Proverbs
These wise sayings are very important as they are used to comment on human behaviour and they show the importance of oral communication within the community. Achebe uses them throughout the Trilogy to reflect this and they are drawn from Ibo experience or religious beliefs, for example:
‘...anger against a brother was felt in the flesh, not in the bone.’ Yet Obi is, ‘a head covered in earth and grime.'
‘The fox must be chased away first; after that the hen might be warned against wandering into the bush.’
'I am against people reaping where they have not sown. But we have a saying that if you want to eat a toad you should look for a fat and juicy one.'
‘He told the proverb of the house rat who went swimming with his friend the lizard and died from cold, for while the lizard's scales kept him dry the rat's hairy body remained wet.’
“'An only palm-fruit does not get lost in the fire.' Amen .” (chapter 1, No Longer at Ease)
Folk Proverbs are also important because they relate to the superstitions of the past and pressure to accept the old beliefs and traditions; they show us the values of the society. Examples:
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‘Shall we kill a snake and carry it in our hand when we have a bag…’ (Chapter 8, page 61)
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‘A man should not swallow his phlegm.’ (Chapter 17, page 118)
RELIGION
The religious beliefs of the Ibo people are very different from Christian beliefs. They believe in:
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The Supreme God/deity (Chukwu) who is most powerful, controls fertility and creation. He is represented by many other minor gods and sacrifices are made through them.
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Personal Gods (Chi) which are believed to be in control of the person's destinyegpage 38 ‘A man does not challenge his chi to a wrestling match’.
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Ancestors, these are often represented by masked men (egwugwu) at social gatherings and are greatly respected and worshipped. There is constant interaction between the worlds of the living and the dead ancestors. Animistic tribal belief has it that the spirits are in all things but the spirits of the ancestors are particularly to be found in the earth of the homelands.
Pages 1-3 are an adaptation of ‘Things Fall Apart’ resources on teachit.co.uk and pages fromwikipedia.
Summary, Key-words and Questions
Chapter 1 - introduces us to the main character, Obi, and shows him as a condemned man in court before we learn what led to his downfall. We see the ex-colonists at a private ex-patriot club in the capital of Nigeria, discussing how Obi’s corruption can be put down to race. We then see a meeting at the Umuofia Progressive Union discussing the money they’ve wasted on this ‘good-for-nothing’s’ incompetence/ungratefulness. We then flashback to Obi’s send-off to university from Umuofia.
Glossary
Harmattan - a powerful wind which hits Nigeria from November to March
Kola nut - chewed in many West African cultures, individually or in a group setting. It is often used ceremonially, presented to chiefs or presented to guests.
Sojourners – people who stay in a place but not for ever, just visitors
Colonialism – imperialism or the belief in or practice of empire-building
Prodigal son – gifted son who everyone in a community expects great things of in the future
Listlessness – directionless, restless steeling – preparing for/hardening wan – pale, haunted-looking
Questions
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What do you learn about Okonkwo's character and mistakes/faults in this chapter?
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What do you learn about his superiors? Justice Galloway? Mr Green?
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On page 10 what does Obi’s father mean when, ‘his wife remonstrated against his thriftlessness he replied that a man who lived on the banks of the Niger should not wash his hands with spittle---‘ What should you wash your hands in? How many Nigerian houses in 1959 had clean, running water? So what is Obi’s father really saying about spending money?
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Why is it, ‘odd that [Obi] should have rejected everything about his father except this one proverb. Perhaps he had long forgotten that his father often used it…’?How do the mistakes of the father in ‘Arrow of God’ lead to the son’s downfall? Could this chapter be setting up the message that ‘The sins of the fathers are visited on the sons’?
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What attitude do you think Achebe has to the use of the proverbs in Martha’s speech: 'Oh God of Abraham, God of Isaac and God of Jacob,…the Beginning and the End. Without you we can do nothing. The great river is not big enough for you to wash your hands in. You have the yam and you have the knife; we cannot eat unless you cut us a piece. We are like ants in your sight. We are like little children who only wash their stomach when they bath, leaving their back dry…’ (p9)? Do you think Obi still believes in his father’s God? If not, why not? What has he seen in London that he likes better?
