MASCULINITY IN THINGS FALL APART
Introduction
Standards exist in all societal aspects with regard to maleness not forgetting its opposite, feminity.[1] First published in 1958, Chinua Achebe’s things fall apart is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated archetypal modern literatures from Africa. The book has not only received numerous global applauses and acclamations but has also won various prizes in the world of literature across the world.[2] Through following the life Okonkwo who is an Igbo elder and a renowned wrestler and champion in a small fictional village that Achebe calls Umuofia, the prolific writer presents to the readers various themes that resonate with the current society. The book examines the strong and irresistible effects of colonialism on native African cultures alongside the traditional lifestyle of the Igbo people in Umuofia village of village. Right from the pre-colonial period to the life of the Igbo people after colonialism, the novel is a cocktail of interesting themes that with masculinity being one of them. Achebe uses very interesting and lively characters in the novel that ultimately succeed in bringing out various themes and connection with the reader. Alongside Okonkwo, the novel features Ekwefi who is the protagonist’s second wife, Unoka; Okonkwo’s father, Nwoye; okonkwo’s son, Ikemefuna; a boy who hails from Mbaino village who is later killed to pay for the sins of his father, Enzima who is Okonkwo’s favorite daughter, Obierika; Okonkwo’s friend who proves helpful during the exile from Umuofia and Ogbuefi Ezeudu who is one of the wisest elders of Umuofia.[3]
Masculinity, just like feminity is part and parcel of human interactions.[4] The induction of fear which as a key ingredient of masculinity is never an effective way to lead and seek dominance over others. Through exploration of the characters’ lives, particularly Okonkwo, this paper seeks to exhaust the theme of masculinity that is pertinent to the culture, social structure and the setting of the novel. It seeks to show that Okonkwo’s perception and understanding of what masculinity is, is flawed and misunderstood.
The Idea of masculinity in Things Fall Apart
Just after few pages into the novel, Achebe introduces the readers Okonkwo who is strict and likes inducing fear to get things done his way. His character since his childhood was shaped by fear and uncertainties about his future. The readers are treated to a protagonist who can be thought as a person who despises his father and fears becoming like him.[5] He is intrinsically compelled to work hard and live a different life from that of his father who to him was a timid, weak and absolutely feminine. His fear causes him to impose rules on his son so that he may not turn out to be like his grandfather Unoka. Okonkwo is seen occasionally beating his son, intimidating his wives and family in order to gain control and respect in the family, a characteristic of radical masculinism[6].
“Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper.”[7]
The lack of peace and constant intimidation punctuated with lack of communication in Okonkwo’s family foreshadows Nwoye’s exodus from the family to Christianity. Notwithstanding his hostility and strictness, he loses control of the family as the head, his respect in the community is lost and his ego thrown to the dogs.[8]
Okonkwo is portrayed as an aggressive individual who believes that crossing his lines should be met with nothing less than regrettable and violent outcomes. Aggression, as many scholars have insisted, is an outward manifestation of masculinity.[9] Okonkwo believes that by being aggressive, his decisions and opinions will be taken seriously and action fast. Aggression as an aspect of masculinity sets out a boundary between those who are less bound to be aggressive or those who are unlikely and those who embrace aggression. This ensures that the aggressive ones control the pack making them appear powerful and in control. Okonkwo subscribes to the idea that acts of empathy and tenderness are equivalent to being weak and feminine and thus being aggressive and violent will cover up for them. He beats his son with a belief that this would earn him respect and control over him.
“He sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating.”[10]
He believes that crying and emotions that are not aggressive or violent is absolutely feminine. Obierika on the other hand balances the novel by being the direct opposite of Okonkwo; tender, open-minded, peaceful and serene.
To Okonkwo, his father who was tender and loving was feminine and thus his life revolved around hating all that his father loved, and one of them was tenderness.[11] The display of benevolence, compassion, empathy and more particularly tenderness are signs of weakness and Achilles’ heel according to Okonkwo. Achebe presents a man with a passion, an undying passion to hate gentleness.
“Okonkwo was ruled by one passion – to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of the things was gentleness.”[12]
Unlike his father, the wrestling champion had no time or interest for small pleasures which were likely to compromise his masculinity. He hated with a lot of passion music, dancing and making merry.[13] All he desired was wealth and power, a strong family with countless children and a dozen of wives. Okonkwo’s greatest joy is to participate in making decisions that affect the clan and if possible influence the decision. To him, tenderness and gentleness do not have a place in the society,
One of the most important and visible aspect or sign of masculinity is physical strength. Okonkwo is portrayed as a physically strong person who works hard in his farms in order to provide for his family. Being strong physically is an indispensable foundation of masculinity.[14]
“He was a very strong man and rarely felt fatigue.”[15]
The fact that Okonkwo can work in his farm the whole day is a direct indication that he is well built and physically stable. The reason he was able to defend the champion in the village’s wrestling competition can be attributed to his robust and strong stature. Achebe creates an image of a man with mountains of muscles whose grip could not be pushed away. He could hardly be swept of his feet and this always gave him an edge over fellow wrestlers. He despised men who could not withstand heavy physical work, and because of his masculine physical stature, he also desired a strong and masculine character.
