Interpreting Meanings and Identifying Facts In "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe

Authors Avatar

English Literature Assignment: Identifying Facts and Interpreting Meanings in “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe

PART ONE, CHAPTERS 1 AND 2

IDENTIFYING FACTS

1) Okonkwo is famous for defeating the great wrestler, Amilinze the Cat.

2) Okonkwo despises his father’s laziness and the way that his father does not fend for himself and keeps on having to borrow money from his friends to survive.

3) Signs of Okonkwo’s wealth: He has two barns full of yams, he has fought in two tribal wars successfully thus gaining two titles and he has three wives and many children.

4) The men of Umuofia gather in a group to discuss the situation. The women of Umuofia seem to have no role in decision-making.

5) Ikemefuna is taken from his village, as compensation for the murdered girl from Umuofia.

6) Anger dominates Okonkwo’s life. This emotion comes from his memories of his lazy father.

INTERPRETING MEANINGS

7) “Among the Ibo… proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten”. My interpretation of this proverb: Because the art of conversation is regarded very highly in the Ibo culture, the use of proverbs makes conversation classier. Here, the proverbs are likened to palm-oil. Perhaps the writer is trying to explain that just as some cultural dishes cannot be complete without palm-oil; some conversations cannot be complete without proverbs.

8) I think the clan tolerated him because they knew that there was no hope in trying to change a man like Unoka.

9) The writer states “harmattan WIND” and he describes the direction that the wind blows and where it originates (“blowing down from the north”). He also describes the weather that the harmattan brings (cool and dry, although sometimes hazy).

10) I do not think that the terms of the punishment against Mbaino are just. This is because the killer is not punished but an innocent boy and girl, and their families are punished instead.

PART ONE CHAPTERS 3 AND 4

IDENTIFYING FACTS

  1. Unoka went to see the oracle to ask how come he always had a bad harvest. The oracle tells him that his problem is not from the gods, but from his laziness.
  2. The Ibo consider yam as men’s crops. Women’s crops include maize, melons and beans.
  3. We learn that Okonkwo has a strong character. He is independent, however, because of his great success. Okonkwo belittles those less successful than he is.
  4. The Week of Peace is a week in which Ibo people honour their goddess of the earth so that she may bless them by letting their crops grow. They do not talk ill with their neighbours or fight with anybody during this time, and they live in peace instead. Okonkwo breaks it by beating his wife because she did not return home in time to cook his meal. As a result the clan decide that Okonkwo should bring one she-goat, one hen, a length of cloth and one hundred cowries to the shrine of Ani, the next day.
  5. Nwoye is Okonkwo’s eldest son. Okokwo treats him harshly as he thinks that Nwoye is lazy. There is a good relationship between Nwoye and Ikemefuna, and Nwoye looks up to Ikemefuna as a role model. Ikemefuna has many folktales to tell and Nwoye enjoys listening to them, and this changes the type of person that Nwoye is. He now looks at things from a different perspective, and he admires Ikemefuna for this.
Join now!

INTERPRETING MEANINGS

  1. Okonkwo’s first farming year was difficult. This difficulty was due to his family history as Okonkwo did not inherit a barn full of yams as his father was an idle person, and that year was a terrible harvest year as the weather was bad and constantly changing from one extreme to the other.
  2. According to the Ibo, a person’s “chi” is his or her personal god. “When a man says yes his ‘chi’ says yes also”. This proverb probably suggests that if a person is ambitious and positive about something, then this overrules the ...

This is a preview of the whole essay