English Literature Things Fall Apart Quotations

thought and action

‘Okonkwo was not a man of thought but a man of action’

perhaps; heart

‘perhaps down in his heart he was not a cruel man’

Story of his first yams

‘That year the harvest was sad’; ‘But the year had gone mad’

exile

‘and so he regretted every day of his exile’

thank, kinsmen

‘i must thank my mother’s kinsmen before I go’

halves

‘Okonkwo never did things by halves’

matchet

‘In a flash Okonkwo drew his matchet’

body, dangling

‘From where Okonkwo’s body was dangling’

poverty misfortune lords

‘who had risen so suddenly from poverty and misfortune to become one of the lords’

human heads

‘his fifth head’

large barn, three wives

‘…not a failure like Unoka. He had a large barn full of yams and had three wives’

inter-tribal wars

‘had shown incredible prowess in two inter-tribal wars’

success, Okonkwo

‘If ever a man deserved his success, that man was Okonkwo’

words out quickly

‘…he was angry and could not get his words out quickly enough, he would use his fists’

fiery temper

‘lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children’

fear of failure

‘his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness’

fear of himself

‘it was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father’

hate, Unoka, loved

‘ruled by one passion - to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved.’ ‘gentleness’

emotion openly

‘Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly’

inwardly

‘inwardly, he was sorry’

gun

‘ran madly into his room for the loaded gun’

inability to compromise

‘But Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through’

UNOKA: lazy

‘he was lazy and improvident’

UNOKA: music

‘he was very good on his flute’

UNOKA: coward

‘He was in fact a coward and could not bear the sight of blood.’

UNOKA AND OKONKWO

‘He had no patience with unsuccessful me. He had no patience with his father.’

meritocracy

‘Among these people a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father’

IKEMEFUNA: family

‘He had become wholly absorbed into his new family’

IKEMEFUNA: foreshadowing

‘He came to look after the doomed lad’

IKEMEFUNA: OKONKWO’S fondness

‘Even Okonkwo himself became very fond of the boy - inwardly of course’

IKEMEFUNA: father

‘And indeed, Ikemefuna called him father’

OBIERIKA: warning

‘That boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death’

IKEMEFUNA: OKONKWO’S comfort

‘he was not afraid now. Okonkwo walked behind him. He could hardly imagine that Okonkwo was not his real father’

IKEMEFUNA: last words

‘My father, they have killed me’

IKEMEFUNA: Death by Okonkwo

‘Dazed by fear, Okonkwo drew his matchet and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak.’

OKONKWO: Ikemefuna’s death

‘He did not sleep at night.’

NWOYE: treatment

‘constant nagging and beating’

NWOYE: sad

‘sad-face youth’

NWOYE: conversion

‘But there was a young lad who had been captivated. His name was Nwoye, Okonkwo’s first son.’

NWOYE: christianity

‘seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul’

EZINMA: clever

‘Her daughter was only ten years old but she was wiser than her years’

EZINMA: boy

‘she should have been a boy’

EZINMA: taken by Chielo and protection

‘ ‘Go home and sleep’ Okonkwo said. ‘I shall wait here’ ‘

IKEMEFUNA AND NWOYE

‘He was like an elder brother to Nwoye’ ‘deeply attached’

NWOYE: changes due to Ikemefuna’s death

‘Nwoye knew that Ikemefuna had been killed, and something seemed to give way inside him, like the snapping of a tightened bow’

OBIERIKA: oracle and Ikemefuna

‘But if the Oracle said that my son should be killed I would neither dispute it nor be the one to do it’

OBIERIKA: voice of reason

‘ I don’t know how we got that law’

OBIERIKA: thinking

‘Obierika was a man who thought about things’

Obierika: twins

‘He remembered his wife’s twin children, who he had thrown away. What crime had they comitted?’

OBIERIKA: suicide

‘You drove him to kill himself and now he will be buried like a dog..’

The allegory of the locusts

‘they were hard and painful on the body as they fell, yet young people ran about happily picking up the cold nuts and throwing them into their mouths to melt.’

CHRISIANITY: dialect

‘many people laughed at his dialect and the way he used words strangely.’

CHRISTIANITY: twins

‘they were rescuing twins from the bush’

CHRISTIANITY: outcasts

‘these outcasts… they would also be recieved’

CHRISTIANITY: snake

‘most revered animal’

CHRISTIANITY: first conflict due to snake

‘brought the church into serious conflict with the clan a year later by killing the sacred python’

CHRISTIANITY: mr brown

‘Mr Brown, the white missionary, who was very firm in restraining his flock from provoking the wrath of the clan'.’

CHRISTIANITY: reverend smith

‘he saw things as black and white. And black was evil.’

CHRISTIANITY: unmasking of egwugwu

‘One of the greatest crimes a man could commit was to unmask an egwugwu in public… and this is what enoch did’

CHRISTIANITY: destruction of the church

‘and with matchet and fire reduced it to a desolate heap’ ‘the red earth church which mr brown had built was a pile of earth and ashes’

tortoise fable

‘Tortoise had a sweet tongue, and within a short time all the birds agreed that he was a changed man.’

COLONIALISTS: Abame

‘Abame has been wiped out,’ said Obierika. ‘It is a strange and terrible story.’

COLONIALISTS: locusts

‘they were locusts, it said.’

COLONIALISTS: justice

‘They had built a court where the district commissioner judged cases in ignorance.’

COLONIALISTS: benefits

‘for the first time palm-oil and kernel became things of great price, and much money flowed into Umuofia’

COLONIALISTS: arrests

‘The six men did not see it coming’ (their arrest)

COLONIALISTS: book on Okonkwo

‘One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter, but a reasonable paragraph at any rate.’

COLONIALISTS: book title

The pacification of the primitive tribes of the Lower Niger

PROVERBS: proverbs

‘Among the Ibo, the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.’

PROVERBS: Ogbuefi ezeudu

‘Ogbuefi Ezeudu was a powerful orator and was always chosen to speak on such occasions.’

PROVERBS: Killing

‘Never kill a man who says nothing’

Justified war

‘It never went to war unless its case was clear and just and was accepted as such by its oracle.’

Okonkwo breaking the week of peace

‘And was punished, as was the custom, by Ezeani, the priest of earth goddess.’

Egwugwu

‘most powerful and most secret cult in the clan.’ ‘grown out of the nine sons of the first father of the clan.’ ‘we have heard both sides of hte case’

ancestors

‘the land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the ancestors.’

FESTIVALS: music

‘The drums beat and the flutes sang and the spectators held their breath.’

FESTIVALS: new yam

‘The feast of the New Yam was approaching, and Umuofia was sin a festival mood.’

FESTIVALS: gods

‘to honour the earth goddess and the ancestral spirits’

FESTIVALS: drummers

‘and the drummers held the field.’ ‘they were possessed by the spirit of the drums’

FESTIVALS: wrestling skill

‘very few people had ever seen that kind of wrestling before’

FESTIVALS: drums and heartbeat

‘the very heartbeat of the people’

WOMEN: instruction

‘Do what you are told, woman’ Okonkwo thundered

Women: priestess

‘Chielo. She was the priestess of Agbala, the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves.’

women: ceremony

‘that the ceremony was for men’

negatives of Igbo society

‘twins were put in earthenware pots and thrown away in the forest.’ ‘mutilate the (dead) child’