Things Fall Apart

"Things Fall Apart" is set in Umuofia, the hometown of Okonkwo, a proud, angry, and hard-working man in his prime. The character Okonkwo always felt a need to prove himself because he is the son of a failure. His father was a man named Unoka who was heavily in debt because he preferred playing his flute and drinking palm wine to farming. Okonkwo first established himself as a man by beating the famous wrestler Amalinze the Cat in a match at 18 years old. He provided for himself, his mother, and his sisters economically by share-cropping yams for a wealthy neighbor until he made enough profit to get land and seeds and start his own farm. He does so well that by the beginning of the novel he has three wives, a large compound with huts for each of them as well as a separate one for himself, and a large and growing family. His ambition is to take the highest titles of honor that his tribe can bestow.

Okonkwo is known for his bad temper and his willingness to be rude to unsuccessful men. At one point his temper also made him guilty of an offense against the earth goddess, because he forgot that the village was celebrating the Week of Peace and beat his youngest wife during the holy festival. The goddess' priest prescribed a series of sacrifices and penance for him to perform.

One day Okonkwo's village sends a challenge to a neighboring village because they caused the death of an Umuofia woman who had gone to market there. This village fears Umuofia enough to reimburse them one virgin and a young boy instead of going to war. Umuofia's elders decide that the virgin will marry the husband of the slaughtered woman and the youth will stay in Okonkwo's house until they reach a final decision about what to do with him. The boy's name in Ikemefuna, and he becomes good friends with Nwoye, Okonkwo's eldest son. Ikemefuna is clever and loved by everyone in the household. When Ikemefuna has lived with Okonkwo's family for three years, the elders finally reach their decision and say that Ikemefuna must be killed. He is marched in a parade and told that he is going back to his original village, and then deep in the woods one of the villagers hits him with a machete. The blow isn't fatal, and he runs in fear to Okonkwo, calling him father and asking him for protection. Afraid of being thought weak, Okonkwo strikes the boy down.

Okonkwo grieves deeply for three days after the death of Ikemefuna. Others tell him that it was a very bad omen for him to strike the killing blow. Slowly he forgets about it and participates in the ceremonial and economic affairs of the village, although it makes Nwoye depressed.

Okonkwo has another child, Ezinma, who he cared about very deeply and wished she were a boy because of her strong and decisive character. Ezinma is the only child of Ekwefi, Okonkwo's second wife, who deserted her first husband and married him for love. Ekwefi's first nine children died before reaching the age of five. The priests believed that she was afflicted by an ogbanje, or a child-spirit which loves to die repeatedly so that it can re-enter its mother's womb over and over instead of exiting and growing up. Ekwefi is depressed for the first five or so years of Ezinma's life, until it looks like she is a survivor, and then she becomes extremely loving and anxious of Ezinma. She has a priest perform a sort of exorcism of the evil spirit on Ezinma. When the priestess of the local Oracle mysteriously comes and carries Ezinma away on her back for one night, without giving any explanation, Ekwefi follows the Oracle all night like a madwoman and waits outside her cave until her child is re-delivered to her.

Shortly after this incident, the village celebrates the funeral of Ezeudu, a great man in the village and a priest of the earth goddess. It is a huge ceremony. All the men fire their guns in a final salute to Ezeudu. In the middle of the commotion, Ezeudu's sixteen year old son accidentally catches a bullet fired by Okonkwo's gun. Okonkwo fled the village for seven years because he committed a crime against the earth. His friends quickly packed his yam crops into their barns and then he and his families packed their valuables into bundles they could carry on their heads and flee to his mother's home. The men of the village came to his compound the next day and destroyed.

Okonkwo is welcomed by Uchendu, his mother's oldest