Okonkwo as a young man, a wrestler and finally an elder in his village, he never believed in showing signs of sympathy and joy. He believed that unlike his father, he not only needed to be strong physically but also in spirit and mind. His idea of masculinity did not provide room for displaying emotions of happiness, joy, love, affection and sympathy as these are signs of emotional and spiritual vulnerability.[16] In times of happiness and joy, Okonkwo could not openly show it because to him, showing happiness and joy is childish and thus a sign of feminine nature and weakness. Masculinity to him is the ability to hold in emotions, especially happiness no wonder he refrains from showing them to the world.
“Okonkwo was inwardly pleased at his song’s development.”[17]
It is his mental strength that gives him the ability to resist new ideas and beliefs brought into the clan by colonialists.[18] Okonkwo alongside many other elders who buy his idea of masculinity remain rigid and refuse to compromise their faith on the verge of transformation.
Masculinity is portrayed in the novel through what can be termed as forceful adoption of traditional values and culture by the council of elders who are majorly men. To Okonkwo, the best a generation can be given is ancestral beliefs and ways of life that will ensure the clan remains knit together.[19] Compromising the traditional way of doing things is a sign of weakness and feminity.[20] Okonkwo believes that all his sons should be taught the tradition ways of life so that they can be able to fend for their families and defend the heritage of the clan. He holds that his daughters and daughters from his clan as a whole should be taught how to make good wives and keep their households intact as it has been since time immemorial. His idea of masculinity ends up making his son a punching bag with the belief that through corporal punishment he would grow to become a real a man.[21] Okonkwo resists all attempts by the white settlers to introduce their new culture as this would water down the traditions of the clan. He is a conservative who ends up falling out with most of the primary people who see him as a rigid and weak in character. In the end, his son ends up joining the very same Christianity he ferociously fights.
Nwoye was never promising and strong in Okonkwo eyes right from his childhood thanks to his idea of masculinity. Okonkwo works so hard to live exemplarily so that his son can emulate but all seems to be in vain. In his childhood life, Nwoye had to withstand violence and hostility from his father who believes that a man has to be strong and aggressive.[22] Okonkwo worked so hard to ensure that his son did not become late his father Unoka who was full of feminine character and even earned the name ‘Agbala’.[23] He believed that his childhood was utterly pathetic and hard because of his father’s mistakes who did not work hard enough as a real man. He hated the fact that Nwoye his son was very fast in accepting Christianity forsaking the old sacred ways of the community. After serving his exile, he was astonished at the fact that many people in the clan were corrupted by Christianity and his sense of valor and strictness forsaken.[24] Nwoye loved music, adored his mother’s feminine tales and was too emotional to be a man.
Over and beyond his extreme actions, okonkwo’s idea of masculinity is portrayed by his undying thirst to succeed at anything he does. Success has always been seen as an internalized notion of maleness and thus, masculinity can only continue if those who perpetuate it continue to succeed in different aspects of their lives.[25] Failure is always not an option, and if it occurs, it earns one a ticket out of the masculine class.[26] Okonkwo becomes the first person to bring down the seven years reigning champion in wrestling and earn himself fame across all the nine villages. He becomes the first person to bring the head of his opponent back home during the intercommunity wrestling competitions making him feared across the borders.[27] He was among the richest farmers in the clan thanks to his hard work and dedication to ensuring his family lived well. Usually, success is never an option in masculinity and Okonkwo explores all limits to stay successful and earn the admiration he always wanted.
Annotated bibliography
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 2000.
An interesting novel written by Achebe that presents the life, traditions, culture and beliefs of the Igbo people on a small village of Umuofia. Okonkwo; the protagonist portrays masculinity in all aspects and dimensions through his life. In the end, it becomes apparent that the wave of change is unstoppable and he is swept away by what can be seen as civilization from the west.
Okpewho, Isidore. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Casebook. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
In this book, Okpewho criticizes Okonkwo’s view of what makes up a complete man and the values that make up his recipe of masculinity. On the 169th page of this book, he says that Okonkwo views courage as the top most value that make up a areal man and thus his masculinity revolves around proving himself courageous. To writer, Okonkwo has a tunnel vision of what makes up a man and thus end up being disappointed.
Nye, Robert A. Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France. Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press, 1998.
In this modern book that seeks to explore the dynamics of gender roles and interaction, Nye insists that just like feminism, masculinity is a result of social construct. He maintains that maleness is can be used to empower the society through upholding of the right values and traits. He further discusses how male codes that constituted masculinity was formed.
Reeser, Todd W. Masculinities in Theory: An Introduction. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
Reeser writes that masculinity is not a problem as it has been widely thought. He says that masculinity is a natural aspect of human that has been problematized by the fact that people want to move it across different cultures. It depends on where, when and how it is perceived.
