Unraveling Gender Dynamics in Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart

Abstract

The last paragraph of Things Fall Apart In the last paragraph of Things Fall Apart, Achebe chose to end the novel with two tragedies: the tragic death of Okonkwo and the second being the tragic end of the beliefs and culture of the Igbo people. Achebe wrote this and placed it at the end of the novel to signify the end of a long enjoyed culture that the Europeans could not fathom while marking the beginning of a missionary rule. Further, it would serve as the Europeans' new perception of the African cultures through the book the commissioner planned to write, The Pacification of the Tribes of the Lower Niger. With this in mind, Achebe insinuated that not all things written about his culture would be right since the commissioner said that he would write a paragraph about Okonkwo. To the people of Umuofia, Okonkwo was a hero who befitted to fill a whole book, not just a chapter. The last chapter suggests that events and actions would be prone to misinterpretation. Further, one could argue that the author wrote this particular chapter at the very end to show the readers how ignorant the commissioner was. The commissioner knows nothing about the people's culture or the man he plans to write about in his ethnography. Gender roles in Things Fall Apart. Things Fall Apart has the lives of the Igbo people lives revolving around structured gender roles. The author defines the gender roles in terms of men and women in Things fall Apart. In the novel, women are portrayed as the weaker sex and no match for men. Women are believed to be soft-hearted and submissive to their husbands. The novel portrays the woman as being submissive, being a pure bride to an honorable man, and...