Entry #3

We’ve reached week six’s reading, and similarly to the past two weeks, we are still discussing colonialism. This time through a novel by Chinua Achebe, “Things Fall Apart” first published in 1958. This week’s reading was also diffrent from anything we’ve read this far, as it was a fictional novel. I honestly saw it as a very creative way of approaching the topic of colonialism from a inside view, I didn’t expect it. Through it, a story is told about cultural change through colonialism.

An important part Okonkwo who is the main character, is described perfectly in  sparknotes, “Okonkwo, the son of the effeminate and lazy Unoka, strives to make his way in a world that seems to value manliness. In so doing, he rejects everything for which he believes his father stood.”. I think the role that Okonkwo’s father played in his life was the main reason for why he was the way he is. He saw his father as a failure, and instead of avoiding his father’s bad characteristics he did the polar opposite of anything he associated with his father. For example, he ran his household with an extremely heavy hand, towards his children but especially towards his wives. It was as if he saw it as his right to abuse them. Acting erratically at what seemed like small mistakes, such as when his wife was late at serving him his food. At many times it seemed as if he carried such a huge amount of rage along with him all the time, and the outlet of his rage was tragically mainly towards his wives through beating them. He saw himself as being masculine through doing all this, being harsh, violent and avoiding showing any emotions even when he felt them. However, in my opinion what he saw as his best qualities were in reality the reason for his downfall. Where in the beginning of the novel he is a respected member in his clan, but through his recklessness and stubbornness he lost that power.

Moving onto diffrent themes within “Things Fall Apart“, could the colonizers and the colonize co-exist peacefully? Keeping in mind the language, religious and diffrent cultural barriers. From my point of view, I think to believe that with all these barriers and the two powers conflicting, it would be idealistic that they would peacefully co-exist. It’s more realistic that two powers would either crash and eventually one would overpower the other. In the instance of “Things Fall Apart“, the colonizer’s overtook the Umuofia clan. The British colonizers were able to convert a portion of the clan and leave the rest helpless like Okonkwo who was resisting. His resistance leads him to killing a British messenger, I believe that he was acting based on what he had done in the past. He’d act with violence, and that would usually earn him respect within his clan. But not this time, which led to him taking his own life.

The novel included many other themes, but that last one that I’d like to reflect on is the representation and role of women in the story. It would’ve been interesting had the story been told through a women in the clan, such as one of Okonkwo’s wives. As women didn’t have a strong role in the novel. Regardless, early on in the novel, women and anything that is stereotypically associated with women is considered shameful or less than. Another example was in Umuofia society, a man being called a women was considered degrading. This ranged from how a person acted to what they chose to farm. Yams were considered hard to farm and thus a man’s job, while other crops that were considered easier were for women. Okonkwo highly valued masculinity, and was disappointed when his son Nwoye didn’t project it but repulse by it. Growing up Nwoye loved stories that his mother would tell,but they were considered women’s stories. When the british came, he converted to christianity that didn’t project such violence to him. Okonkwo however, found that his daughter Ezinma had those characteristics that he wished his son had, and he wished that she’d been born a boy multiple times in the story thinking “I wish she were a boy,” in chapter twenty. It was frustrating to me while reading that Okonkwo wouldn’t accept her as a women and celebrate it, but instead concluded that she should have been a boy.

In closing, the combination of Okonkwo’s hatred towards his father and the patriarchal masculinity that he shielded himself with resulted in projecting his issues onto the people that he had power over. Mainly done through violence. And when he lost the power he had over people as the colonizers came, he couldn’t bare it.