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    This document discusses gender discrimination and patriarchal bias in Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart. It notes that Igbo society portrayed in the novel has very structured gender roles where women are seen as the weaker sex but responsible for bearing children. The protagonist Okonkwo is obsessed with presenting himself as hyper-masculine and devalues anything feminine. His over-eagerness to prove his masculinity leads him to commit escalating crimes and acts of violence that ultimately result in his tragic downfall and death. The novel illustrates how overly rigid views of masculinity and femininity can be self-defeating.

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    Gender role

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    This document discusses gender discrimination and patriarchal bias in Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart. It notes that Igbo society portrayed in the novel has very structured gender roles where women are seen as the weaker sex but responsible for bearing children. The protagonist Okonkwo is obsessed with presenting himself as hyper-masculine and devalues anything feminine. His over-eagerness to prove his masculinity leads him to commit escalating crimes and acts of violence that ultimately result in his tragic downfall and death. The novel illustrates how overly rigid views of masculinity and femininity can be self-defeating.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    10 views2 pages

    Gender Role

    Uploaded by

    avishek saha
    This document discusses gender discrimination and patriarchal bias in Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart. It notes that Igbo society portrayed in the novel has very structured gender roles where women are seen as the weaker sex but responsible for bearing children. The protagonist Okonkwo is obsessed with presenting himself as hyper-masculine and devalues anything feminine. His over-eagerness to prove his masculinity leads him to commit escalating crimes and acts of violence that ultimately result in his tragic downfall and death. The novel illustrates how overly rigid views of masculinity and femininity can be self-defeating.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 2

    THINGS FALL APART : GENDER QUESTION/PATRIARCHAL BIAS

    Feministic studies have well unveiled how the question of gender discrimination
    is inextricably related to prevalent power structure in the society. In the traditional
    symbolic order of representation, the male genital, known as “the phallus”, has been
    taken to be the principal signifier of power and authority: the index of male. This has
    resulted in gender discrimination and patriarchy. In societies living in the tradition-
    bound ambience, as the pre-colonial African clan life Chinua Achebe portrays in Things
    Fall Apart, the gender discrimination is quite blatant. A close study of the novel
    explicitly brings out the spirit of patriarchy prevalent in the society in question.
    Much of the traditional Igbo life presented in this novel revolves around
    structured gender roles. Essentially all of Igbo life is gendered, from the crops that men
    and women grow, to characterization of crimes. In Igbo culture, women are the weaker
    sex, but are also endowed with qualities that make them worthy of worship—the ability
    to bear children. The dominant role for women is: first, to make a pure bride for an
    honourable man, second, to be a submissive wife, and third, to bear many children. The
    ideal man provides for his family materially and has prowess on the battlefield.
    Okonkwo, the protagonist in the novel is extremely concerned with being hyper-
    masculine and devalues everything feminine, leaving him rather unbalanced. His
    development as a successful and powerful person of the clan and his fall as a man cover
    all patterns of gender discrimination. His whole life is devoted towards establishing
    himself as a ‘male’ figure. He feels hatred for his father as an "agbala" or an effeminate
    character. Okonkwo has taken three wives to establish his masculinity. He misbehaves
    and even beats his wives and children and also quarrels with his neighbours to keep up
    his image of masculinity. He may be said to be obsessed with being a ‘man’.
    As Adrienne Rich asserted, "every mind resides in a body”, meaning, everyone is
    made of ‘male’ and ‘female’ traits, Okonkwo possesses many feminine tenets. It is in
    his efforts to ignore them that he engenders his hamartia. In this society, art or works of
    imagination may probably be rightfully located within the domains of the female
    mystique.
    Okonkwo’s efforts to shun of everything feminine lead him to commit ever-
    escalating crimes that lead to his downfall. Both his murders of Ikemefuna and the
    messenger of the white colonisers are provoked only by his over-eagerness to show off
    his masculinity. His application of brute force in confronting the European colonisers
    leads to his tragic fall and ignominious and unmanly death. The novel also explicates
    the effeminacy of the Umuofians in face of the approach of hegemonic colonialism.
    Things Fall Apart may also be taken as a tragedy of over-masculinity.

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