Things fall apart

Things Fall Apart Ch 1-9

Chapter 1
Okonkwo was tall, huge, had bushy eyebrows, had a wide nose, and was famous for being strong. He breathed heavily, even when he was sleeping. When he walked his heels never touched the ground; it was like he was walking on springs. When he was angry and couldn’t speak he would do it with his fists. No patience with anyone including his father. Unoka, his father was lazy and didn’t think about the future. He was tall but very thin. He had a haggard or mournful look on his face, except when he was drunk or playing an instrument. Unoka was poor and that hugely affected Okonkwo and the other children.

Chapter 2
People fear the night even the ones that are strong and courageous. At night the animals come out and the people get scared of evil spirits. Snakes were called strings at night. One of the women of Umuofia was killed at Mbaino. Seeking revenge and trying to avoid a war the people of Umuofia proposed to take Ikemufa and one of their women. Okonkwo overcomes his father’s weaknesses by succeeding without anything. Unlike the others Okonkwo didn’t receive any inheritance, instead he came up by himself. He achieved this by working and not by inheritance. Okonkwo believes women are subjects that need to be controlled. Nwoye is weak to him. An advantage of this culture is being able to see their wife’s, however a disadvantage is that they have more than one wife. Okonkwo doesn’t see his culture as perfect, but he doesn’t think it’s a bad culture either.

Chapter 3
Agbala is trusted because she tells people when they have misfortunes and she can help people get through their bad times. She is highly respected, which means that if women had a special talent or gift, they would also be respected. The ranking is observed by the order they drink wine. Share cropping was a different system they used to start a barn. Women and agriculture are controlled by men, that way they don’t show their weaknesses. Okonkwo doesn’t kill himself with it, but doesn’t get excited either.

Chapter 4
Okonkwo virtues are that he knows how to rise up when he is down and is a working man. His faults are that he speaks without thinking about what he is about to say, he has too much pride. Okonkwo has a good relationship with Ikemufa, he’s like a son too him and admired by Okonkwo because he’s strong not like Nwoye. Okonkwo’s crime was beating up his wife during the week of peace. Their culture has rituals that can’t be broken. He gets the harvest time off.

Chapter 5
Most of the people get enthusiastic for feasts before and when they arrive. However Okonkwo can never find that enthusiasm for a feast. Ekwefi is Okonkwo’s second wife. She gets excited for feasts and celebrations. Especially for the wrestling match. She fell in love with Okonkwo after he tossed the cat, but couldn’t marry him because she was too poor. However she ran away from her husband to go with Okonkwo, they had a baby named Enzinma. At forty-five she still loved the wrestling matches and the feasts. The woman had to sit with their legs together and that showed that they were less than the men.

Chapter 6
Chielo was the priestess of Agbala; it is the oracles of the hills and the caves. She was a widow with two children. People that didn’t know her would believe she was the same person when she was under the spirit. She plays an important role in the culture, which is a non ruled culture, were men are believed to be superior and they show their superiority over women.

Chapter 7
He acts like a man by doing manly jobs and spending time with his father. A man must control his wife’s and children. They hope the locusts stay because they are good to eat. They think that Okonkwo is going to be able to kill him because he is too weak. They kill the boy because he was from a different group. Achebe didn’t translate the song she was singing, it might be important because it was sang in her native language. Okonkwo acts like that because he doesn’t want to be viewed as weak.

Chapter 8
Okonkwo doesn’t like her because he wanted a daughter. Women are viewed as more valuable if the groom has to pay because he has to pay more in order to marry her. Therefore the women would feel more important because someone is paying to get married with them. When women began to develop they need to be controlled by men. The white men are introduced as outcast and believed to have no toes because they wear shoes. They treat the white men as outcasts.

Chapter 9
Ekwefi prizes her daughter Ezinma so highly because of her past. She has had ten children and nine of the ten have died before the age of three. When having children should be a women’s best time of her life, it is Ekwefi’s worst. Ezinman is an only child and has more than a mother and daughter relationship with Ekwefi. Children seem to become a big issue in this chapter as they have doctors coming in trying to solve the problem. This contradicts with the belief of throwing twins away.

