In this section of reading the most interesting thing to me was the similarities and differences of the culture in the book and our own culture in the United States. Okonkwo is considered to be a very successful man in his African culture. He is very wealthy and managed to gain everything he had on his own, without the help of anyone else. This would be considered successful in our culture as well, but some things Okonkwo does would not be considered so succussful. For example he has multiple wives which would be looked down upon in our culture but in his culture it makes him highly respected. He also treats seems to treat people very cruelly which gives the people in his village the image that he is a very strong willed man. In our culture it is not uncommon for people to be cruel like Okonkwo but I think it is looked at differently. I think it is looked at as much more of a negative in our culture than it is in his. An example of this cruelty is when Okonkwo beats one of his wives because she did not come home in time to cook. He was reprimanded for his actions but only because it was a week of peace, otherwise it would have been acceptable. In our culture it is considered a crime to do this and you would most likely end up in jail.
Chapters 5-7 In this section of the reading Okonknwo's character is even more fully developed as a man who is afraid of showing any kind of weakness or a hint of a feminine side. He is willing to go to extreme lengths to preserve his reputation as a tough guy who has no weakness. In chapter five he becomes angry with one of his wives and beats her, and then even shoots at her with a gun later on. He makes it very clear that he is dominant over all of the women and children in his life. The thing that got to me the most in this section, though is when Okonkwo killed his adopted son because the "Oracle of the Hills and the Caves" said he must. This got to me quite a bit because Okonkwo had begun to get very fond of Ikemefuna, even though he was afraid to show it because he did not want any to be able to have any reason to consider him weak. It baffles me how he would be able to bring himself to kill Ikemefuna, who was like a son to him. I know that I would never be able to kill somebody that I did not like, let alone someone that I liked a lot. It just shows the great extent that Okonkwo is willing to go to make sure he is masculine. I think he is afraid of being compared to his father in any way and therefore does things he does not really want to do, such as killing his son.
Chapters 8-10 In this section of the reading Okonokwo feels remorse and very sad for what happened to Ikefuma. He goes into a kind of depression that he blames on the fact that there is no work to do. I think this could cause a problem for him later on down the road, though. He never faces his feelings, he just does what he thinks is manly and keeps everything bottled up inside of him. This works in most instances but I think later on in the novel he will face something that he will not be able to just keep inside of him and still be a healthy, happy person. I see this as a major character flaw of Okonkwo that will cause him some major problems later on. Possibly the title of the book, "Things Fall Apart", is because Okonkwo will fall apart towards the end of the novel Later on in this section a lot of the the African culture that is different from our culture is shown. When Okonkwo's second wife struggles to have a baby live past a few months old many rituals and things were perfomed to help her have a healthy child. They all seemed silly and like they would not help at all to me. This kind of made me think of our religion and that maybe some of the things I believe in are similar.
Chapters 11-13 This was a very interesting section of the reading with several important events in it. First off Enzima is taken by Chielo in the night. Her parents both Ekwefki and suprisingly, Okonkwo are very worried about her. Okonkwo shows just how much he actually does like Enzima by following Chielo to the cave. It was a loving gesture, but in my mind it does not even come close to making up for what he did to Ikefuma. It will take a lot for me to look at Okonkwo in a good way again. In the next chapter there is a wedding ceremony that reminded me a lot of weddings here with a lot of celebrating and everyone having a good time. Then, an elder in the tribe died, and not coincidentally in my mind it was the man who told Okonkwo not to have a hand in Ikefuma's death. I think this a bad sign of things to come for Okonkwo. I think Okonkwo got the message as well because it says "A cold shiver ran down Okonkwo's back" (121). This seems to me to foreshadow bad things for Okonkwo is his future. Then during the funeral ceremony he mistakenly kills a 16 year old boy and is exiled. One thing I found interesting was the face that he was allowed to return in 7 years because it was a "feminine" crime because he did it on accident. Okonkwo always tried to avoid being feminine at all costs, but he did not here. For his act he was exiled and I am excited to see what he does on his own now.
Chapters 14-18 In this section of the reading Okonkwo moves into a different village because of his exile. While in this new village Christian missionaries come to try and convert the Africans to Christianity. Okonkwo does not like them at all and refuses to believe what they are teaching. His son, Nwoye, decides to join with the Christians. I think he joins because he is still hurt by the loss of Ikefuma and the Christians tell him they won't do things like that. It is a tough time for the village because everything they have ever believed in is being proven wrong. The missionaries live in the evil forest and do not die and do several other things that the village strongly prohibits and nothing happens to them. It must be hard for the villagers to see. I don't know what I would do if I was put in their situation. If everything I had every believed in was being shot down I would feel very alone and would not know who to trust or believe. I think I would probably be stubborn like Okonkwo and stay with what I had been taught all of my life. It would be to hard just to drop all of my beliefs that quickly. I think there will soon be a large clash between the missionaries and their new followers and the villagers who have not decided to follow. It seems inevitable to me.