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Consider the descriptions on page 6: ‘Umuofians (that is the name they call themselves) who leave their home town to find work in towns all over Nigeria regard themselves as sojourners. They return to Umuofia every two years or so to spend their leave.’ What does this suggest Obi should do?
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‘We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, /But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods./ I should be glad of another death.’
What evidence is there in Obi’s behaviour in court that he ‘should be glad of another death’?
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Answer the rhetorical question, ‘What does he do with his big salary?’ What attitude about Obi and his use of his wages does this show to us?
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In the UPU meeting we learn they, ‘send some of their brighter young men to study in England... The first scholarship...to Obi Okonkwo five years ago...They wanted him to read law so that when he returned he would handle all their land cases against their neighbours. But when he got to England he read English...’ In what ways could Obi be like Achebe?
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In what ways could we see Obi as the ‘prodigal son’, dying like Jesus for ‘our sins’? Is he a victim of a system which is corrupt?
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What does the Reverend’s quote on page 9 ('The people which sat in darkness Saw a great light...') mean? How does this relate to the darkness that the British brought with them when they took over Nigeria?
Will independence from Britain bring ‘light’? Explain your answer
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Look at the aside on page 8: ‘(No one mentioned nowadays that he once brought shame to the school by writing a letter to Adolf Hitler during the war. The headmaster at the time had pointed out, almost in tears, that he was a disgrace to the British Empire, and that if he had been older he would surely have been sent to jail for the rest of his miserable life. He was only eleven then, and so got off with six strokes of the cane on his buttocks.)’ What does it reveal about Obi’s character?
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Are the similes justified that Obi is, ‘like rain wasted in the forest’ or‘like the young antelope who danced herself lame when the main dance was yet to come’? Explain your answers.
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Why are the last words of the prayer on page 11 ironic? Namely, ‘When he is going to the White Man's Country. Leave him not behind Jesus, wait for him.' Did Jesus leave him behind? Why did he get into trouble with the law then?
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What are your first impressions of African societyas described here? Comment on:
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The ex-colonists, colonialism and corruption in Nigeria eg the statement 'The African is corrupt through and through.' (p5)
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Work – how does the final quote of the chapter give us a sense of the terrible situation Obi is trying to escape from: ‘where men and women toiled from year to year to wrest a meagre living from an unwilling and exhausted soil’?
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Entertainment – contrast English entertainment at the club with Umuofia celebrations.
Chapter 2 - introduces us to the character of Joseph, the voice of experience compared to Obi; we learn more of Clara’s petulance and Obi’s subservience. In these two flashbacks, we see Obi’s high ideals about romance and his low observations about corruption. We also meet Obi’s servant, Zacchaeus, lorded over by Clara who he clearly thinks is not good enough for Obi.
Glossary
Dramatic irony – when we know more than the characters do, when the opposite is true of what a character says
asoebi - Orders forever ojare–Leave me
egusisoup–melon soup garri–cereal
osu – a family that have been sacrificed to the gods so can’t live with other people from their tribe/village/society
ethnocentrism – believing your ethnic/racial/religious group is better than those from other nations, not understanding other cultures because you’re too centred on your own
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What is the point of the contrast between Obi’s miserable situation in chapter 1 and the good times he remembers on the boat as he came back to Nigeria in the following chapter?
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Briefly explain the effect on a Nigerian audience of the hyperbole, ‘his longing to return home took on the sharpness of physical pain’. Would they also feel the ‘pain’ when they were in foreign lands?
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Explain how the book’s title relates to the statement, ‘There were many things he could no longer recognise, and others---like the slums of Lagos--- which he was seeing for the first time.’
