"Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe

 OKONKWO'S SUICIDE 

    

Is Okonkwo’s suicide the act of a man in despair?  Why would a man so fearless and determined, who said yes very strongly that his chi agreed, find life hopeless? 

     “Okonkwo was well-known throughout the nine villages and beyond”.  This is a mighty testimonial to his bravery and character in the very first line of the book and an instant identification of a hero.    He had defeated “The Cat”, the greatest wrestler of all time, in a fight that was fierce, and was not only a test of strength and stamina but also of cunning.   He was not afraid of war; he had collected his fifth head in the last one.  Even his physical appearance was formidable. “He was tall and huge and his bushy eyebrows and wide nose gave him a very severe look”.(3-4)  He despised weakness and failure, for this reason he despised his own father, Unoka.  Unoka was a coward and hated bloodshed and was never happier than while playing his flute. “In his day, he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow.  If any money came his way, and it seldom did, he immediately bought gourds of palm-wine, called round his neighbors and made merry”. (4)  As a consequence, he owed everyone some money.  

     Okonkwo was so driven to be unlike his father that he was determined to hate two things with a passion—gentleness and idleness, the two qualities that his father represented.  He hated showing affection or emotion unless it was anger.  “To show affection was a sign of weakness, the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.” (28)  He worked like a man possessed.  He belonged to a tribe that respected age but revered achievement.  Okonkwo’s father had not left him a barn.  He had shown no skill at farming, and so left nothing but debts for Okonkwo to inherit.  However, the son had already made attempts to carve a bright future for himself. He had enough self-confidence to approach Nwakibie for help when he needed seed yams.  He appealed to him thus:

"I have cleared a farm but have no yams to sow.  I know what it is to ask a man to trust another with his yams, especially these days when young men are afraid of hard work.  I am not afraid of work.  The lizard that jumped from the high iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no one else did.  I began to fend for myself at an age when most people still suck at their mothers' breasts.  If you give me yam seeds I shall not fail you." (21)

Impressed with his determination and sincerity, Nwakibie, a self-proclaimed miser, gave him twice four hundred yams.  

     The first year that Okonkwo planted the seed yams, everything had gone wrong.  It didn’t rain, then it rained too much and the harvest was “sad like a funeral” (25).  It was enough “to break the heart of a lion” (25)   but he never gave in to despair. Since he survived that year, he was sure he could survive anything.  By turning misfortune and poverty into success and wealth, Okonkwo became one of the youngest lords of the clan with three wives, two titles and two barns full of yams (a man’s crop). “As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings. Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands and so he ate with kings and elders.”  (8)

     Okonkwo had arrived.

     He was part of the rhythm of Umuofia.  He observed all its protocols.  He took kola nuts to his elders, he drank the palm-wine in a gesture of friendship, and he participated in all the rituals and traditions of his clan. The betrothals and the marriage rituals are a celebration of life, just as the coming of locusts and the scrubbing of the walls with red earth.  He worked with his hands, he created life in the land.  He sowed the seeds and watched life grow.  He ruled his house with “a heavy hand”.  Being a self-made man he carried with him an air of arrogance.  He did sometimes step out of line and had to be chastised.  Although he did not admit his faults, he did repent inwardly and he accepted his punishment.  During the week just before the planting season Umuofia lived in peace with its fellows to honor its great goddess of the earth without whose blessings the crops will not grow.  Okonkwo beat up his wife for neglecting his dinner one night during that week.  It was unheard of to beat someone during the week of Peace.  At another time he chased one of his wives with a gun and shot at her.  Chapter Five gives an insight into Okonkwo’s domestic life, a description of the bond among the wives and children.  There was gentleness in their behavior and affection towards each other.  The children got their education—Umuofia’s rituals and folklore—from the stories that were passed on from the wives and elders.  It seems as though Okonkwo is the discordant element here. 