Chapters 19-21 In this section of the reading Okonkwo returns to his original tribe with aspirations of becoming as powerful and respected as he once was. When he gets there, though, he finds the village changed by missionaries and nobody respects him like they used to. He feels very let down. The village had changed a great deal, some for the better and some for the worse. The better is that the people now have better health care and there is a lot of money and wealth being brought into the village because of the missionaries. However, along with these positives comes a big negative. The culture of the people is being taken away from them. The missionaries are getting everyone to adhere to the same culture but in the process some great traditions and other cultures are being lost. It's a shame that the people couldn't keep their own unique culture which makes them different. The missionaries think that their way is the only correct way to live and think it is their responsiblity to force it upon people who already have their own culture. It may be good for people like Ewoyke but for others such as Okonkwo it is definitely not. It is sad that the people could not have the good of both sides. It would have been great if they would have been able to keep their own culture as well as having the better health care and increased wealth.
Chapters 22-25 At the end of the novel Okonkwo becomes a tragic hero when he commits suicide. At the beginning he had it all. He had wealth and was very respected and feared by everyone his village. By the end of the novel he had lost it all though. The church had taken over and he was not nearly as respected as he once was. He did not take it very well, understandably, so in the end he committed suicide. I think the point where he was in jail and whipped was the point that drove him over the edge. He decided he could not take it anymore and he was going to fight back or die. He tries to incite a revolt by killing the messenger, but it does not work so he gives up. It is sad to see Okonkwo to go from riches to rags over the course of the story. I feel bad for him on one hand, but on the other I still can't get past him killing Ikefuma. After finishing the novel I now see the correlation between The Bell Jar and this novel. They both dealt with the expectations and ressures that people have, but The Bell Jar was for women and Things Fall Apart was for men. I personally liked Things Fall Apart better because as a male I was able to relate to it much better. The Bell Jar made my sympathize with women a little bit but I was not able to really connect with it all. Things Fall Apart, however, was quite a bit easier for me to understand what Okonkwo was feeling.
Didn't the passage of background information say that Antigone was a victim of Creon's hubris? Some of you are suggesting that Antigone is the tragic hero. Thoughts on that.
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In this section of reading the most interesting thing to me was the similarities and differences of the culture in the book and our own culture in the United States. Okonkwo is considered to be a very successful man in his African culture. He is very wealthy and managed to gain everything he had on his own, without the help of anyone else. This would be considered successful in our culture as well, but some things Okonkwo does would not be considered so succussful. For example he has multiple wives which would be looked down upon in our culture but in his culture it makes him highly respected. He also treats seems to treat people very cruelly which gives the people in his village the image that he is a very strong willed man. In our culture it is not uncommon for people to be cruel like Okonkwo but I think it is looked at differently. I think it is looked at as much more of a negative in our culture than it is in his. An example of this cruelty is when Okonkwo beats one of his wives because she did not come home in time to cook. He was reprimanded for his actions but only because it was a week of peace, otherwise it would have been acceptable. In our culture it is considered a crime to do this and you would most likely end up in jail.
Chapters 5-7
In this section of the reading Okonknwo's character is even more fully developed as a man who is afraid of showing any kind of weakness or a hint of a feminine side. He is willing to go to extreme lengths to preserve his reputation as a tough guy who has no weakness. In chapter five he becomes angry with one of his wives and beats her, and then even shoots at her with a gun later on. He makes it very clear that he is dominant over all of the women and children in his life. The thing that got to me the most in this section, though is when Okonkwo killed his adopted son because the "Oracle of the Hills and the Caves" said he must. This got to me quite a bit because Okonkwo had begun to get very fond of Ikemefuna, even though he was afraid to show it because he did not want any to be able to have any reason to consider him weak. It baffles me how he would be able to bring himself to kill Ikemefuna, who was like a son to him. I know that I would never be able to kill somebody that I did not like, let alone someone that I liked a lot. It just shows the great extent that Okonkwo is willing to go to make sure he is masculine. I think he is afraid of being compared to his father in any way and therefore does things he does not really want to do, such as killing his son.
