Role of Women in Things Fall Apart

What are your thoughts? While women in the Igbo society of the 1890s appear to be thoroughly subjugated to their
male counterparts, are they depicted by Achebe as utterly powerless?
Kim Piper Hiatt has the following to say about the role of women in Things Fall Apart:
Discerning the role of women in Chinua Achebes novel Things Fall Apart (TFA) requires an attentive and unbiased
reading of the novel. At first glance, the women in TFA may seem to be an oppressed group with little power, and
this characterization is true to some extent. However, this characterization of Ibo women reveals itself to be
prematurely simplistic as well as limiting, once the reader uncovers the diverse roles of the Ibo women throughout
the novel.
An excellent example of powerful women in the Ibo village is found in the role they play in the Ibo religion. The
women routinely perform the role of priestess. The narrator recalls that during Okonkwos boyhood, the priestess
in those days was a woman called Chika. She was full of the power of her god, and she was greatly feared (17).
The present priestess is Chielo, the priestess of Agbala, the Oracle of the hill and the Caves (49). There is an
episode during which Chielo has come for Okonkwo and Ekwefis daughter Ezinma. We are told, Okonkwo
pleaded with her to come back in the morning because Ezinma was now asleep. But Chielo ignored what he was
trying to say and went on shouting that Agbala wanted to see his daughter . . . The priestess screamed. Beware,
Okonkwo! she warned (101). There is no other point in the novel in which we see Okonkwo plead with anyone,
male or female, for any reason. We witness a woman not only ordering Okonkwo to give her his daughter, but
threatening him as well. The fact that Okonkwo allows this is evidence of the priestesss power. The ability of a
woman to occupy the role of a priestess, a spiritual leader, reveals a clear degree of reverence for women being
present in Ibo society.
Another example of such reverence for women is unveiled in the representation of the earth goddess, Ani. Ani is
described a playing a greater part in the life of the people than any other deity. She was the ultimate judge of
morality and conduct. And what more, she was in close communion with the departed fathers of the clan whose
bodies had been committed to earth (36). It seems logical that a society that views its female members as inferior
beings would not represent their most powerful deity as being a woman. Anis power is further illustrated through
her role in the yam harvest. It is important that all the members of the clan observe the Week of Peace prior to the
harvest in order, to honor [their] great goddess of the earth without whose blessing [their] crops will not grow
(30). For a female spirit to possess such an important role in the success of the yam crops is indicative of the actual
deep-rooted power of women. When Okonkwo breaks the Peace of Ani, Ezeani proclaims, The evil you have one
can ruin the whole clan. The earth goddess whom you have insulted may refuse to give us her increase, and we shall
all perish (30).
The idea of womens power being attached to nature is also found in Chapter fourteen, when Okonkwo returns to his
mothers clan after being exiled from the Ibo village. Uchendu, reproaching Okonkwo for his sorrow about having
to come to live with his mothers clan, explains:
Its true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mothers hut. A
man belongs to his fatherland 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 (134).
Uchendas words reveal that women are viewed as the foundation of the clan and its people. They are
the constant that can be relied upon; they are the nurturers and caretakers of the people. These are not insignificant,

powerless roles. In addition to these notable examples of the power of these women, we observe women
performing various roles sprinkled throughout the novel. We are told that it is the women [who] weeded the farm
three times at definite periods in the life of the yams, neither early or late (33). This is an extremely important duty,
considering that if this task is not carried out correctly, the yam crops will fail.
We also see women in their role as educators of their children. The education process is done in part through the
ritual of storytelling. The narrator describes, Low voices, broken now and again by singing, reached Okonkwo
from his wives huts as each woman and her children told folk stories (96). It is through storytelling that the
children learn important lessons about the human condition, are taught the Ibo creation myths, such as the birds and
the tortoise story, and master the art of communicating by retelling the stories themselves. As stated earlier in the
novel, Among Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words
are eaten (7). The Ibo women are playing a significant role in the facilitation of this learning, which is vital to their
childrens ability to function within the Ibo culture. At first glance, the role of women in Chinua Achebes Things
Fall Apart may appear to unfairly limited in terms of their authority and power. Upon delving beneath this deceiving
surface, one can see that the women of the clan hold somevery powerful positions: spiritually as the priestess,
symbolically as the earth goddess, and literally as the nurturers of the Ibo people, the caretakers of the yam crops
and the mothers and educators of the Ibo children