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We learn on Page 12 of, ‘soldiers were as strong as lions because of the injections they were given in the army’. How does this make us feel about Obi for believing street gossip?
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Explain the exaggeration of the soldier’s statement, ‘The only thing he cannot do is mould a human being.' What is the soldier’s feeling about his British commanders in the army?
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Why is it funny Joseph calling his bedroom the“‘Holy of Holies’”
What does Joseph’s name for his “settee (otherwise called 'me and my girl')” tell us about his attitude to women?
What is Achebe trying to show about Joseph when he describes his friend’s ‘enormous pneumatic bosom’. What should we think of Joseph for being only interested in his girlfriends’ bodies?
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Why did Joseph’s girlfriend leave‘a nasty taste in Obi's mouth, like the multi-coloured word OSCULATE on the pillow-case’?
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What is the point of the harsh description of Lagos in the flashback on p14?
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What does Obi’s naïve, romantic poem tell us about him?
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Why does Obi say, “'I can't understand why you...choose your dressmaker from the slums'”(p15)? What does this tell us about his attitude to money?
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Achebe is helping us see the world through Obi’s eyes and thoughts. Why does Achebe/Obi say that going from the centre of Lagos to Obi’s home in the suburbs was, ‘like going from a bazaar to a funeral...like a graveyard...It always reminded him of twin kernels separated by a thin wall in a palm-nut shell. Sometimes one kernel was shiny-black and alive, the other powdery-white and dead…’?
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Clara is first presented to us as behaving ‘ostentatiously’. How does this colour our opinion of her for the rest of the novel? Is she too proud and bossy? Explain your answer.
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What else in this chapter makes their relationship seem negative?
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What does the following statement tell us about bribery in Nigeria: ‘an ordeal by bribery. To him the bribe is natural...Our people say that if you pay homage to the man on top, others will pay homage to you when it is your turn to be on top. Well, that is what the old men say.'
Chapter 3 - provides further background into Obi's first failure with Clara at a London dance and eventualsuccess during the cruise home to Nigeria. We are also introduced to a ‘good’ ex-colonist, Macmillan.
Glossarymist alba – White Mixture Of Magnesium Sulphate to help bring relief from mild constipation.
United Africa Company–The United Africa Company was formed in 1929 as a result of the merger of The Niger Company,[1] which had been effectively owned by Lever Brothers since 1920, and the African & Eastern Trade Corporation.[2] In the early 1930s the United Africa Company was nearly reduced to bankruptcy and as a result it came under the control of Unilever which became a huge British corporation exploiting cheap West African labour and taking the continent’s resources virtually for free.
an only palm-fruit–metaphor to describe Obi as a loner who wants to make friends because lonely
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What do we learn of the relationship between Obi and Clara from the description, ‘curt...Clara looked surprised and somewhat hostile..with as much interest as if she had just been told that they were on a boat in the Liverpool Docks’?
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Is Obi reading too much into Clara’s use of Ibo when he thinks she was using it as a way to say, 'We belong together: we speak the same language.' Does he already know that she is osu? If so, what should we think of him?
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The sea is symbolic in the description, ‘the restless sea, which now looked like a wilderness, rock-sharp, angular and mobile…’ Obi has been rejected by Clara and been feeling sea-sick. What does ‘the wild sea’ represent (page 20)?
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The sea is described as turning bright blue at the moment that Obi recovers from sea-sickness and Clara starts being nicer to him? What does the ‘bright blue’ sea represent in his feelings?
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What are we supposed to think of the ethnocentrism of MacMillan’s remark, ‘all African names mean something’? Why does he put all Africans in one group but not all Europeans?
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Obi is careful not to say much to MacMillan about what he really feels for Clara: “‘Women and music should not be dated,’ Obi said smiling”.
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In the love scene between Obi and Clara, what does it make the reader feel when Clara is described as, ‘seeming to melt in his arms’ with the adverbs ‘suddenly’ and ‘violently’ too?