     Okonkwo had two weaknesses, Ikemefuna and Ezinma.  The Ikemefuna episode is the closest Okonkwo comes to a moral dilemma. Ikemefuna was a young boy who comes to Umuofia as human sacrifice for the murder of one its daughters in Mbaino.  He was one that the Oracle forgot for three years.  In those three years, he was the older brother to Nwoye (Okonkwo’s son).  He was the right mixture of the manly and the sensitive.  He brought with him a new fascinating culture of Mbaino, an “endless stock of folktales. Even those which Nwoye knew already were told with a new freshness and the local flavor of a different clan.”(34)  In those three years, Ikemefuna “grew rapidly like a yam tendril in the rainy season, and was full of the sap of life”.(52)  At once, his youth, his tenderness, his vitality and his potential is captured in that single sentence and once more the reader is made aware that this boy is living on borrowed time and the feeling of foreboding sets in. When the time came, it was Okonkwo who struck the fatal blow even as Ikemefuna cried out to him for help. Okonkwo could not eat or sleep for several days; he only drank the palm wine.  He did not understand why he shivered every time he thought of the boy who called him 'father'; he did not understand his emotional attachment but thought of himself as a coward.  Obierika, his friend, cast a niggling doubt in Okonkwo’s brain that he may not have done the right thing by participating in Ikemefuna’s death. “…if the Oracle said that my son should be killed, I would neither dispute it nor be the one to do it”, said Obierika.  Okonkwo was not happy with Obierika’s statement.   “The Earth cannot punish me for obeying her messenger”, he insisted, “A child’s fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm”.  Okonkwo sought a single, simple explanation that would give him peace and a good night’s rest, and he had it. He had done it because the Oracle said so.  He slept peacefully after three nights. 

     To view this incident with the modern western eyes and express shock at the barbaric, primitive nature of Okonkwo is to separate him from his way of life.  Okonkwo fell back on what he believed in.  That was Ibo tribe’s savage justice. The machete that was used for farming, to tame the earth was also used in war.  The conflict between the Oracle and personal loyalties had only one resolution.  “If we were all afraid of blood, it would not be done.  And what do you think that the Oracle would do then?” (67)  His tribe had already made a decision to kill Ikemefuna.  It was tragic that three years had elapsed before it happened, and there was time for a bond to be established between the boy and Okonkwo’s family.

     The reader wants Okonkwo brave but also wants him to be compassionate when every chapter in the book has already revealed his lack or suppression of finer feelings.  Achebe writes, “If Okonkwo had killed Ikemefuna during the busy planting season or harvesting, it would hot have been so bad, his mind could have centered on his work.”  Cruel as this seems, Okonkwo was a part of a fatalistic culture. The priestess of Agbala, the Oracle of the Hills and Caves was an ordinary woman till the spirit of the goddess chose to speak through her.  The Oracle also meted out a Hammurabi-like code of justice to the layman, largely executed on a revenge principle. It was not Okonkwo’s to reason why.  It was the same way he accepted his daughter Ezinma was an ogbanje or a changeling, who is impossible to bring up without it dying unless its iyi-uwa (a special kind of stone that is a link between the changeling and the spirit world) is first found and destroyed.  Although Ezinma’s iyi-uwa was found and destroyed, she fell seriously sick again the next year, but no one questioned the earlier ritual.  

      Maybe the author felt he was too harsh on Okonkwo, to portray him utterly devoid of emotion.   The next few chapters reveal a vulnerable side to him when he experienced fear and anxiety over Ezinma’s illness and during her abduction by Chielo, the priestess of Agbala.  When Chielo carried Ezinma off into the hills, Ekwefi, the mother of the girl, had followed her, worried out of her mind.  Okonkwo “had felt anxious but did not show it.  When Ekwefi  had followed the priestess, he had allowed what he regarded as reasonable and manly interval to pass and then gone with his machete to the shrine.”(112) When he did not find them there he had become “gravely worried” and he kept going back and forth to the shrine and home till he finally found them. 

