Lecture Notes, Achebe:
1. Chinua Achebe, born 1930
2. General inquiries to
consider while reading Things Fall Apart .
3. Discussion quotes.
“Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and
even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal
achievements" (2860).
“Unoka was, of course, a debtor, and he owed every neighbor
some money” (2861).
"Unoka was never happy when it came to wars. He was in fact
a coward and could not bear the sight of blood" (2862).
"It
was an expensive ceremony and he was gathering all his resources together"
(2862).
"When
Unoka died he had taken no title at all and he was
heavily in debt" (2863).
"H was a man of action, a man of war" (2863).
"Many
others spoke, and at the end it was decided to follow the normal course of
action ... asking them to choose between war on the one hand , and on the other
the offer of a young man and a virgin as compensation" (2864).
"It
was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father"
(2865).
"One
of those things was gentleness and another was idleness" (2865).
"So
when the daughter of Umuofia was killed in Mbaino, Ikemefuna came into Okonkwo's household" (2865).
"He
was carried to the
"It
was for this man that Okonkwo worked to earn his
first seed yams" (2867).
"Yam, the king of crops, was a man's crop" (2869).
"It
seems as if the world had gone mad" (2869).
"To
show affection was a sign of weakness" (2871).
"In
his anger he had forgotten that it was the Week of Peace" (2872).
"The evil you have done can ruin the whole clan" (2873).
"She
did not marry him then because he was too poor to pay her bride-price"
(2877).
"She
was the priestess of Agbala, the Oracle of the Hills,
and the Caves. In ordinary life Chielo
was a widow with two children" (2881).
"Okonknow walked behind him" (2885).
"And
these white men, they say, have no toes" (2892).
"No
woman ever asked questions about the most powerful and the most secret cult in
the clan" (2898).
"It
is not bravery when a man fights with a woman" (2901).
"But
it was really a woman's ceremony and the central figures were the bride and her
mother" (2908).
"A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition
rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors" (2913).
"Guns
fired in last salute" (2914).
"Okonkwo had committed the female, because it had been
inadvertent. He could return to the clan after seven
years" (2914).
"It
was the justice of the earth goddess, and they were merely her messengers"
(2915).
"He was taking his family of three wives and their children to
seek refuge in his motherland" (2915).
"It
said that other white men were on their way" (2919).
"None of his converts was a man whose word was heeded in the
assembly of the people" (2921).
"He
told them they worshipped false gods, gods of wood and stone" (2922).
"They
did not really want them in their clan, and so they made them that offer which
nobody in his right senses would accept" (2923).
"And
then it became known that the white man's fetish had unbelievable power"
(2924).
"These outcasts, or osu, seeing that
the new religion welcomed twins and such abominations, thought that it was
possible that they would also be received" (2926).
"Then
the tragedy of his first son had occurred" (2932).
"But
apart from the church, the white man also brought a government" (2933).
"He had just sent Okonkwo's son, Nwoye, who was now called Isaac, to the new training
college for teachers" (2937).
"We
have a court of law where we judge cases and administer justice just as it is
done in my own country under a great queen" (2942).
"'It
is against our custom,' said one of the men. 'It is an
abomination for a man to take his own life" (2947).
"He
had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification
of the Primitive Tribes of the