Mansfield, Harvey Claflin. Manliness. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Mansfield in his book examines the difference between a manly man and a gentleman and insists that science could not explain the aspect of manliness. Masculinity is basically a lower version of gentleman and the later a perfection of the former. In his book, different levels of manliness are explored.
Quayson, Ato. “Realism, Criticism, and the Disguises of Both: A Reading of Chinua Achebe’s” Things Fall Apart” with an Evaluation of the Criticism Relating to It.” Research in African Literatures 25, no. 4 (1994): 117-136.
The article examines what Quayson calls the enterprise of disparagement. The writer proverbially integrates criticism to the characters of Okonkwo alongside other players into a traditional native context. Indeed, the writer brings out the fact that masculinity and maleness takes the center stage in African culture and gives a society its frame.
Azodo, Ada Uzoamaka. “Masculinity, Power and Language in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.” Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe 1 (2004): 49.
Azodo brings out a different dimension in how masculinity should be viewed and approached. The writer maintains that recognizing the different types of masculinities is not enough, but rather identifying the different relationships that exist between the types is equally important. It is a deeper look into what masculinity means.
Spence, Janet T., and Robert L. Helmreich. Masculinity and femininity: Their psychological dimensions, correlates, and antecedents. University of Texas Press, 1979.
Spence and Helmreich confirm that different societies usually assign different roles to different genders based on their culture and tradition. One thing that comes out clearly is that the roles are sharply differentiated mainly because of physical differences not forgetting personality differences between the two genders. This, they believe, is the origin of masculinity and feminity.
Conclusion
It is evidently illustratable that Okonkwo‘s passion mixed with obsession for a masculine life both physically and psychologically ends up hurting him and his family in general. His belief in using fear and intimidation to appear powerful, aggression, being physically strong, the ability to hide his emotions and the tendency to rule with an iron first make him have a masculine character and over and above everything, earns him a lot of respect in the society. The end which justified the means do not favor him when everything falls apart and work against him and his beliefs. Okonkwo is a victim of circumstances, and his narrow-mindedness on what masculinity is hurts him in the long run.
Bibliography
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 2000.
Azodo, Ada Uzoamaka. “Masculinity, Power and Language in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.” Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe 1 (2004): 49.
Mansfield, Harvey Claflin. Manliness. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Nye, Robert A. Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France. Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press, 1998.
Okpewho, Isidore. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Casebook. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Quayson, Ato. “Realism, Criticism, and the Disguises of Both: A Reading of Chinua Achebe’s” Things Fall Apart” with an Evaluation of the Criticism Relating to It.” Research in African Literatures 25, no. 4 (1994): 117-136.
Reeser, Todd W. Masculinities in Theory: An Introduction. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
Spence, Janet T., and Robert L. Helmreich. Masculinity and femininity: Their psychological dimensions, correlates, and antecedents. University of Texas Press, 1979.
[1] Spence, Janet T., and Robert L. Helmreich. Masculinity and femininity: Their psychological dimensions, correlates, and antecedents. (University of Texas Press, 1979), 11.
[2] Okpewho, Isidore. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Casebook. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 22
[3] Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. (Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 2000), 16
[4] Azodo, Ada Uzoamaka. “Masculinity, Power and Language in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.” Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe 1 (2004): 49.
[5] Azodo, 49
[6] Spence, Janet T., and Robert L. Helmreich. Masculinity and femininity: Their psychological dimensions, correlates, and antecedents. (University of Texas Press, 1979), 26
[7] Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. (Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 2000), 13
[8] Okpewho, Isidore. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Casebook. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 64.
[9] Nye, Robert A. Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France. (Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press, 1998), 32
[10] Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. (Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 2000), 53
[11] Okpewho, 44
[12] Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. (Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 2000), 41
[13] Quayson, Ato. “Realism, Criticism, and the Disguises of Both: A Reading of Chinua Achebe’s” Things Fall Apart” with an Evaluation of the Criticism Relating to It.” Research in African Literatures 25, no. 4 (1994): 122.
[14] Nye, Robert A. Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France. (Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press, 1998), 46
[15] Achebe, 13
[16] Nye, Robert A. Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France. (Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press, 1998), 32
[17] Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. (Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 2000), 52
[18] Azodo, Ada Uzoamaka. “Masculinity, Power and Language in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.” Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe 1 (2004): 49.
[19] Azodo, 49
[20] Spence, Janet T., and Robert L. Helmreich. Masculinity and femininity: Their psychological dimensions, correlates, and antecedents. (University of Texas Press, 1979), 42.
[21] Azodo, Ada Uzoamaka. “Masculinity, Power and Language in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.” Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe 1 (2004): 49.
[22] Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. (Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 2000), 13
[23] Achebe, 19
[24] Okpewho, Isidore. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Casebook. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 51.
[25] Mansfield, Harvey Claflin. Manliness. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 63
[26] Reeser, Todd W. Masculinities in Theory: An Introduction. (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2011), 101
[27] Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. (Oxford: Heinemann Educational, 2000), 24
