![]() When Ekwefi informs him of his daughter's illness, he rushes out in the middle of the night to hunt for medicine in the woods. Just when Okonkwo's guilt over killing Ikemefuna seems to lessen, his rarely displayed devotion to his family is again tested. The unearthing of the iyi-uwa was thought to break Ezinma's connection with the ogbanje world, and everyone believed that she would never become sick again.Īt last, Okonkwo returns from the forest and prepares the medicine for his daughter, who inhales the fumes from a steaming pot and soon sleeps again. After Ezinma led the medicine man to the exact spot, he dug a deep pit in which he finally found a shiny pebble wrapped in a rag. A year ago, she was reassured when a medicine man dug up Ezinma's iyi-uwa, an object buried by ogbanje children. But she has lived much longer than Ekwefi's other children, and Ekwefi believes faith will bring the girl a long and happy life. Now she lies suffering with fever while Okonkwo gathers leaves, grasses, and barks for medicine.Įzinma has survived many periods of illness in her life, and people have considered her an evil ogbanje, a child who dies young because she is possessed by an evil spirit that reenters the mother's womb to be born again. Ezinma is also a favorite of Okonkwo, and because of her spirit and cleverness, he sometimes wishes that she had been born a boy. Ekwefi's only living child, Ezinma is the light of her life her nine other children have died in infancy. His wife Ekwefi tells him that Ezinma is dying. Although I would not have picked this book off a shelf, I enjoyed Things Fall Apart because it gave me insight into a culture that I did not know about before I read this book and made me think closely about the human condition. I highly recommend Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.Okonkwo finally enjoys a good night's sleep since the death of Ikemefuna, when suddenly, he is awakened by a banging at his door. These two stories are perfectly harmonized, and are modulated by an author with an awareness capable of encompassing both the life of nature and human history. I suppose this happened throughout the African continent. It concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo’s world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. It is this, I think, that elevates the book to a tragic plane. The second story is as modern as the first is ancient. In its classical purity of line and economical beauty this story provides the reader with a powerful fable about the eternal conflict between individuals and society. ![]() The first of these stories traces Okonkwo’s fall from grace within his tribal world. ![]() ![]() Things Fall Apart, tells two overlapping stories, which centre around Okonkwo who is a “strong man” of his Ibo village in Nigeria. He gained worldwide attention for this book. After graduation, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service and soon moved to the metropolis of Lagos. ![]() He became fascinated with world religions and traditional African cultures, and began writing stories as a university student. He excelled at school and won a scholarship for undergraduate studies. It is the most widely read book in modern African literature.Īchebe was raised by Christian parents in the Igbo town of Ogidi in southeastern Nigeria. He is best known for this, his first novel, Things Fall Apart that was published in 1958. The author, Chinua Achebe, was a novelist, poet, professor at Brown University (a private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States) and also a critic. He died relatively recently on March 21, 2013. Chinua Achebe was born in Ogidi, Anambra, Nigeria on November 16, 1930. It was then I discovered how important this author’s work had been to Nelson Mandela during his years of imprisonment. I had never heard of the author Chinua Achebe before his novel Things Fall Apart was book of the month at my book group. ![]()
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