As I read this book of few pages there were many different themes that ran through it: Tradition, Afrocentricity, and African village life pre and post colonialism. The one that is most personal and prevalent to me was the one that reigned from beginning to end, Manhood. Things fall apart written by Chinua Achebe opens with introducing us to Okonkwo. His ideas of manhood are born out of resentment of his father. I would go as far as to say that Okonkwo’s contempt of his father is the foundational bedrock upon which he shaped his entire worldview. The ideal of a man, manhood, and how a man conducts himself at home and in society all, in my opinion, was fashioned by doing and being the opposite man he believed his father to be.
Okonkwo’s father was a carefree musician that lived for fun and the feast. He was also a debtor, so much so that he owed most everyone in the village. His barn was small, he had only one wife, and no title or place of honor in the village. If the lacking of any status symbols were not enough for Okonkwo to view his father with shameful eyes, he died in such a way that he could not be permitted a respected death at home. He had to be taken to the outskirts of the village and left to die because his sickness was one that village tradition dictated was foul and an abomination against the earth goddess. He could not die in the village or the village would be cursed and he could not be buried in the earth because that would also be a curse.
A very young Okonkwo was the man of the house now. The only son of a man with no title, and after his father’s debts were paid, no barn and no yam seeds, had to find a way to care for his grieving mother and his father’s family. He swore that day, to never be what his father was and in doing so, he proved himself. At his very early age, even by the village standards, he provided. He proved himself to be a brave and fearless warrior by taking the heads of a few men in war. He also proved himself greatly in sport by defeating someone that the entire clan considered unbeatable. With age, he gained titles and places of honor. He took three wives and had a larger than average of compound and barn. He even held one of the highest honors as an Egwugwu. An Egwugwu is essentially a person that is possessed by an ancestral spirit that dons a mask and delivers justice or punishment.
This was all counter balanced by Okonkwo being just as stern on himself as he was with everyone, and was even considered too harsh sometimes by the other men of the village. Okonkwo did not show any emotions except anger because it was the only manly emotion. He did not speak often and was a man of very few words, because only women and children constantly talked and made noise, men took action. He never borrowed except the one time because a real man supported himself and his family on his own. As we also see, a man never openly shows affection to his wife or children, and if he does, it is done in a very manly way. A real man was a divine instrument of correction, punishment and however misguided, direction.
Just as it seems that Okonkwo’s manhood plan is working for him he is brought to poetic shame by an accident considered female in the tradition of the village. The proud and respected Okonkwo was now an outcast, by village law he and his family were forced to live in his mother’s village for seven years while all the men of the village burned his compound to the ground. He was stripped of his title and standing and in his eyes alone, was the equivalent to the boy he was so long ago.
Seven years pass and Okonkwo rebuilds. He planned to come back to the village and make himself into a greater man than what he was before his tragic womanly accident. His plan was set but the times had changed, missionaries, white men, had come bringing a new religion, and new laws to the land. At first, it only claimed the outcasts and the undesirables of the village and clans that no one wanted or liked anyway. His standing on the missionaries and white men were, at worse nothing more than a joke. At worse Okonkwo saw them as a young pest that needed to be squashed before it grew too large. After eventually calming a portion of land considered unholy, a few villagers considered normal, a few men of high title, and his oldest son, Okonkwo begins to break down.
The conflict further escalates when an unruly outcast turned Christian spitefully unmasks an egwugwu. This would essentially be the same as someone killing an archbishop. In Okonkwo’s eyes, this meant out right war, but the men of the village seemed too had lost their thirst for blood as in days of old. They all talked, compromised, and resorted to burning down the mission. This action causes Okonkwo and all the men of high title and status to essentially be held for ransom and beaten, falsely imprisoned, and unfairly tried under the queen’s law. Like a freshly chastised child, Okonkwo goes home angered beyond the point rage or anger could properly express and swears revenge, even if he is the only MAN left willing to do so. At home Okonkwo recalls the days of his youth with when talking to an enemy like some of the men now did would not have been given serious consideration. The womanly reasoning, as he saw it, would have been left to the women while the men took heads and drove out the missionaries.
The book closes in a grand meeting, which Okonkwo despises, talking about what to do, and if these actions meant war was the proper action. Okonkwo forces the hand and seeing, realizing, in his mind, that he is the only REAL MAN left amongst them he does what I believe he believed to be a final slight at all the cowards that called themselves men and an example to the village of what he believed the proper action that they all are eternally doing now.
Over all, this book was very boring; by the time it started to get interesting, it was over. I really had to force myself to finish. This I never thought I would come across a book that I found utterly dry, to be as interesting as it was. Okonkwo and his arrested development kept me wanting to see what happen next. If you are a quick reader I say, go ahead and read. The more you think about and contemplate the dynamics, themes, and character analysis of the book, that becomes tremendously more interesting that the actual meat of the book itself. If you have a short attention span or need something with action or a twist and turn to keep you going, do not ready this book.
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