Book Review: Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

I can't believe how many times I have read Things Fall Apart and Man of the People by Chinua Achebe. However, this will be the first time I am writing a review of this global classic. My son read Things Fall Apart and felt sad for Ikemefuna and kept wondering why Okonkwo ended up on the tree. I said to him... well, that's how many of us felt way back in our secondary school days. Welcome to the club of mood swings from reading the beautiful story. The death of Ikemefuna should not have happened.

Front Cover—Things Fall Apart

Okonkwo was quick to rule over his household with an iron fist... women and children, to show he was much of a man on the outside by his might and accomplishments, subduing any signs of weakness, but he had a constant internal raging battle.  I wished he allowed himself to be more human. He may have been a good father and husband in some parts, but it was a shame his ego blinded him to enjoying the gift of family.

Meanwhile, Okonkwo had disdain for the weakness in women but ended up with a daughter he wished was male and running to his mother's village in Mbanta after the tragedy at Ezeudu's burial ceremony in Umuofia. After staying in Mbanta all those years to redeem himself, he was itching to return to his father's village, which was a sign of the condescending thoughts he had towards women. What his mother's people did for him was never enough, and returning to Umuofia became the ultimate downfall.

The way women were described in that book always leaves me with questions whenever I read. It is a reminder of how women are placed and what "use" men have determined in the society. A culture that perpetually relegated women to chores and raising children. Till tomorrow, women who seek to dream higher continue to be gaslighted and shamed in the open and in private. A man who was blessed with a female child, but he was not satisfied; a part of him wished she had become a man.

️Nwoye was a beautiful gift for a son, but Okonkwo did not appreciate the softness in him. He was such a difficult father that he refused to face the pain of losing Ikemefuna...for himself and his family. That was also his ego dealing with him. A man who could not bring himself to openly admit that he loved Ekwefi. Unoka may have been described as weak, but the man lived a good life besides the challenge he had with finances, and he was a happier man than Okonkwo, who spent his life trying to prove that he was a man. In some instances, it was unnecessary.

He wouldn't let himself think deeply outside the norm to see that the world around him was evolving. The level of rigidity of dedication to the things he had always known became one of his weaknesses. At least, men like Obierika had moments to question some of these cultural beliefs and practices. Perhaps Okonkwo's ego never left him. Whatever his ego as a "man" was supposed to help him achieve in his culture, it diminished him.

Despite the tragedies and everything that happened, including reaching the point where he had to confront whatever relationship he had with his "chi", he learned nothing. For if he had had the much-needed moment of retrospect, he would have instead stayed back in Mbanta, thrived in the love and devotion he received from his mother's kinsmen, and lived the rest of his life fulfilled rather than dying such a miserable death.

The humiliation he suffered at the hands of the District Commissioner bruised his ego, but I thought that should have been the point; he would have understood that dealing with the "white people and their god" was more about strategy than physical strength. Hence, he thought whatever happened at Abame would never happen at Umuofia even though his strategy to defeat the "invaders" still relied very much on the people of Umuofia, who were at the same level of thinking and seeing the world as the people of Abame.

Returning to Umuofia, as the story goes, was never quite the same, and that should have been the first sign. When he drew his machete in the marketplace and slew the whiteman's messenger, he was on his own from that moment. The villagers were not ready to sacrifice their lives for a battle they had no wherewithal of winning. Okonkwo's rhetoric ended with him because it seemed he had forgotten soon after his release from capture that rash use of might will not suffice.

I understand the hurt of being betrayed by a group of people who are supposed to stand with you in alliance but left you hanging when you take it upon yourself to act and man up to an oppressor. Well, one must thoroughly know the people you are dealing with before deciding to stake your reputation and life. It better be worth it. Perhaps, the people of Umuofia were not ready yet to be saved, even though there were murmurs, but clearly, more people were content just living side by side with the invaders. In fact, in the real sense, not many could relate to Okonkwo's rage.

Okonkwo was limited by his frame of reference in life—his environment, cultural beliefs, the people he chose to listen to, and not knowing when to resort to unyielding stubbornness. In the end, he decided to remove himself from the "humiliation" of bowing to a foreign power without thinking of the trouble that will trail the people of Umuofia by his actions. That was one hell of a selfish decision.