Chapter 4 - describes Obi’s anticlimactic return – first at the empty docks, then a UPU reception and finally at a low-key meal with Joseph which ends in Obi spotting Clara with a more important man, the politician Sam Okoli.
GlossaryAgbada– traditional man’s long gown with brocade decoration in different colour threads
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At Lagos port, there is a ‘little group waiting sadly and silently...that their son had married a white woman.’ What does this tell us about Nigerian attitudes to whites?
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What is comic about the following description? ‘Udom was deeply disappointed...returned to his cabin to emerge half an hour later in a black suit, bowler hat and rolled umbrella, even though it was a hot October day.’ Has this black man become TOO English? Why is Achebe making us laugh at him then?
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Obi dismisses the cabin boy’s corruption with, ‘Dear old Nigeria’ as if it normal in Nigeria. What does this tell us about Obi’s attitude to corruption? How does it explain him ending up taking a bribe?
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Why does the UPU arrange a reception to present with, ‘humility and gratitude this token of our appreciation of your unprecedented academic brilliance’(p26)? What does this make us feel when we already know he is going to go to get caught for corruption?
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The Umuofia Progressive Union insists their loan to Obi for university is, ‘an investment which must yield heavy dividends’. Are they putting too much pressure on Obi? Could they be seen as responsible for Obi’s predicament in accepting bribes to make enough money to pay them back? Explain your answer using the quote.
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Obi appeals to Nigeria for ‘men who...[are] prepared to serve her well and truly.' Explain the irony of this.
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Explain what our reaction should be to the Vice-President when he says, ‘'You think white men don't eat bribe? Come to our department. They eat more than black men nowadays.' Explain what his question, imperative and dramatic contrast make us feel.
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After Obi’s ‘welcome home’ party, on page 27 Joseph and Obi go to the Palm Grove to eat. Achebe describes how, ‘insects danced furiously. Perhaps they did not notice that each globe carried a large number of bodies which, like themselves, had danced once upon a time. Or if they noticed, they did not care.’ Why does Achebe put this image of dancing and death in here? What does it make us feel about Obi’s future?
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‘I have been dying to eat pounded yam… I am sick of boiled potatoes’ (pages 27-28) Which are we meant to consider the superior food, potato or yam? What does this imply? Is Nigerian culture better or British? What are we meant to think about this?
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On page 28, we are described the image of the old lady, ‘groaning and creaking like old machinery gone rusty from standing in the rain...her parrot's cage...directly overhead...Everything was beautifully organised. There was a tray by the old lady's chair nearly full of wet excrement.’ What is Achebe’s attitude to her and other white, English colonialists like her? What words in the quote tell us this? Explain your answer.
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On p29, we hear talk between Joseph and Obi: ‘Our people have a long way to go…’ and ‘I believe in destiny…’ What is Obi’s destiny? Why is it ironic that a guy who will be sent to prison for bribery for years should say this?
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We learn how Obi was nicknamed ‘Dictionary’ and he was the only boy his age from Umuofia to get a scholarhip. To what extent does the book so far show that education and language can help you change your destiny?
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What is the hidden feeling of the short sentence, ‘It was Clara.’ (p30)? Does it make us feel that Obi seeing her with Sam Okoli was ‘destiny’? Why?
Chapter 5 - describes the slightly underwhelming job interview but intelligence talking about literature. Describes Joseph’s greater social nowse and ‘settling down’ to start a family. We hear of the driver’s bribing of police on the journey back to Umuofia and of the grand welcome party for Obi which makes him proud to be Igbo.
Glossary chi - personal god
bride-price law – Islamic law commands a groom to give the bride a gift called a Mahr prior to the consummation of the marriage. In Nigeria fathers of all religions would expect a dowry or money-gift to be paid by the family of the groom/man before marrying their daughters.
Augean stable - the stables in which King Augeas kept 3000 oxen, which had not been cleaned for 30 years. The cleaning of these stables was accomplished by Hercules, who diverted the river Alpheus through them.
