Here i am sharing my presentation of paper no 14

1. WELCOME

2. Chinua Achebe

3. Achebe was born in the Igbo (formerly spelled Ibo)
town of Ogidi in eastern Nigeria on November 16,
1930, the fifth child of Isaiah Okafor Achebe and
Janet Iloegbunam Achebe. His father was an
instructor in Christian catechism for the Church
Missionary Society. Nigeria was a British colony
during Achebe's early years, and educated
English-speaking families like the Achebes
occupied a privileged position in the Nigerian
power structure. His parents even named him
Albert, after Prince Albert, the husband of Queen
Victoria of Great Britain. (Achebe himself chose his
Igbo name when he was in college.)

4.  Gender
 Family
 Respect and Reputation
 Fear
 Religion
 Sin
 Traditions and Customs
 Man and the Natural World
Language and Communication
Things Fall Apart

5. Gender
• Traditional Igbo life presented in this novel revolves around
structured gender roles
• The dominant role for women is: first, to make a pure bride for an
honorable man, second, to be a submissive wife, and third, to bear
many children
• The protagonist in the novel is extremely concerned with being
hyper-masculine and devalues everything feminine, leaving him rather
unbalanced.
• Idea of balance between masculine and feminine forces – body and
mind/soul, emotionality and rationality, mother and father. If one is in
imbalance, it makes the whole system haywire.

6. • For the Igbo, there are a
few key ideas that form the
basis of an ideal family:
mutual respect for each
other, a reverence for all past
fathers, and unity
Family

7. Respect and Reputation
• Reputation is based on merit – men gain reputation
through bravery in battle, skill at wrestling, and hard
work as seen through the size of their yam harvest.
• Okonkwo, the novel’s protagonist, is extremely
concerned with reputation because he grew up with
a father who was shameful and lazy. Okonkwo
overcompensates by working tirelessly on his farm
and taking every opportunity available to prove his
bravery and strength.

8. Fear
• Many of the characters suffer from fear of some
sort.
• Okonkwo fears becoming like his lazy, shameful
father, Ekwefi fears losing her daughter, and Nwoye
fears his father’s wrath.
• fear in this novel leads characters to behave in
negative ways that can bring the wrath of the gods,
guilt, and the community disapproval upon them

9. Religion
• The Igbo gods are mostly manifestations of nature and its
elements, which makes sense because they are an
agricultural society that depends on the regularity of
seasons and natural phenomena to survive.
• They worship the goddess of the earth and are always
careful to avoid committing sins against her for fear of
vengeance that might wipe out an entire generation. The
Igbo ancestors also take on a divine nature to some extent.

10. • In Things Fall Apart, sin is defined as a crime
against the gods. Such transgressions occur when
a member of society violates the most intimate
bonds of family, especially with regards to one’s
children or somehow insults an ancestral spirit.
These sins call for quick and severe punishment,
often including animal sacrifices, a heavy fine,
various symbolic gestures of atonement, exile from
one’s fatherland, or even death
Sin

11. Traditions and Customs
•Respect and knowledge of one’s role in
society is very important in determining such
customs and Traditions. Another institution
that rituals address and honor is the family
unit.

12. Man and the Natural World
• As an agricultural society, the survival of the
Umuofia depends on the earth and its predictable
cycle of seasons.
• The Igbo also reap the earth’s wealth in rather
economical and effective ways – tapping trees for
palm-wine, capitalizing off of locust plagues, and
making medicine with herbs. Human beings are
implicitly viewed as the children of the earth,
though the conduct of the white men throws doubt
on that assumption.

13. Language and
Communication
• Speech is highly stylized in Igbo culture, with
specific rules on how to addresses a neighbor, a
superior, an ancestral spirits, and the gods.
• While dialogue is usually direct in its meaning,
speakers often adorn conversations with proverbs
or references to folktales, which play a profound
role in shaping Igbo beliefs.