Things Fall Apart: Part 3 quotations

chapter 20 - Okonkwo returns from exile

‘he was determined that his return should be marked by his people. He would return with a flourish and regain the seven wasted years.’

• irony

• horrible feeling that things are going to fall apart completely.

chapter 20 - Okonkwo and Nwoye

‘ You have all seen the great abomination of your brother. Now he is no longer my son or your brother.’

‘I will only have a son who is a man, who will hold his head up among my people.’

chapter 20 - Okonkwo speaks about the white colonialists

‘ He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one,’

‘He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.’

‘Does the white man not understand the custom about land? How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our brothers have turned against us?’

Chapter 21 - Okonkwo grapples with change

‘The clan had undergone such profound change during his exile that it was barely recognizable.’

‘He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart, and he mourned for the war like men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountable become soft like women.’

• grieving for the loss of ibo culture.

• resentment towards members of Umuofia, which makes the reader uneasy as to what Okonkwo will do next.

Chapter 23 - Okonkwo is temporarily happy

‘For the first time in many years, Okonkwo had a feeling that was akin to happiness… (his clansmen) had listened to him with respect. It was like the good old days again, when a warrior was a warrior.’

• Okonkwo is clinging on to familiarity and the hope of getting vengeance on the colonialists.

chapter 25 - Okonkwo’s suicide , Ibo custom

‘ It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offence against the earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen.’

chapter 25, Okonkwo’s suicide, Obierika reflects

‘ That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself and now he will be buried like a dog.’

chapter 25, Okonkwo’s suicide, the district commissioners

‘This story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading.’

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

• objectifying Okonkwo and Ibo culture.

• commissioner perceives the ibo people’s suffering as lightly amusing, and really, not that profound.

• he views their experiences as something to be studied.