Introduction and Outline

With reference to Things Fall Apart, discuss how an understanding of gender influences how the text may be understood.

Introduction:

Gender dynamics in literature allow for intricate motifs and complex narratives rich in meaning and moral. With Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, a 1958 postcolonial novel, he explores the culture of Igbo, ethnic natives of Nigeria, their traditions and values and presents the patriarchal system that it follows. While this patriarchal system demeans and dehumanizes women to servants and slaves, it also produces a contradictory and ironic layer to the culture, as one of the most prominent figures of the culture is a Priestess of the Gods. An understanding of this system allows for Achebe's portrayal of the gender dynamic to be presented accurately and allows for a deeper understanding of Okonkwo's hamartia and inevitable suicide.

Topic Sentences:

The characterization of the secondary female characters provides a dynamic between the two genders and contrast between males and females and the roles they must fill. 

Achebe's presentation of the patriarchal system creates an opportunity to understand the values and traditions of the Igbo culture, which results in Achebe to showcase that it is a complex culture, however with complexion it also contradicts itself. 

Okonkwo's ultimate weakness, his hamartia, is his hypermasculinity, which was developed due to the values of the culture he was raised in, this lead to the conflicts to rise between Okonkwo and the other members of his society, such as his son, Nwoye, and even the colonizers.