Okonkwo and Behind Blue Eyes

Well I usually listen to music when I read and I'm not sure if that's the best studying tactic, but while I was reading Things Fall Apart, the song "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who came on. And I started listening to the lyrics of the song and it correlates directly with the novel from Okonkwo's point of view (not literally; nowhere in the novel does it say that he has blue eyes). So here are some relationships between the lyrics of the song and Okonkwo:

"No one knows what it's like / To be the bad man / To be the sad man" - No one else could experience how Okonkwo felt after he accidentally killed Ezeudu's son. He spiraled into a depression because he had to leave his homeland and along with his stature within the clan.

"But my dreams / They aren't as empty / As my conscience seems to be" - During Okonkwo's depression, he barely ate or spoke as if something inside of him was left back in Umuofia. Even though he couldn't go back to Umuofia for 7 years, he started to plan his return only 1 year after arriving in Mbanta and how fast his sons and him will rise back up into Umuofia's elite.

"My love is vengeance / That's never free" - Okonkwo's love was toward his town of Umuofia and the people that live there. He could never take out his vengeance on the missionaries until near the end of the novel because he needed the support of his people to do it along with him.

"No one knows what it's like / To feel these feelings / Like I do / And I blame you" - It appears that Okonkwo has the strongest feelings against the missionaries in the whole tribe based on Achebe's narration. he blames all of the hatred built up inside of him on the white men and their religion.

"No one bites back as hard / On their anger" - Okonkwo is always frustrated with his tribe about fighting the the new religion. He has an enormous amount of anger built up on the inside, but he has to bite back on it until he can gain the support of his tribe.

"When my fist clenches, crack it open / Before I use it and loose my cool" - The entire tribe could probably tell all of the rage Okonkwo was feeling, and most were trying to reason with him and white men to be on equal grounds. They tried to lessen his hatred, but in the end he couldn't control it and killed one of their messengers.

Superiority of Gender

Throughout the novel, it obviously displays that the Igbo's culture is dominated by men. The women cook for the men, and if the women do one slight thing wrong, the men get to beat them and that is completely acceptable within their way of life. The men's wives don't even live in the same hut as their husband. The men also "buy" their wives as if women are just something off the shelf at Wal-mart. I find these things to be very unnerving because of how much it clashes with our culture in today's society. But there is one thing that sets me at ease on this subject: how some Igbo people name their children "Nneka", meaning 'Mother is Supreme'. I find this to be quite peculiar, but also comforting due to the harsh conditions the women live through all of their life. This also seems to relate to our concept of 'Mother Nature'.

"the worst are full of passionate intensity"

The first thing I noticed when I read The Second Coming was the ending of the first stanza "...the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity". I immediately thought of Okonkwo's reaction when the tribe elders were deciding what course of action to take with the missionaries and their courts. His ideal course of action was to fight and try to kill them while the wiser elders were strongly against a violent approach.

Confusion

I really enjoyed the novel, but I kept getting tripped up by all the similar names. For example, one of Okonkwo's wives is Ekwefi, she has a daughter named Ezinma. Throughout the short story of the taking of Ezinma into the cave late at night I kept having to go back and think about who was who! But it is not just Okonkwo's family that is hard to keep straight. The villages and the neighboring families also have similar names. Another strange thing I noticed about how the book is written is that Achebe does not always call characters by their names. He may call them "Nwyoe's daughter" or "Obierka's son-in-law". This just adds to the confusion of who belongs to who and which family is which! I'm thinking about making a character chart just to keep everyone straight.

African Culture

This novel gave amazing detail about the African way of life at the time. It showed a lot of things that I don't think I would have heard about otherwise, like the trial with the egwugwu being the judge and jury, or like the belief that everyone has a personal god, or chi, that determines their fate. After learning as much as this book shows about the culture, it really sets up for the tone of anger and hate even at the end because the white people are destroying all of the tradition that was set forth. It makes you wonder how many other cultures in the world have been supressed like this one. . .

Conquest

Did anyone else notice how close Okonkwo's name is to the pronunciation of the word conquest? I think the author planned this, because it really fits his character. He always had to be in control of everything around him, and forcefully if necessary, as evidenced by his treatment of his family, and was always striving to get the highest place in the tribe. Even until his dying day, he was telling the tribe that they had to fight back and take back their land, even though most of the tribe didn't agree with him. I wonder if any of the other names were similar to an English word that described the character?

Over-arching Themes

From the beginning, i liked very much how the story always followed Okonkwo, and how it wrapped up with him at the end too. How it told the story of his entire life was very moving and really helped to set up for the conflict at the end. It seemed that everything in the story went full circle. Many things turned around entirely. The ways of the tribe got completely changed from the way they started out, and Okonkwo was never going to disgrace himself or family intentionally at the beginning, but at the end he hanged himself. A very full book.