Sani Abacha - was a Nigerian Army general, dictator and politician who served as the President of Nigeria from 1993 to 1998.[1] Abacha's regime is controversial: although it saw dramatic economic growth, there was widespread human-rights abuse.
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What is ironic about Obi’s opening statement to the chapter that, ‘the public service of Nigeria would remain corrupt until the old Africans at the top were replaced by young men’?
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What is the implication of the aside on p30, ‘…had not this gentleman been the sole representative of one of the three regions of Nigeria. (In the interests of Nigerian unity the region shall remain nameless.)’? What does it make us think about the Hausa (or Yoruba) man’s attitude to Igbo Christians?
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In the discussion of tragedy at Obi’s interview, could either of the ideas be applied to Obi’s story? Explain the similarity of the following quotes to Obi’s story:
‘…torn between his love of a woman and his love of God...The hero dies and we feel a purging of the emotions...’
‘…life was like a bowl of wormwood which one sips a little at a time [a tragedy and a] world without end...Real tragedy is never resolved. It goes on hopelessly for ever...takes place in a corner, in an untidy spot, to quote W. H. Auden. The rest of the world is unaware of it...There is no release...There is no purging of the emotions for us because we are not there.'
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Explain the meaning of the saying, ‘a man does not challenge his chi to a wrestling match.' (p32)
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Why does Obi describe the attitude of people on the bus to the police corruption as an ‘Augean stable!'? Is Obi like Hercules? Do we think Obi will succeed in getting rid of the bribe system in Nigeria? If not, what does this metaphor make us feel for Obi at this point of the novel?
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How could the problem of corruption be solved in your opinion: ‘Educate the masses...Or even one man with vision---an enlightened dictator’? After independence, Nigeria had a dictator called Abacha but corruption carried on anyway. Why?
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What are the answers to the rhetorical questions on p35? (‘Why did Clara insist that he must not tell his people about her yet? Could it be that she had not quite made up her mind to marry him? ... why all the mystery? Why had she not simply said that she was going to consult her people?)’ What would a Nigerian reader think? Why?
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Why does Obi interpret the traders’ song on p36 as ‘'the world turned upside down'? The song says, ‘
'An in-law went to see his in-law… Oyiemu---o
His in-law seized him and killed him… Oyiemu---o
Bring a canoe, bring a paddle… Oyiemu---o
The paddle speaks English…’
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Who do you agree with at Obi’s welcome party, those who say ‘Christianity had made him blind’ to the tribal gods and proverbs or those who agree with Reverend Isaac that tribal myths are, ‘to chew the cud of foolishness. It was putting one's head into a cooking-pot...Satan [putting] abominable thought into men's stomachs.' (p37-38)
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Obi’s observes how the, ‘joy of life... [was] not yet...killed by those who claimed to teach other nations how to live…’ Is this a criticism of Nigeria’s colonists? Explain your answer. (p39)
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Explain the meaning of the lyrics, 'Palm-fruit eater, Roman Catholic teacher, His missus a devourer of toads.' Remember, the ‘best food’ in Igbo culture is goat stew, mashed yam, not palm-fruit and frogs. Why does the song use food to insult the Catholic Christians in the village? What would an educated Nigerian think about the villagers’ teasing of Christians?
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The Igbo villagers have a very different idea of Obi’s voyage to England on ‘a white man's ship that runs on water as a snake runs on grass...wrestling in the spirit world...’ What does this say about their attitudes to the English and their machines?
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On p41 the marriage of black men with white women is mentioned as shocking for the third time in the novel: ‘That is why I say a black man who marries a white woman wastes his time. Her stay with him is like the stay of the moon in the sky. When the times comes she will go.' What does this simile mean?
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Respond to the ideas which end the chapter: ‘...we are not empty men who become white when they see white, and black when they see black... Who ever planted an iroko tree---the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men.' Does Obi want to be white? Or does he just want to be richer than the people from his village?
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What does the iroko tree symbolise?
 
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