Chapter 10
They fear the egwugwu because they know what they symbolize and they are supposed to be scared. The ceremonies are to solve the problems. The Evil Forest refutes the argument because a man would never sleep with a pregnant woman. These types of problems can affect a whole family because they get involved in stuff that is not their business. An advantage is that the wife gets protection from her abusive husband. A major disadvantage is that there is no privacy for the husband and the wife.

Chapter 11
The moral is too not trust the outcast or the white men. It reflects that people should work only with their own race. A value of the culture includes believing in gods like Agbala. Ekwefi didn’t want to let her daughter go but she had too because it was Agbala.

Chapter 12
The importance of family is being emphasized in the uri ceremony because it brings families together. Future marriages bring whole families together and it shows how they protect and care for each other.
Chapter 13
The one-handed egwugwu praise the dead man by asking him to come back to life exactly the same, without changing anything. He does this because the man was rich and lived long. This incident is a serious issue because the one handed man had praised Ezeudu by telling him to come back to life and get revenge. It is inferring that Ezeudu was hurt when Okonkwo killed Ikemefuna. Okonkwo is blamed for Ezeudu’s death and is exiled.

Chapter 14
Okonkwo is being compared to a fish out of water because he doesn’t fit in the new town and he can’t adapt to the new village. Okonkwo’s believe in the lack of importance in women is shown as he is unhappy being with the kinsmen. Therefore he believes he is in a womanly place.

Chapter 15
The story of the destruction of Abame explains why the natives don’t trust the colonists. Abame killed the white colonist who didn’t listen to the oracle. It seemed foolish for Uchendu, however even if it was foolish it was the best thing to do. Okonkwo knew many stories of the white men, he knew about their guns and about their drinks.

Chapter 16
Nwoye is a Christian because he’s confused about who he is and where he’s from. He is described as someone who doesn’t fit in and is not a real man. Becoming a Christian gives him an understanding of who he is. The missionaries get good feedback when they live among the Igbo. The missionaries don’t discredit the Igbo religion by their own believes that God had a son, but didn’t have a wife. The new religion works out for Nwoye because it sooths his soul.

Chapter 17
The misunderstandings are where to put the church and that many Igbo’s are converting. The natives gave them the Evil Forest because they thought the missionaries would refuse that spot to make the church, however the missionaries agreed to built it there. The metaphor is the relationship between father and son; how he was strong and his son weak.

Chapter 18
Achebe chose an interesting point to include the outcast; he wanted them to come in at a certain point. The missionaries are told that the outcast shouldn’t be converted, however the missionaries refuse to deny conversion to anyone.

Chapter 19
The main threat of converting to Christianity is that it breaks families apart. The natives are forgetting about whom they are, their culture, religion, and their kinship. Christianity is separating the people in the village.

Chapter 20
The British courts are causing the clans to forget kinship and working together. The British courts don’t care about the clans cultures and the clans can’t stop them.

Chapter 21
Some of the villagers welcome the British because they believe that they bring money with them. The British set up trading posts which make the villagers happy.

Chapter 22
Reverend Smith is nothing like Rev. Brown he is intolerant and strict. His white and black thinking makes the villagers angry. Because of his stereotyping of blacks and whites, Enoch goes and insult the Igbo’s traditional beliefs.

Chapter 23
The commissioner says that the British are colonizing Africa to make the villagers happy. Also that Africans are being mistreated so the British will come in to help the Africans and punish the ones mistreating the Africans.

Chapter 24
Okonkwo wanted his people to follow him and attack the white men. However the villagers are confused as to why Okonkwo killed the messenger. Okonkwo tired of the way they were treated took action. The villagers though didn’t feel strong enough to go and kill the white men.

Chapter 25
Okonkwo kills himself because he didn’t agree on how the villagers were being treated. He wanted to spark a revolt and get his people’s rights back. He tried doing it the only way he knew and that was by taking out his anger on the white men. However after seeing how the villagers responded, he took his own life to escape what was occurring. He sought it was unfair how the white men came in and changed all the villagers lives. He wanted his old life back.