     And then something quite unexpected happened.  At Ezeudu’s funeral, Okonkwo’s gun exploded accidentally and killed a sixteen-year-old boy.  Okonkwo fled and in a blink of an eye everything he had achieved was destroyed.  “They set fire to his houses, demolished his red walls, killed his animals and destroyed his barn.  It was the justice of the earth goddess and they were merely her messengers.  They had no hatred in their hearts against Okonkwo.  His greatest friend, Obierika, was among them.  They were merely cleansing the land which Okonkwo had polluted with the blood of a clansman.” (125)  Okonkwo had committed a crime and was forced to live seven years in exile in his motherland Mbanta.

     Do things really fall apart here for Okonkwo?  It seems as though Okonkwo is stationary and the world is spinning around him.  So far, he had been a man of action and soon after Ikemefuna’s death, he is left standing still while the world is spinning out of control.  Did his chi desert him?

     This is a crucial part of the novel because Obierika, “a man who thought about things” (125), was certainly thinking harder than ever.  “Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offense he had committed inadvertently?  But although he thought for a long time he found no answer.  He was merely led into greater complexities.  He remembered his wife’s twin children, whom he had thrown away.”(125)  Every man evaluates his relationship with his community and God at some point in his life.  Obierika’s introspection indicates that his community was ready to make changes.  In the poem, “The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats, from which the title of the book “Things Fall Apart” is taken, the poet envisages a time when “The best lack all conviction, and the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.” That time was now.  With Okonkwo gone, there were no more unquestioning clansmen, there was no strong bond of kinship.  The warning behind that old man’s words at Okonkwo’s farewell comes to mind. 

“‘…I fear for the younger generation, for you people.’  He waved his arm where  most of the young men sat.  ‘As for me, I have only a short while to live, and so have Uchendu and Unachukwu and Emefo.  But I fear for you young people because you do not understand how strong is the bond of kinship.  You do not  know what it is to speak with one voice.  And what is the result?  A man can now leave his father and his brothers.  He can curse the gods of his fathers and his ancestors, like a hunter’s dog that suddenly goes mad and turns on his master.  I fear for you; I fear for the clan.’” (167)

     It seemed as though the center could not hold and anarchy was let loose in Umuofia.  It was appropriate that Obierika, our thinking man, should be a messenger of the changing times in that village.  His periodic visits to Mbanta kept the link between Okonkwo and his home.  It was through him that Okonkwo learned of the white man, the slave trade, missionaries and the white man’s government.  Aware of all the tremors that were rocking Umuofia, Okonkwo brooded over his misfortune.  “He knew he had lost his place among the nine masked spirits who administered justice in the clan.  He had lost the chance to lead his warlike clan against the new religion, which, he was told was gaining ground.  He had lost the years in which he might have taken the highest titles in the clan.  But some of these losses were not irreparable.  He was determined that his return should be marked by his people.  He would return with a flourish, and regain the seven wasted years.”(171)          The changes were still not that significant to him, nothing that a good dose of manliness could not cure.  His old uncle Uchendu was wrong when he saw “clearly that Okonkwo had yielded to despair”.  His subsequent pep talk was not necessary; the despair was only a momentary aberration.   

      Gradually, the forces of change swept the village of Mbanta too, touching Okonkwo’s life.  Nwoye, his son, left his family to learn to read and write in a school in Umuofia, run by the Church. His mind was full of questions about Ikemefuna and all the twins that died.  He found comfort in the Christian hymns.  Their words "were like drops of frozen rain melting on the dry palate of the panting earth." (147)  Okonkwo staggered under the weight of the disappointment.  “At first it appeared as if it might prove too great for his spirit.  But it was a resilient spirit, and in the end Okonkwo overcame his sorrow.  He had five other sons and he would bring them up in the way of the clan.” (172)  Meanwhile, Christianity was gaining ground.  It had embraced the outcasts who, filled with gratitude at finding dignity and self-respect, embraced Christianity back with intense zeal.  Steadily, old values, old religion began to be questioned and new values and religion replaced them.  The new religion even withstood the test of the Evil Forest, a region where people who died of the “really evil diseases, like leprosy and smallpox” were buried. “it was also the dumping ground for the fetishes of great medicine men when they died” (149).  People expected the missionaries to be dead in four days, but they did not, of course.  So they were believed to have extraordinary powers.  That is how they roped in the first converts. What was left of the clan was decimated by the white man’s government.  The tribes were not even aware of its insidious influence until too late.  “The white man is very clever”, remarked Obierika, “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.” (176) 

