Further thought on Okonkwo’s relationship with Ezinma and her role as a foil

After our discussion in class the other day about Ezinma, I began to wonder if Achebe put her in the novel for a greater purpose then just being another daughter of Okonkwo.  We have said that Ezinma does not act like the typical woman and for this Okonkwo favors her.  She acts very manly and does not waste time with what he would call “feminine” things.  She does not question Okonkwo and does what he tells her to do like bringing him food.  Okonkwo even wishes his other son would be like her.  He even wishes Ezinma could have been born a boy.  Anyway, Ezinma definitely does not seem to be the stereotypical woman in Things Fall Apart.  In my opinion, I think she almost acts as a foil to her mother, Ekwefi.  Ekwefi is often doing things that Okonkwo thinks are typical waste of time things that women do. However, Ezinma is the opposite and does as she is told while possessing a strong spirit.  It seems kind of ironic that a mother and daughter could be so different.

The Igbo Justice System

I really think the Igbo justice system is very well designed. The "justice department" is comprise of nine members. These members are the egwugwu. The egwugwu are each an ancestral spirit of the nine villages. They keep the peace among different families, groups, members, and other villages. They are almost like a justice panel, similar to judges on a court panel. They make group decisions on things and, like a jury, debate for a while by themselves on what decisions they are plan to enact. They seem to make very level headed, well thought out decisions that do not involve drastic measures to be taken to solve the problems that arise. For example, with the family who took back their daughter because her husband did not treat her well in Chapter 10, the egwugwus decided the solution of the problem would be to, "Go to your in-laws with a pot of wine and beg your wife to return to you. It is not bravery when a man fights with a woman."I think this was a very reasonable decision on their part. It is a very civilized system of governing the members of the villages and I think it works well.

Pronunciation

I don't know about you all, but I am struggling with the names in Things Fall Apart. When I see them in the novel I've realized I only identify them visually, considering I was clueless as to how to pronounce them. I also think this is the reason that I find it so difficult to remember the characters and to differentiate between them. This pronunciation guide helped me, I thought it could be of use to you all as well!

Okonkwo (Oh-kawn-kwoh) 

Unoka (Ooh-no-kah) 

Nwoye (Nuh-woh-yeh) 

Ikemefuna (Ee-keh-meh-foo-nah) 

Ekwefi (Eh-kweh-fee) 

Ezinma (Eh-zeen-mah) 

Ojiubo (Oh-jee-ooh-boh) 

Obierika (Oh-bee-air-ee-kah) 

Chielo (Chee-eh-loh) 

Agbala (Ahg-bah-lah) 

The White Man's Burden

While I don't hear the term used anymore, I think the debate over the White Man's Burden is far from over.  We frequently hear discussions in the news concerning our obligations to developping countries, e.g. does the West have an obligation to spread democracy to the rest of the world?  Should the United States have intervened earlier in Syria?  If we do have a moral responsibility to help the rebels, is it enough to merely give them supplies, or should we send in soldiers of our own?  What responsibility does France owe to Mali?  How much should we let a situation deteriorate before we help?  And while I think that overall western society has gotten better about only involving itself for the right reasons, such as democracy and human rights, there are still examples of us intervening for the same purposes that underlay imperialism a century ago.

Naming in Things Fall Apart

Am I the only one who enjoys the meaning behind the names in Things Fall Apart? My favorite name is Udo (the man whose wife was killed by another tribe and the village considered going to war). Udo's name means peace. So, the tribe killed peace's wife. While a battle or war did not happen between the two groups, it was certainly threatened. I just find it ironic that Udo's name means peace.

Tennis Metaphor?...maybe

When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are playing the questions game, they score it as if they were playing tennis. Tennis is traditionally scored staring with 15, then 30, then 40, and finally game. In tennis there comes a point where both players can have deuce, thus one of the players must score twice consecutively in order to win the game, or the game could go on forever. I think that the method in which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern choose to score the game represents their conversations, and their overall interactions and each one of them makes useful "points" here and there, but overall their arguing as they "hit the ball back and forth" gets them nowhere, and they end up in deuce.

Aimlessness of Guil and Ros's Theorizing

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern act at times like very smart men, especially in the first act, but their ideas are pointless and have no real meaning in their lives. Their curiosity about life has no direction. They either ask random questions, like why fingernails might grow after death, or worry uselessly over metaphysical ideas. Rosencrantz doesn’t seem interested in important questions. Guildenstern attempts to answer those questions by applying bizarre, inappropriate strategies. He uses a syllogism to try to determine whether they are still in reality as they know it. This kind of reasoning becomes all the more absurd when the two begin their discussion about where they are going and why. They barely remember that they were sent for by royalty, and they certainly have no idea what they will be asked to do once they get where they’re going. All of their complicated theorizing means very little when one realizes that they are completely in the dark about the simplest things. They follow orders without any knowledge of the purpose of their mission. It seems that, while they (or at least Guildenstern) would like to have some understanding of life’s mysteries, they are somehow able to largely ignore an idea so central and personal as their own fates. They skirt around major issues, focusing on the minor ones instead. An example of this is the appearance of the band: Guildenstern is so caught up in wondering about the nature of illusion that, at first, he ignores the fact that the band is not an illusion at all and is, in fact, standing right in front of him. Their surroundings or lack thereof underscore their confused mental states