Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Summary)

 

Things Fall Apart

by Chinua Achebe

(Summary) 

Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond for his personal achievements. He defeated Amalinze called the “Cat” when he was eighteen and after this his fame grew like a bushfire. He was tall and huge and his bushy eyebrows and wide nose gave him a very severe look. He seemed to walk on springs, as if he was going to pounce on somebody and he did pounce on people quite often. He had no patience with unsuccessful men and so did not get along well with his father Unoka who always borrowed money to make his ends meet. People laughed at his father because he was a loafer and they swore never to lend him anymore because he never paid back. Okonkwo was ashamed of his father.

The town crier calls the people of Umuofia to gather at the market place. There is a tone of tragedy which can be sensed in the announcement. People had forebodings for such news which filled them with fear. Even darkness is considered to be something sinister by them. Okonkwo wondered if the emergency was that of a war with a neighbouring clan but he is not afraid of wars and in Umuofia’s latest war he was the first to bring home a human head.

The reason for the meeting is the murder of a daughter of Umuofia in their neighbouring village Mbaino and an ultimatum was immediately dispatched asking them to choose between war or give a young man and a virgin as compensation.

Okonkwo went as an emissary of war and returned with a lad Ikemefuna and a young virgin. Ikemefuna though belonged to the whole clan, stayed in Okonkwo’s house. Okonkwo had three wives and eight children each one of his wives had her own hut. His eldest son Nwoye was a cause of anxiety for him as he was not as strong and hardworking as his father.

People of Umuofia consulted the Oracle of the Hills and Caves who was called Agbala to find out about their fate and to consult the spirits of their departed fathers. Nobody had seen Agbala except his priestess. Unoka a man from the village also went to the cave complaining of his ill fortune but was accused by the priestess for being weak and lazy and the gods would not help such a person.

Okonkwo did not inherit a barn or a title from his father rather he had to support his father’s family. He started his life by working as a share-cropper and he borrowed Yam seeds from his rich neighbour Nwakibie to begin independently.

Okonkwo thus rose to eminence and social respectability through his own hard work. He fought against the ills of weather and gradually achieved success and power.

Gradually Okonkwo rose to be one of the lords of the clan. People respected him for his industry and success. Igbo people said that his chi or personal god was kind to him but they had a proverb that when a man says yes, his chi says yes also.

Okonkwo said yes very strongly, so his chi agreed. And not only his chi but his clan too, because it judged a man by the work of his hands. This was an expression of positive will.

Ikemefuna the boy claimed as compensation, who stayed with Okonkwo was miserable and ill as he missed his mother and youngest sister who were back home but gradually, he got attached to Nwoye and his mother and to the other children of the household. Okonkwo himself became very fond of the boy but did not show any emotion openly unless it be the emotion of anger.

Okonkwo during the observation of the Week of Peace, broke the rule and got angry on his wife and beat her. Ezeani, the priest of the earth goddess, Ani called on him and commanded him to give the penalty. The next day he took to the shrine of Ani one she-goat, one hen, a length of cloth, a hundred cowries and a pot of palm wine in way of penance.

After the Week of Peace every man and his family began to clear the bush to make new farms. Yam seeds were prepared for sowing and for the next three or four months everyone worked hard on their fields tending the new crop.

The Feast of the New Yam is celebrated which is an occasion of joy. Huts are decorated, friends and relatives are invited. On the village ground on the second day of the new year there is a wrestling match which people watch with great excitement.

All the three wives cook their food separately and each sends a share to her husband before serving it to the family. When the children take the food to their father, they also take the opportunity of talking to their father. Okonkwo was especially fond of Ezinma, his second wife’s daughter and wished she were a boy.

Everyone assembles at Ilo, the village playground to view the match. The elders and grandees sit on their stools, some who come early sit on the stands while others stand and view. It is also the time for the villagers to socialise with each other. Ekwefi, Okonkwo’s second wife is very fond of watching wrestling. When the matches are played, the drummers keep beating their drums and the crowd watches with excitement.

There are two teams with twelve men on each side and the challenge went from one side to the other. Five matches ended in this way and the last match was between the leaders of the teams. They were among the best wrestlers in all the nine villages.

Ikezue and Okafo were the final contestants who were almost equal in strength and tricks but in the end Okafo wins.

Ikemefuna and Nwoye grow up as young men and Okonkwo is pleased to see his son’s development and wants him to grow into a tough young man capable of ruling his father’s household and prosperous enough to feed the ancestors with regular sacrifices. Okonkwo tells them masculine stories to educate them with the customs of the clan. They are the stories of violence and bloodshed but Nwoye preferred the tales which his mother used to tell about the animals and the landscape.

