Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
—W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary: Chapter 1
Among the Igbo . . . proverbs are the
palm-oil with which words are eaten.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Okonkwo is a wealthy and respected warrior of the Umuofia
clan, a lower Nigerian tribe that is part of a consortium of nine
connected villages, including Okonkwo’s village, Iguedo. In his
youth, he brought honor to his village by beating Amalinze the Cat
in a wrestling contest. Until his match with Okonkwo, the Cat had
been undefeated for seven years. Okonkwo is completely unlike his
now deceased father, Unoka, who feared the sight of blood and was always
borrowing and losing money, which meant that his wife and children
often went hungry. Unoka was, however, a skilled flute player and
had a gift for, and love of, language.
Summary: Chapter 2
One night, the town crier rings the ogene, or
gong, and requests that all of the clansmen gather in the market
in the morning. At the gathering, Ogbuefi Ezeugo, a noted orator,
announces that someone from the village of Mbaino murdered the wife
of an Umuofia tribesman while she was in their market. The crowd
expresses anger and indignation, and Okonkwo travels to Mbaino to
deliver the message that they must hand over to Umuofia a virgin
and a young man. Should Mbaino refuse to do so, the two villages
must go to war, and Umuofia has a fierce reputation for its skill
in war and magic. Okonkwo is chosen to represent his clan because
he is its fiercest warrior. Earlier in the chapter, as he remembers
his past victories, we learn about the five human heads that he
has taken in battle. On important occasions, he drinks palm-wine
from the first head that he captured. Not surprisingly, Mbaino agrees
to Umuofia’s terms. The elders give the virgin to Ogbuefi
Udo as his wife but are not sure what to do with the fifteen-year-old
boy, Ikemefuna. The elders decide to turn him over to Okonkwo for
safekeeping and instruction. Okonkwo, in turn, instructs his first
wife to care for Ikemefuna.
In addition to being a skilled warrior, Okonkwo is quite
wealthy. He supports three wives and eight children, and each wife
has her own hut. Okonkwo also has a barn full of yams, a shrine
for his ancestors, and his own hut, called an obi.
Okonkwo fears weakness, a trait that he associates with
his father and with women. When Okonkwo was a child, another
boy called Unoka agbala, which is used to refer
to women as well as to men who have not taken a title. Because he
dreads weakness, Okonkwo is extremely demanding of his family. He
finds his twelve-year-old son, Nwoye, to be lazy, so he beats and
nags the boy constantly.
Summary: Chapter 3
Okonkwo built his fortune alone as a sharecropper because
Unoka was never able to have a successful harvest. When he visited
the Oracle, Unoka was told that he failed because of his laziness.
Ill-fated, Unoka died of a shameful illness, “swelling which
was an abomination to the earth goddess.” Those suffering from swelling stomachs
and limbs are left in the Evil Forest to die so that they do not
offend the earth by being buried. Unoka never held any of the community’s
four prestigious titles (because they must be paid for), and he
left numerous debts unpaid.
As a result, Okonkwo cannot count on Unoka’s help in building his
own wealth and in constructing his obi. What’s
more, he has to work hard to make up for his father’s negative strikes
against him. Okonkwo succeeds in exceeding all the other clansmen
as a warrior, a farmer, and a family provider. He begins by asking
a wealthy clansman, Nwakibie, to give him 400 seed yams
to start a farm. Because Nwakibie admired Okonkwo’s hard-working
nature, he gave him eight hundred. One of Unoka’s friends gave him
another four hundred, but because of horrible droughts and relentless
downpours, Okonkwo could keep only one third of the harvest. Some
farmers who were lazier than Okonkwo put off planting their yams
and thus avoided the grave losses suffered by Okonkwo and the other
industrious farmers. That year’s devastating harvest left a profound
mark on Okonkwo, and for the rest of his life he considers his survival during
that difficult period proof of his fortitude and inner mettle. Although
his father tried to offer some words of comfort, Okonkwo felt only
disgust for someone who would turn to words at a time when either
action or silence was called for.