     Along with the religion and the government, the white man brought trade into these villages—palm oil and kernel brought wealth into the lives of Umuofia.  But what was even more of a concern than these western influences to Okonkwo was nobody noticed his return!!  “Okonkwo’s return to his native land was not as memorable as he had wished.  It was true his two beautiful daughters aroused great interest among suitors and marriage negotiations were soon in progress, but, beyond that, Umuofia did not appear to have taken any special notice of the warrior’s return.  The clan had undergone such profound change during his exile that it was barely recognizable.”(182-3) 

     Okonkwo grieved for the clan, which was breaking apart.  Every ritual and custom was being stripped of its awe and significance and no one cared.  The killing of the sacred python was one, and then the unmasking of the egwugwu by Enoch, a convert, was another. 

     When the egwugwu were desecrated, the clan destroyed Enoch’s compound and the church headed by Mr. Smith. When this happened the District Commissioner had gone on tour; upon his return, he spread a net for the leaders of Umuofia.  He invited them to a meeting, overpowered them, handcuffed them and threw them in prison till they promised to pay a penalty of two hundred and fifty bags of cowries.  They were even whipped by the court messengers and their heads were shaved!   Okonkwo’s thoughts, when he was released, were of war. He was not one to back down even in the face of all these odds.  He even planned on executing his revenge all by himself.   After all, he was known as the "Roaring Flame".

     A special meeting of the clansmen was called.  However, the grandeur and the solemnity of the first meeting (when the daughter of Umuofia was killed was called) could not be replicated.  The clan was divided.  The natural order of life, the rhythm of the clan was now disrupted.  “All our gods are weeping”, announced Okika.  He impressed on his brothers the need to stay united in their fight against the intruders. “We must root out this evil.  And if our brothers take the side of evil we must root them out too”, he declared (204).  But when the time came, only Okonkwo sprung into action.  He killed the messenger who tried to break up the meeting.  When he found that others reacted in fear, he went away and hanged himself.

     We are back to answering the question, “Why did Okonkwo commit suicide?” Why did he desecrate the land he loved? Okonkwo lived and breathed the rhythm of the tribe.  He was one with the rituals, the traditions and the seasons of the land.  The titles, the religion and the spirits of the egwugwu and the Oracle were all part of his life.  He only knew what he grew up with. What he aimed for had significance only if the clan had lived and prospered.  His suicide was not an act of cowardice or despair but of defiance—an act against the white man’s intrusion into his clan.  At the last meeting, he understood that the warrior race had become “extinct”, so to speak, that they had become soft like women.  “He knew that Umuofia would not go to war.  He knew because they had let the other messengers escape.  They had broken into tumult instead of action.  He discerned fright in that tumult.” (205) In a way, Okonkwo dies so his death could mean something to the people of Umuofia.  It was done to remind them of their duties toward their ancestors and the glory of that village.  In the beginning of the book, we hear “Umuofia was feared by all its neighbors.  It was powerful in war and magic, and its priests and medicine men were feared in all the surrounding country.  Its most potent war-medicine was as old as the clan itself…And so the neighboring clans who naturally knew of these things feared Umuofia, and would not go to war against it without trying a peaceful settlement.”(11-12)  When Umuofia lost that one voice, it ceased to exist and when Umuofia ceased to exist, so did Okonkwo.  (It is ironic that while Yeats’ poem predicted the fall of the western civilization, it is used here to signify its influence.)  Okonkwo would get maybe a paragraph of mention in the District Commissioner’s book The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger but his own clansmen would choke with emotion at the death of this hero.

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday. 1959

Rating: 4 out of 5