Summary: Chapter 24
After their release, the prisoners return to the village
with such brooding looks that the women and children from the village
are afraid to greet them. The whole village is overcome with a tense
and unnatural silence. Ezinma takes Okonkwo some food, and she and Obierika
notice the whip marks on his back.
The village crier announces another meeting for the following morning,
and the clan is filled with a sense of foreboding. At sunrise, the
villagers gather. Okonkwo has slept very little out of excitement and
anticipation. He has thought it over and decided on a course of action
to which he will stick no matter what the village decides as a whole.
He takes out his war dress and assesses his smoked raffia skirt,
tall feather headgear, and shield as in adequate condition. He remembers
his former glories in battle and ponders that the nature of man
has changed. The meeting is packed with men from all of the clan’s
nine villages.
The first speaker laments the damage that the white man
and his church have done to the clan and bewails the desecration
of the gods and ancestral spirits. He reminds the clan that it may
have to spill clansmen’s blood if it enters into battle with the
white men. In the middle of the speech, five court messengers approach
the crowd. Their leader orders the meeting to end. No sooner have
the words left the messenger’s mouth than Okonkwo kills him with
two strokes of his machete. A tumult rises in the crowd,
but not the kind for which Okonkwo hopes: the villagers allow the
messengers to escape and bring the meeting to a conclusion. Someone
even asks why Okonkwo killed the messenger. Understanding that his
clan will not go to war, Okonkwo wipes his machete free of blood
and departs.
He had already chosen the title of the
book . . . The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower
Niger.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Summary: Chapter 25
When the District Commissioner arrives at Okonkwo’s compound, he
finds a small group of men sitting outside. He asks for Okonkwo, and
the men tell him that Okonkwo is not at home. The commissioner asks
a second time, and Obierika repeats his initial answer. The commissioner
starts to get angry and threatens to imprison them all if they do
not cooperate. Obierika agrees to lead him to Okonkwo in return
for some assistance. Although the commissioner does not understand
the gist of the exchange, he follows Obierika and a group of clansmen.
They proceed to a small bush behind Okonkwo’s compound, where they
discover Okonkwo’s body dangling from a tree. He has hanged himself.
Obierika explains that suicide is a grave sin and his
clansmen may not touch Okonkwo’s body. Though they have sent for
strangers from a distant village to help take the body down, they
also ask the commissioner for help. He asks why they cannot do it
themselves, and they explain that his body is evil now and that
only strangers may touch it. They are not allowed to bury it, but
again, strangers can. Obierika displays an uncharacteristic flash
of temper and lashes out at the commissioner, blaming him for Okonkwo’s death
and praising his friend’s greatness. The commissioner decides to
honor the group’s request, but he leaves and orders his messengers
to do the work. As he departs, he congratulates himself for having
added to his store of knowledge of African customs.
The commissioner, who is in the middle of writing a book
about Africa, imagines that the circumstances of Okonkwo’s death
will make an interesting paragraph or two, if not an entire chapter.
He has already chosen the title: The Pacification of the
Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