Swarm of locusts descended on Umuofia and in the night people caught them and next morning the rare food was roasted and eaten with solid palm oil. This had not happened for many a long year. The elders said locusts came once in a generation.

Ikemefuna had been in Umuofia for three years and he was now to be killed as the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves had pronounced it. Okonkwo with other men take him to the forest and kill him. As soon as his father walked in that night, Nwoye knew that Ikemefuna had been killed and something seemed to give way inside him.

Okonkwo did not taste food for two days after the death of Ikemefuna and felt weak, remembering him though he did not want to show this as it was a woman’s quality. He did not sleep at night, tried not to think about Ikemefuna but the more he tried the more he thought about him. On the third day he asked his second wife to roast plantains and Ezinma brought the food for him. He admired his little daughter who ran errands for the father.

To divert himself, Okonkwo visits his friend Obierika who tells him that his daughter’s suitor was coming to fix the matter of bride price. With the means of sticks, the men settled the bride price at twenty bags of cowries.

Ezinma is suddenly taken ill by high fever which Okonkwo diagnosis as iba. Ekwefi, the mother of Ezinma had borne ten children and nine of them had died in infancy. Several medicine men were called to find the cause but none succeeded everyone thought it was a stubborn evil spirit who came again and again to trouble the mother but Ezinma survives through this.

The village hearing of Mgbafo and Uzowulu’s case begins like a drama in which the elders come disguised as spirits and give their judgement. They are called egwugwus and the village crowd stands around as onlookers and participate in the proceedings as one does in a theatre. Okonkwo is one of the nine egwugwus who is recognised by his family even behind his mask but nobody can say anything, lest the spirits get offended.

Telling stories is a regular feature in each hut. Mothers tell stories to their children. Ekwefi tells the story of the clever and greedy tortoise and her daughter Ezinma also begins relating a story when Chielo, Agbala’s prophetess arrives stating that he wants to see his daughter Ezinma and nobody can refuse the Oracle. Chielo carries Ezinma on her back and Ekwefi shadows her and waits outside the cave.

Okonkwo also reaches there and Ekwefi is deeply moved to see him there and is reminded of their love in youth.

Okonkwo’s friend Obierika celebrates the marriage of his daughter. Children and women from each house go with food stuff and help in cooking. Two goats are slaughtered to make soup but the fattest was kept to be presented to the in-laws who brought pots of wine to the girl’s house. The whole compound was as busy as an anthill. Pots of palm wine arrive from the girl’s house. The quantity brought is the symbol of their status and when fifty pots arrive, everyone approves of it.

Kola nuts are presented to the boy’s family by Obierika. Dancing and singing follows after eating and drinking till late in the night when the guests finally take the bride to spend seven market weeks with her suitor’s family.

The sound of the canon indicates that somebody is dead. Ekwe - the messenger makes announcement in the nine villages that Ezeudu, who was one of the oldest man of his village, is dead. Everyone gathered for the funeral and in an accident Ezeudu’s grandson is killed by a shot from Okonkwo’s gun and the punishment for this crime is to flee the clan for seven years along with his family. That night he collected his most valuable belongings into head loads. His wives and children wept and friends came to help and console him. Before the cock crowed Okonkwo and his family left for his motherland. Later clansmen stormed his compound in garbs of war, set fire to his house and destroyed his barn so as to cleanse the land which Okonkwo had polluted with the blood of a clansman.

Okonkwo was well received by his mother’s kinsmen in Mbanta. His mother’s younger brother Uchendu was the oldest surviving member of that family. Okonkwo was given a plot of ground on which to build his compound and two or three pieces of land on which to farm during the coming planting season. An ‘Obi’ was built for him and three huts for his wives but he was sad because he had always aspired to be one of the lords of the clan and this punishment came in his way.

Uchendu’s youngest son Amikwu is married with different ceremonies than that of Umuofia. Unchendu calls all his family together after the marriage and comforts Okonkwo giving the argument that when there is sorrow and bitterness a child always finds refuge in his mother and as his mother is buried here he should accept that the mother is supreme and should live his life without sadness.

Obierika comes to visit his friend Okonkwo where Uchendu offers them kola nut and wine and Obierika tells them that the clan of Abame is no more as it has been wiped out. He tells how a white man came on his iron horse and the people consulted the oracle who told them that the strange man would break their clan and spread destruction. So they killed the white man and tied his lion horse to their sacred tree. After sometime on a market day three white men came and shot all clansmen except the old and the sick. They doubt the intentions of the white men who were not like the albinos of their land and spoke a strange language through their noses. Obierika brought money in two bags for his friend who had left yam seeds with him before leaving.