Epigraphs are like little appetizers to the great entre of a story. They illuminate
important aspects of the story, and they get us headed in the right direction.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
W.B Yeats, "The Second Coming"
The epigraph is the first four lines of The Second Coming, easily one of the most famous and frequently quoted poems in all of
Western (and apparently Nigerian) literature. Yeatss poem was first published in 1920, a year after the end of World War I, the
Great War, in which millions of Europeans died. While many people at the time just wanted to get on with their lives, Yeats thought
that European society had pretty much broken down, and the poem is a terrifying prediction of future violence. Unfortunately, the
rise of Hitler and fascism in the 1930s proved him largely correct, and many have found the poem disturbingly prophetic in light of
the later wars of the twentieth century.
By using lines from The Second Coming as the introduction to his book, Achebe points out parallels between a time of chaos in
European history and the upheaval caused by the European colonization of Africa. In a way, Achebe uses the language of the
colonizer (literally and figuratively) to enlighten them on the point of view of the colonized.
The specifics of the poem are also incredibly relevant to Things Fall Apart as a whole. The poem begins with the image of a falcon
flying out of earshot of its human master. In medieval times, people would use falcons or hawks to track down animals at ground
level. In actual falconry, the bird is not supposed to keep flying in circles forever; it is eventually supposed to come back and land on
the falconers glove. In this image, however, the falcon has gotten itself lost by flying too far away, which we can read as a reference
to the collapse of traditional social arrangements in Europe at the time Yeats was writing, or the dissolution of the Igbo social and
religious structure.
The notion that things fall apart serves as a transition to the images of more general chaos that follow. The second part of the line,
a declaration that the centre cannot hold, is full of political implications, like the collapse of centralized order into radicalism. This is
the most famous line of Yeatss poem: the poems thesis, in a nutshell. Since Achebe used things fall apart as his title, it can also
be seen as the thesis of his book. In the novel, the traditional social structure of the Igbo is challenged by the missionaries and the
white court. As a result, the Igbo people no longer have one set of social or moral rules to live by and the unity of the clan is
shattered.

Yeats poem continues on to give the impression that the second coming of Christ is actually the coming of anarchy and a fearful
anti-Christ. The second coming brings destruction and chaos to a world corrupted by its own greed. This was the end of Western
civilization as Yeats imagined it. What better way to illustrate that decline of Western morals than for Achebe to show white men
coercing and brutalizing a civilized people into destroying themselves. The anarchy loosed upon the world is, to Achebe, the
horrors of imperialism.

Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

In Chinua Achebes novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is a tragic hero. Aristotles Poetics defines a Tragic Hero as a good man of high status
who displays a tragic flaw (hamartia) and experiences a dramatic reversal (peripeteia), as well as an intense moment of recognition
(anagnorisis). Okonkwo is a leader and hardworking member of the Igbo community of Umuofia whose tragic flaw is his great fear of
weakness and failure. Okonkwos fall from grace in the Igbo community and eventual suicide, makes Okonkwo a tragic hero by Aristotles
definition.
Okonkwo is a man of action, a man of war (7) and a member of high status in the Igbo village. He holds the prominent position of village
clansman due to the fact that he had shown incredible prowess in two intertribal wars (5). Okonkwos hard work had made him a wealthy
farmer (5) and a recognized individual amongst the nine villages of Umuofia and beyond. Okonkwos tragic flaw isnt that he was afraid of
work, but rather his fear of weakness and failure which stems from his fathers, Unoka, unproductive life and disgraceful death. Perhaps
down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness.It was not
external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father. Okonkwos father was a lazy,
carefree man whom had a reputation of being poor and his wife and children had just barely enough to eat... they swore never to lend him
any more money because he never paid back. (5) Unoka had never taught Okonkwo what was right and wrong, and as a result Okonkwo
had to interpret how to be a good man. Okonkwos self-interpretation leads him to conclude that a good man was someone who was the
exact opposite of his father and therefore anything that his father did was weak and unnecessary.
Okonkwos fear leads him to treat members of his family harshly, in particular his son, Nwoye. Okonkwo often wonders how he, a man of
great strength and work ethic, could have had a son who was degenerate and effeminate (133). Okonkwo thought that, "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" (45).
Okonkwo wrestles with his fear that any sign of weakness will cause him to lose control of his family, position in the village, and even himself.
Like many heroes of classical tragedy, Okonkwos tragic flaw, fear, also makes him excessively prideful (The oldest man present said
sternly [to Okonkwo] that those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble" [p. 28]).
Okonkwos downfall (or specifically death) is a result of the changes created by the coming of the British Colonists to Igbo. The introduction
of the colonists into the novel causes Okonkwos tragic flaw to be exacerbated. Okonkwo construes change as weakness, and as a result of
his interpretation Okonkwo only knows how to react to change through anger and strength. He derives great satisfaction, hubris or prideful
arrogance, from the fact that he is a traditional, self made man and thinks that to change would mean submitting to an outside force
(Christianity).
Following Okonkwos seven year exile (due to Okonkwos accidental killing of a member of the tribe at Ogbuefis funeral -the climax of the
novel or Aristotles definition of a dramatic reversal), the village Okonkwo once knew has changed due to the influence of Christianity and the
influence of the British. Okonkwos initial reaction is to arm the clan against the colonists and drive the British out of Igbo. Now he (the white
man) has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He (the white man) has put a knife on the things that held us together
and we have fallen apart (152). Okonkwo had always used his strength and courage to protect the community from destabilizing forces, and
because Okonkwo was a traditional man the introduction of Christianity posed a threat to all the values, morals and beliefs he sought to
protect. Okonkwo resists change at every step and instead resorts to violence toward anything he perceived as a threat to his culture or
values.
Okonkwos arrogant pride makes him believe that the clan leaders would eventually reunite the clan and drive the British colonists out of
Umuofia (especially following his imprisonment along with a few clansmen for burning a church as a result of the Enochs unmasking of an
egwugwu in public). Hoping that the clan will follow his lead, Okonkwo beheads a messenger of the British who was sent to break up a
village meeting regarding the possibility of going to war. However, the clan instead of following Okonkwos symbolic action is shocked by
Okonkwos brutality. Okonkwo recognizes (anagnorisis) that Umuofia would not go to war, because the clan had broken into tumult
instead of action. Okonkwo knows that he must now face his disgrace alone.
The Igbo culture had made Okonkwo a hero, but the Igbo culture changed with the coming of the British colonists. Okonkwo, a hero, would
rather die than be humiliated his enemies and by committing suicide Okonkwo prevented the European colonizers from getting revenge.
Aristotles statement, Man, when perfect, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all, embodies
the rise and fall of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebes novel. Okonkwo, like many tragic heroes before him, maybe a hero but his tragic flaw
prevents him from achieving true greatness as a human being.

Analyses of writing style in things fall apart

It doesnt take much to notice that theres something interesting about the wayThings Fall Apart is written. Although Achebe writes in
English, he captures the cadence of the Ibo people, particularly noticeable in the books dialogue. In the narration, Achebe keeps it
simple, directly to the point, and centered on nature. His goal is to use language to depict how the Ibo view their world. Youll also
see a bunch of Ibo words and phrases pop up here and there. (Use the glossary in the back of the book when needed.)
In addition to the cadence and content choice, Achebe also uses a ton of proverbs which is indicative of the Ibos traditional oral
culture as well as lots of tiny stories shared people and well known in certain villages, used to discuss everything. These stories
are how the people communicate with one another; theyre used to explain acts of nature, traditions, history, why people act a
certain way. Keeping all that in mind, lets take a look at this interaction, a few paragraphs into Chapter 12:
Some of the women cooked the yams and the cassava, and the others prepared vegetable soup. Young men pounded the foo-foo
or split firewood. The children made endless trips to the stream. []
The market in Umuike is a wonderful place, said the young man who had been sent by Obierika to buy the giant goat. There are
so many people on it that if you throw up a grain of sand it would not find a way to fall to earth again.
It is the result of great medicine, said Obierika. The people of Umuike wanted their market to grow and swallow up their market
and their neighbors. So they made a powerful medicine []
And so everybody comes, said another man, honest men and thieves. They can steal your cloth from off your waist in the market.
Weve got sparse description, an Ibo word (foo-foo), some cadenced dialogue, a mini-story about medicine to explain why the
Umuike market is so crowded, and men finishing each others thoughts and explanations. If you ask us, Achebe did an amazing job
capturing the spirit of his native Igbo language in his second language, English.