Literary Analysis Essay on Things Fall Apart

Introduction

"Things Fall Apart" refers to a novel that was written by a Nigerian Author Chinua Achebe in 1958. The novel is grounded on the pre-colonial life in the southeastern regions of Nigeria as well as the coming of the Europeans in the late 19th century (Achebe). Achebe narrates two distinct stories from his viewpoint. One of his stories revolves around a young boy, Okonkwo, a tragic hero whose life was engulfed with fear, the fear of weakness and failure due to the fact that Okonkwo, his father, embodies the epitome of weakness and fear. The novel ascertains that Okonkwo had a strong hatred for anything referred to as frail or weak (Achebe). He and his family members disclosed that in the society of Igbo, anything weak was to be associated with a woman, and strong was to be a man. This view clearly shows how women are portrayed in the novel (Achebe). Furthermore, the other story is narrated about his village Umuofia, a powerful clan that is endowed with skills for war, with advanced social institutions and proud traditions. Achebe places much emphasis on the role of gender in the Igbo culture. The novel portrays women as playing significant roles in Igbo culture, especially on social care and education for their children (Achebe). However, in the tribe of Igbo, women are subjected to mistreatments besides being portrayed as weak and rarely receive respect outside their motherly role. This paper discusses how girl-children, wives, and women are represented in Chinua Achebe's novel.

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The world-building is centered around this idea as depicted by the amounts of interest and favor allotted to masculine practices such as wrestling and warfare. All womenfolk are portrayed as weak, for example, a small description of Okonkwo's family shows us this, "his mother and sisters worked hard enough, but they grew women's crops like coco-yams, beans, and cassava. Yam, the king of crops, was a man's crop" (Achebe). This alone points to how chauvinistic Okonkwo's society of Umuofia is. A huge bulk of the Igbo life in this novel revolves around this central theme, and it is through it that Achebe dissects and questions African tradition.

The Igbo society in Thing Fall Apart equates weakness to femininity (Achebe). The Igbo man is expected to be strong and hardy, resourceful, driven, and charismatic. Furthermore, anything that can fit this description is also attributed to masculinity. This can be seen when the narrator speaks about cassava, the king crop, the man's crop (Achebe). The novel carries even more examples of a male chauvinist society. Okonkwo almost kills one of his wives in a beating, which is commonplace for him as he is used to physically abusing his wives with no repercussions. Women are seen as the weaker sex, but despite this, they are attributed to unequal beauty and the power to give life. This is the Igbo community, is seen as divine.

It would not be ideal to say the Igbo culture is completely oblivious to the concept of femininity (Cobham 165). The Igbo religion, for one, has a pantheon of gods that are well spread across the gender spectrum. As an extension of this, there are many women and goddesses of renown from this culture both in Achebe's book and in the real world (Cobham 166). The question then remains to be asked, how is such a trivial aspect of the society handled in the traditional Igbo culture, and ultimately, how does Achebe answer this in this masterpiece of work.

As already stated, the Igbo culture pays attention to gender and gender roles. As all African cultures, they tie several beliefs to this, including things like only men being able to go out to herd cattle, and only women going to the river with pots on their heads to fetch water (Cobham 167). There was a time when these gender roles were so specific, and again, not only in Igbo culture but in the continent as a whole, that breaking them was almost taboo. The dominant role of the women then was first and foremost to be a good wife to a good, hardworking man. This, in itself, commanded a degree of submission from the new bride to her husband (Cobham 168). She was expected to bear children, bring them up accordingly, and be on the beck and call of said husband.

In Achebe's book, some of the women in Umuofia do not necessarily adhere to these set norms and skew gender roles becoming beacons of light to those who aspire to be like them (Achebe). The priestess of Umuofia, Chielo, a widow with two children and a good friend to Ekwefi and Enzinma, challenges the set gender stereotypes (Achebe). She is strong as she is committed. With the coming of the Europeans, the traditional Igbo religion is under attack from the spread of Christianity. It takes Chielo's cunning, and determination, things that are attributed to men, to ensure the religion she stands for remains relevant and respected.

In Umuofia, the ideal man is expected to head, protect, and provide for his family. There is hypermasculine energy blanketing the entire region where men are brutish and harsh and expect to be worshiped by not only the womenfolk, but their fellow men as well. All that is feminine is highly devalued (Achebe). Unoka, Okonkwo's father, is a good musician who is kind-hearted and welcoming. His biggest vice is his laziness and irresponsibility. He has fallen in debt with his in-laws, a debt he has never bothered to pay. He is more in-tune with leisure than actually providing for his family (Achebe). His drive lies in nothing but performing at festivals with his flute. He does not try to feed his starving family or see his massive debts. He is unable to give his son, who is a champion of the community, an inheritance as he owns close to nothing. His fear of bloodshed and physical confrontation also make him a failure in his son's eyes. The way Unoka carries himself is related to how women carry themselves (Achebe). They are weak and depend on other men to survive the cruelties of Umuofia.

Okonkwo considers his father an effeminate idler, failure, and embarrassment to his linage because Unoka is drawn to the arts rather than physically taxing activities like farming and wrestling. Unoka's fear of warfare and violence fuels Okonkwo's obsession with what he defines as masculine and what he considers weakness (Achebe). As a figure that is not physically present in the novel, Unoka still holds much sway over Okonkwo's life. This is because in trying his best not to be like his father, Okonkwo ends up on the toxic end of masculinity, which ultimately costs him his life.

Okonkwo's son, Nwoye, is also considered a different breed from the typical Igbo man. As a child, he becomes the constant target of his father's criticism, morphing him into an emotionally unfulfilled adult (Cobham 169). Nwoye is seen to take an inquisitive role, a character who questions the world around him and raises an eyebrow to happenings he thinks should be considered evil. Nwoye is very sensitive, which is an attribute given to the feminine of Umuofia. He is seen to fall under the control of feminine feelings and to go as far as sympathizing as the female characters of the book are doing (Cobham 170). Okonkwo is very agitated by such attributes in his son and aggressively seeks to keep him from behaving like a woman. This alone shows the mentality associated with femininity and being a woman in Umuofia. To them, such is nothing but weakness. In extension, womenfolk are regarded as weaklings.

Conclusion

In conclusion, gender and gender roles have always been a key theme in literary works. For centuries now, scholars have ventured into sociology and anthropology with the aim of establishing what is regarded as masculine and feminine, and what is not (Achebe). The fruits of these extensive studies have inspired scores of works, each from different timelines and geographical areas (Achebe). Things Fall Apart, falls under this long list of impressive works. Chinua Achebe has not only used female characters to tackle femininity and masculinity but has used characters like Nwoye and Chielo to cross-gender stereotypes (Cobham 172). With this, the realities of the world are brought to light. And with this, it is prudent to say that in Umuofia, femininity is considered as feebleness!

Works Cited

Achebe, Nwando. "Balancing Male and female principles: Teaching about gender in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart." Escholarship.Org, 2020, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7w80g2xr. Accessed 7 Mar 2020.

Cobham, Ray. "Problems of gender and history in the teaching of things fall apart. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart". A Casebook, 165-180.