Failure is Inevitable

In the novel “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo strives to become everything his father Unoka was not, a weak failure. However, as the novel unravels, it is apparent that failure is an inevitable aspect of human nature.

Unoka, Okonkwos father, died a failure; he never managed a successful harvest and proved deficient in providing for his family.  Okonkwo’s passion was to not have the same fate as his father, and embody the qualities of gentleness and idleness.

“Okokokwo [also] wanted his son to be a great farmer and a great man. He would stamp out the disquieting signs of laziness which he thought he already saw in him” (Achebe 33). Despite trying to be masculine in the eyes of his father, his weak feminine qualities were unavoidable. This is apparent as Nwoye is listening to his father’s masculine stories of the land of bloodshed and violence and he “knew that it was right to be masculine and to be violent but somehow he still preferred the stories that his mother used to tell” (Achebe 53).

Despite Okonwo’s efforts, he falls into the doomed light of his father, Unoka. His exile from his village in Umofia for his inadvertent murder of a teen boy is one sign of this. This shows how even the most powerful men cannot journey through life without running into obstacles. Similarly, despite okonkwos hatred for feminism, he is living in exile in his motherland. As Ofeudu, Okonkwos uncle, says, “when there is sorrow and bitterness, [a man] fins refuge in is motherland” (Achebe 134). This shows how the feminine side of every person is inexorable in their nature.  In addition, even though Okonkwo values never giving up, his suicide is a sign that he gave up fighting to preserve his religion and remove the Christians from his country. 

Are men really more powerful than women?

Differences in gender roles is apparent in modern society and is a significant theme throughout Chinua Achebe's novel, "Things Fall Apart". In Ibo culture, women are subservient towards the male authority. Patriarchy has manifested itself in the social, legal, political, and economic organization of Ibo culture.

It is implied that women are in some ways viewed as property for men in Ibo culture. This is reflected by the fact that men would purchase his wives. Once married, the man has control of everything, including the children. The idea of love and connection between man and wife was not how the ibo people define marriage. Many Ibo women do not really love their husbands but instead have a sense of fear towards their husbands. These women have little to no value of their own.

In addition, the men in Ibo society are not hesitant to beet women for minor circumstances. Okonkwo gave his second wife, Ekwefi, a sound beeeting for merely cutting a few leaves from a banana tree to wrap some food. Shorthly thereafter, he "nearly killed [her] with his gun" (Achebe 48).  In another circumstance, a woman and her husband, Uzowulu, were at trial because "no day passed in the sky without his beating the woman" (Achebe 91).

Male dominance is also reflected in the Ibo ways of farming. While the women grow crops like coco-yams, beans, and cassava, "Yam, the king of the crops, was a man's crop" (Achebe 23). In Ibo culture, yam is symbolic of masculinity. The more plots of yam farms a man owns the wealthier he is and  he has a better chance of keeping his family feed and devoid of starvation and famine.

How people even today perceive men in comparison to women

Differences in gender roles are still aparent in modern society world wide, however to a lesser extreme. Simlar to Ibo society, women today are expected to be housewives that clean, cook, and take care of children while men go to work.

The Danger of a Single Story

Chimanda Adichie's TED talk on "The Danger of a Single Story" has broadened my perspective of society and individuals. It made me realize that we have all fallen victim to stereotype's that have been influenced from the media. Our tendency to label people based on the an overemphasized single story of their ethnicity impedes us from identifying their individual personality.

Similarly, I learned from reading this video to not judge something before learning the story behind it. At first I assumed that the video on Chimanda Adichie's TED talk focuses on literature, however I was mistakend. It instead tackld a moral lesson, to avoid 

Adichie's talk influenced my approach on how I read Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart. I tried to clear my mind from the single story of Africans' as living underprivileged lives under unsuitable conditions. Adichie's TED talk remained in the back of my mind as I read the first four chapters of Things Fall Apart. I began to develop distinct views on each character as I read these chapters, I realized that the moral behind Adichie's talk enabled me to realize that Ukonkwo and his father, Unoka, are direct opposites of each other; while Okonkwo was motivated to succeed and to be fierce, his father was an idle and gentle man. In fact, "Okonkwo was ruled by one passion―to hate everything that his father Unoka has loved" (Achebe 13).