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Kristine Adams
Ms.Frydenborg
English CP E
May 21, 2010
Gender Balance in Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe created a successful novel Things Fall Apart showing the way
colonization can truly destroy a complex community. Other then reading about the Ibo
tribe crumbling to pieces by the British coming, you also read how women were really
treated in the Ibo tribe during Mid-1800’s. According to Achebe, the Ibo tribe appeared
to be male dominated but throughout his novel he shows examples of how women are
also a huge part of this tribe, which creates gender balance.
Men and woman in the Ibo tribe live off one another. “The entire Igbo society is
based upon the combining of the male and female principles.”(Rhoads,65) The men and
women of the tribe work as team work. Woman harvest the yams, men are warriors. But
it does deeper than that. The Ibo society could not only survive with just men dominated
because women have such an important role in the community.
Okonkwo, the main character in Things Fall Apart, shows up a good example of
a successful Ibo man. “The male is strong and warlike.”(Rhoads, 65) Okonkwo fit those
standards and more. He refused to be anything like his lazy father Unoka. Okonkwo is
not only well known throughout the tribe but he is also one of the 9 male leaders in the
Umuofia. Even though the government in the tribe is made up of men, one of the main
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goddess that the Ibo people worship is a woman. “There is a Week of Peace sacred to
the earth goddess”(Rhoads,65) In that quote, Diana Rhoads is talking about that week
were all the Ibo members do not do any work and honor the earth goddess who brings
the Ibo people good yams harvest. Violence during the Week of Peace is shunned upon
in the Ibo tribe, but Okonkwo doesn’t not seem to care since he repeatedly beat his wife
during that special week without even caring about what the earth goddess might do.
Okonkwo was sent to court because of this violent behavior. Having an important icon in
the Ibo culture be a woman and having Okonkwo punished for beating his wife shows
that the Uniofia tribe had more respect for woman then other places around the world.
The earth goddess helps balance out the males strength in the Ibo society.(Rhoads,66)
When Okonkwo was troubled, he went to visit his Uncle Uchendu for some help.
During his visit his uncle not only told Okonkwo that he was not that only one who had a
hard life but he tells the story of “Mother Supreme” “The female is tender and supportive
in times of adversity.”(Rhoad, 65) This quote is perfect way to describe the main point of
the “Mother Supreme”. Uchendu tells Okonkwo that a child turns to his or her mother for
sympathy and that women are respected for giving the child comfort. Because of the
woman’s natural tenderness it makes the relationship between her and her children
stronger then the relationship between father and child. An example is the close
relationship between Okonkwos wife Ekwefi and their daughter Ezinma. Enzima is
everything to Ekwefi, she is her world.
Although most men in the Ibo tribe don’t treat their wives as equals, Okonkwo
included, one man in the tribe in different. “Men like Ndulue who treat their wives as
equals: Ndulue and his wife were always said to be of “one mind”. ”(Rhoads, 66)
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Achebe included this example in his novel to really show that respect for woman in the
Ibo tribe was existents. Also in Things Fall Apart, Achebe writes about bride price in the
Ibo community. Bride price is when a man pays his fiancés family money so that he
could marry her. In Europe at this, women had to pay the man so that she can marry
them. Woman can also get divorced from their husbands. Ekwefi fell in love with
Okonkwo but at that time she was married. Ekwefi divorced her husband but in order to
do so she has to pay her husband the bride price that he had to pay in order to marry
her. It is truly a shock how much more advance the Ibo tribe was in terms of respect for
woman compared to the way woman were treated by the people who took over their
lands.
When the Ibo tribe was being colonized, they were thought as barbarians.
Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart to show that the Umofina people were truly miss
understood. The English told them that there society was no true society and they were
foolish to believe so. The Umofia tribe was a complex society with more gender balance
then any of the European countries in the Mid-1800s.