The missionaries had come to Umuofia and had built a church there and had won converts. They had even been to Mbanta and told people that their Gods of stone and wood were false and there was only one true God who was the creator of all the world and all creatures. They even promised to get iron horses for the people and in the end sang gay and rollicking tunes of evangelism which touched several hearts. They spoke about the son of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Trinity. Okonkwo’s oldest son Nwoye who was disturbed by the killing of Ikemefuna and of the twins when born in the clan, got attracted by the hymns and the songs of the new religion and adopted the new faith.

The missionaries asked the people of Mbanta to give them a piece of land to build their church and houses and Uchendu and his peers agreed to give them the evil forest as they believed that whosoever would go there would die but they built the church and invited everyone to come there on the seventh day. Mr. Kiaga, the interpreter, was in charge of the congregation at Mbanta while the headquarters of the missionaries was Umuofia where they taught young Christians to read and write. Nwoye went there and left his father feeling very sad and dejected.

Okonkwo blamed his ‘Chi’ for his great misfortunes.

The church rescued the twins left to die in the evil forest and admitted the outcasts of the clan called Osu for which there was great resentment even amongst the converts but Mr. Kiaga convinced them that all men are the creations of the same God. The outcasts were made to shave off their long-tangled hair, a mark of their heathen belief and given equal treatment. They became the strongest adherents of the new faith. But when one of them killed a python who is considered sacred by the clan there was greater fury for the church and its followers. The clan did not let the Christian women fill their water pots or take red earth but when Okoli who had killed the python died a natural death there was peace once again.

Okonkwo’s seven years of exile were about to come to an end. He sent money to his friend Obierika to build him huts in his old compound. He gave a grand feast and invited everyone as he wanted to thank his mother’s people before going back to his clan. The women harvested cassava tubers and ferment them to cook and three goats were slaughtered. A variety of food is prepared by his family and palm wine is served to all.

Uchendu the oldest man addressed everyone and stressed the bond of kinship as it was needed more than ever now as an abominable religion of outsiders had settled amongst them.

Okonkwo wanted to regain the place he had lost in these seven years at Umuofia. He had made plans to return with a flourish and impress his people as he wanted to take the highest title in the land. He had beautiful grown-up daughters who would marry the strong and rich man of Umuofia and would add to his power. But the situation in his land had changed. The Christian missionaries and their church had become very important. They had even established their government and punished those who committed a crime. As more and more people had joined the new faith the white men had become powerful. They had begun to create a rift among the natives and thus they were falling apart.

Mr. Brown, a missionary was much respected by the Christians as well as by the people of the clan. He had built a school and a little hospital in Umuofia. He mixed well with the people and had made friends with some of the important men of the clan also. The local people had presented him a carved elephant tusk which was a sign of dignity and rank. He went round the villages begging people to send their children to his school and so religion and education went hand in hand. The new religion and government and the trading stores were the centre of attraction for everyone. The whole clan was breaking up and had divided loyalties.

Mr. Brown’s successor was James Smith who saw the world as a battle field in which the children of light were locked in mortal conflict with the sons of darkness. The over-zealous converts like Enoch created trouble by provoking the clansmen and their faith. He unmasked the spirits of the earth who were called egwugwu in public which was considered one of the greatest crime and so there was a lot of anger in all the villages. Egwugwu’s from Umuofia and from neighbouring villages assembled in the market place and the whole place was thrown into confusion. The angry band of egwugwu destroyed not only Enoch’s hut but also the church made of red earth was turned into a pile of earth and ashes.

When the District Commissioner came back he invited the six leaders to meet his at the headquarters and handcuffed them by deceit. They were ill treated and their clansmen were asked to give two hundred and fifty bags of cowries as a penalty. Okonkwo who was one of the captivated leaders felt choked with hate for the white men.

Okonkwo and his fellow prisoners were set free after the fine was paid but their hearts burnt with vengeance as their backs bore the stripes of the warder’s whip. The next day a meeting was called at the market place. Lots of men gathered but five court messengers’ came with the order to stop the meeting. Okonkwo in a flash drew his machete and the messenger’s head lay beside his uniformed body. The crowd let the other messengers escape.

The District commissioner arrived at Okonkwo’s compound with a band of armed soldiers and court messengers to arrest him but found him hanging from a tree at the back of his hut. Obierika requested the commissioner’s men to take down the body of Okonkwo from the bush and bury him as it was against their custom to touch a man who takes his own life as it is a offence against the Earth. The body of such a man becomes evil and can be touched only by strangers.

The commissioner went back thinking about the book he planned to write in which he would write a chapter about the man who hanged himself. There was so much else to include in his book. He had already chosen the title after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.