followed Chielo to the cave and was pretty shaken up too. Both of these events might foreshadow upcoming incidents. I predict that Ezinma might be some sort of special spirit or semi-goddess that might somewhat ‘save’ the entire Igbo population when the Europeans, or the white men, come to Umofia to try to conquer and colonize.