Chapters 8-10
In this section of the reading Okonokwo feels remorse and very sad for what happened to Ikefuma. He goes into a kind of depression that he blames on the fact that there is no work to do. I think this could cause a problem for him later on down the road, though. He never faces his feelings, he just does what he thinks is manly and keeps everything bottled up inside of him. This works in most instances but I think later on in the novel he will face something that he will not be able to just keep inside of him and still be a healthy, happy person. I see this as a major character flaw of Okonkwo that will cause him some major problems later on. Possibly the title of the book, "Things Fall Apart", is because Okonkwo will fall apart towards the end of the novel
Later on in this section a lot of the the African culture that is different from our culture is shown. When Okonkwo's second wife struggles to have a baby live past a few months old many rituals and things were perfomed to help her have a healthy child. They all seemed silly and like they would not help at all to me. This kind of made me think of our religion and that maybe some of the things I believe in are similar.
Chapters 11-13
This was a very interesting section of the reading with several important events in it. First off Enzima is taken by Chielo in the night. Her parents both Ekwefki and suprisingly, Okonkwo are very worried about her. Okonkwo shows just how much he actually does like Enzima by following Chielo to the cave. It was a loving gesture, but in my mind it does not even come close to making up for what he did to Ikefuma. It will take a lot for me to look at Okonkwo in a good way again. In the next chapter there is a wedding ceremony that reminded me a lot of weddings here with a lot of celebrating and everyone having a good time. Then, an elder in the tribe died, and not coincidentally in my mind it was the man who told Okonkwo not to have a hand in Ikefuma's death. I think this a bad sign of things to come for Okonkwo. I think Okonkwo got the message as well because it says "A cold shiver ran down Okonkwo's back" (121). This seems to me to foreshadow bad things for Okonkwo is his future. Then during the funeral ceremony he mistakenly kills a 16 year old boy and is exiled. One thing I found interesting was the face that he was allowed to return in 7 years because it was a "feminine" crime because he did it on accident. Okonkwo always tried to avoid being feminine at all costs, but he did not here. For his act he was exiled and I am excited to see what he does on his own now.
Chapters 14-18
In this section of the reading Okonkwo moves into a different village because of his exile. While in this new village Christian missionaries come to try and convert the Africans to Christianity. Okonkwo does not like them at all and refuses to believe what they are teaching. His son, Nwoye, decides to join with the Christians. I think he joins because he is still hurt by the loss of Ikefuma and the Christians tell him they won't do things like that. It is a tough time for the village because everything they have ever believed in is being proven wrong. The missionaries live in the evil forest and do not die and do several other things that the village strongly prohibits and nothing happens to them. It must be hard for the villagers to see. I don't know what I would do if I was put in their situation. If everything I had every believed in was being shot down I would feel very alone and would not know who to trust or believe. I think I would probably be stubborn like Okonkwo and stay with what I had been taught all of my life. It would be to hard just to drop all of my beliefs that quickly. I think there will soon be a large clash between the missionaries and their new followers and the villagers who have not decided to follow. It seems inevitable to me.
Chapters 19-21
In this section of the reading Okonkwo returns to his original tribe with aspirations of becoming as powerful and respected as he once was. When he gets there, though, he finds the village changed by missionaries and nobody respects him like they used to. He feels very let down. The village had changed a great deal, some for the better and some for the worse. The better is that the people now have better health care and there is a lot of money and wealth being brought into the village because of the missionaries. However, along with these positives comes a big negative. The culture of the people is being taken away from them. The missionaries are getting everyone to adhere to the same culture but in the process some great traditions and other cultures are being lost. It's a shame that the people couldn't keep their own unique culture which makes them different. The missionaries think that their way is the only correct way to live and think it is their responsiblity to force it upon people who already have their own culture. It may be good for people like Ewoyke but for others such as Okonkwo it is definitely not. It is sad that the people could not have the good of both sides. It would have been great if they would have been able to keep their own culture as well as having the better health care and increased wealth.
Chapters 22-25
At the end of the novel Okonkwo becomes a tragic hero when he commits suicide. At the beginning he had it all. He had wealth and was very respected and feared by everyone his village. By the end of the novel he had lost it all though. The church had taken over and he was not nearly as respected as he once was. He did not take it very well, understandably, so in the end he committed suicide. I think the point where he was in jail and whipped was the point that drove him over the edge. He decided he could not take it anymore and he was going to fight back or die. He tries to incite a revolt by killing the messenger, but it does not work so he gives up. It is sad to see Okonkwo to go from riches to rags over the course of the story. I feel bad for him on one hand, but on the other I still can't get past him killing Ikefuma. After finishing the novel I now see the correlation between The Bell Jar and this novel. They both dealt with the expectations and ressures that people have, but The Bell Jar was for women and Things Fall Apart was for men. I personally liked Things Fall Apart better because as a male I was able to relate to it much better. The Bell Jar made my sympathize with women a little bit but I was not able to really connect with it all. Things Fall Apart, however, was quite a bit easier for me to understand what Okonkwo was feeling.
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