Dauz Christine
Mrs. Bosch
English Honors 10
11 August 2008
In the novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the author displays his pride in family, heritage, memory, language, and lives. He illustrates them through the protagonist Okonkwo, his family, and the village they live among. Throughout the novel Achebe shows how he takes pride in his culture by adding in a few Ibo words and also many of the customs they have within the villages that the novel is based upon. The novel focuses on Okonkwo and how he goes from a well known leader to an outcast after seven years of exile from his clan. Even though these things happened to Okonkwo, he still had his family to fall upon in his time of need.
The way Achebe expresses his pride in family is through the relationships established within Okonkwo’s compound. “He Grew rapidly like a yam tendril in the rainy season, and was full of the sap of life. He had become wholly absorbed into his new family.” (52, Achebe), Ikemefuna a boy who was taken from a neighboring village to live among the people of Umoufia for his father’s actions, he is an example of how Achebe takes pride because even though the boy was not from the same village he was accepted by Okonkwo and his family and proved to be a good adopted son and a good help within the compound. Even though it may seem like Okonkwo is a man of rage and furry the author shows that he cares very much about his family. When Okonkwo’s daughter Ezinma gets the fever he goes out and gets ingredients to make a medicine as it says in the following quote, “‘It is iba’, said Okonkwo as he took his machete and went into the bush to collect the leaves and grasses and barks of trees that went into making the medicine for iba” (76, Achebe). As you can see Okonkwo took care of Ezunma instead of letting her suffer and get even sicker. Another example of family pride is how Ezinma is like her father as it says in the following, “She understood things so perfectly. Who else among his children could read his thoughts so well?” (173, Achebe). Okonkwo takes pride in how he and his daughter are alike; this shows that the author took family seriously to show the relationship between a father and daughter.
Heritage takes a big role in the novel. Achebe shows this heritage by adding in customs of Umuofia. One custom is when a suitor asks a father for his daughter in marriage. In this custom the suitor has to offer a bride-price like in the following quote, “In his way Akuke’s bride-price was finally settled at twenty bags of cowries. It was already dusk when the two parties came to this agreement.” (73, Achebe) By paying a bride-price shows how a suitor can supply his bride and family to be. Other customs are the breaking of a kola nut. Every time there is a visitor among someone’s compound through out the novel they break a kola as a sign of welcome and goodness. With this nut they drink palm-wine. There are many customs that were explained or mentioned throughout the novel, but the custom about accidentally killing a clansman is very interesting. In the following quote it shows what Okonkwo must do to be part of the clan again after killing a warrior’s son at his death ceremony, “The only course open to Okonkwo was to flee from the clan. It was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman, and a man who committed it must flee from the land. The crime was of two kinds, male and female. Okonkwo had committed the female, because it had been inadvertent. He could return to the clan after seven years.” (124, Achebe) Okonkwo had to live in exile for seven years by the time he comes back to the clan there would surely be someone who had taken his spot among the village. So during the time he spends in exile with his family in his mother’s
Achebe displayed Okonkwo’s memory very well. There are times throughout the novel where it showed how Okonkwo was at a young as especially at the beginning of the novel. In the following quote it shows how Okonkwo began his farm at a young age, “But I can trust you. I know it as I look at you. As our fathers said, you can tell a ripe corn by its look. I shall give you twice four hundred yams. Go ahead and prepare your farm.” (22, Achebe) Even though the elder man and Okonkwo didn’t know each other that well he still gave Okonkwo the seeds to start his own farm, because he saw that Okonkwo was a hard worker and would do anything to try to become something his father Unoka wasn’t. Another example is how Okonkwo remembers everything about his father Unoka. Okonkwo’s father was a poor man but that only made him strive to be better then Unoka. This quote shows how Okonkwo would do anything to not end up like his father, “Unoka had a sense of the dramatic and so he allowed a pause, in which he took a pinch of snuff and sneezed noisily, and then he continued: ‘Each group there represents a debt to someone, and each stroke is one hundred coweries.’” (7, Achebe) Okonkwo did not want to be like his father owing other people money so he worked hard and despised everything Unoka loved. This made Okonkwo strong and hard working, which showed through his farms and through the three titles he had taken within the
The language works well within the novel and ties it all together. By using the Ibo language it made the novel more realistic and believable. Readers wouldn’t read a book with characters that are from a different country if it was all in English. It would confuse them. So by using the Ibo language Achebe achieved realism within the novel. Achebe used simple meaningful words such as “chi” which means personal god and “iba” which means fever to represent the Ibo language. Words like these were used repeatedly to show what some confusing things meant. The following quote uses I word from the Ibo language, “Then nine egwugwu then went away to consult together in their house.” (92, Achebe) The word egwugwu mean one who impersonates an ancestral spirit. Using a different language made that quote more understandable that the egwugwu can pose as an ancestral spirit and as a council member.
The lives of Okonkwo, his family, and the people of Umuofia are significant throughout the novel because they show the reader their way of life and how it is. Achebe takes pride within their lives because he shows how Okonkwo can go from being very successful man to an outcast in his own village. This quote explains how famous Okonkwo was, “Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements.” (3, Achebe) Okonkwo was very famous and also wealthy, but he was a man filled with a lot of anger due to his poor father. The memory of Unoka to Okonkwo made him want to be better and more successful. To get there he would have to work hard though. As Okonkwo did this he earned three titles in the village and three wives. He also had several Children as well. Okonkwo was at the top of his game. Then he was exiled from the clan for killing a warrior’s son. For seven years he lived in his mother’s
Achebe illustrated his pride in family, heritage, memory, language, and lives through Okonkwo well. He used his own culture to create a novel based on the customs of an Ibo tribe and on the achievements of a man who started from a nothing and became well known throughout all of the tribes. The author also used the language to bring make the novel real and explain the text better. The customs of the Ibo people also helped in explaining how Okonkwo became so well known throughout the village. The pride that Okonkwo took in his family helped them get through the hard times like the seven years Okonkwo had been exiled out of the clan. Even though one of his sons converted to Christianity, Okonkwo kept the ways of the Ibo. The display of Achebe’s pride has shown throughout the novel and also made it understandable.
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1994.
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