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Women and Men fix Role in Thing Fall Apart

In Thing Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe reveals how man and women’s role have been fixed in the society and the difference between them. Both male and female’s role are different and they were boxed distinctly which were categorized by society and culture. It has an effect on what is an appropriate behavior for each gender like what man can do and what woman cannot or what man can be and what a woman cannot be. Achebe represents the nonequivalence between men and women through the action of the main characters. In Umoufia’s culture, women have to obey their husband’s order and the rights of women have earned less than men. Women were treated less respect than men, the role of women in Igbo village is to take care of her children, providing the thing that her husband needed only and it is assumed that this gender cannot become a leader of the clans. My teacher said that the class monitor had to be a boy. She had forgotten to make that clear earlier because she assumed it was obvious, this quote is from “We should be all feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie”. It represents that in the society, we have a standard that a leader of the country or clans must be a male and woman is just a little part in the community. This has shown in chapter 2 on page 14 “Is he staying long with us?”, “Do what you are told, women. When did you become one of the ndichie of Umoufia” Okonkwo replies to his wife. Nwoye’s mother asks him how long will Ikemefuna stay with them but Okonkwo thundered and stammered back. It represents that in Umoufia, women have no rights to questioning her husband’s action but have to follow what a family leader had told her to. On the other hand, to be a man is also not easy in Umoufia. Being a real man has a standard including strength, use violence, never show your real emotion and cannot be sensitive. They must mask their emotions. If boys have a natural love for art, theatre, or singing they are immediately categorized, boxed up and put on a shelf where children are called “gay” and “fag” This was written in the “What It Means To 'Be A Man': How Male Gender Stereotypes Try To Fit Growing Boys Into

A Mold, And Fail by Samantha Olsen” For Okonkwo, the only emotion that can be shown is anger, if you express what you really feel you will be considered as a weak person and a woman like when he judges his eldest son, Nwoye. Although, Nwoye is an Okonkwo’s son but he was never like his father, he was a gentle boy and a very sensitive person, his father never was pleased about his son’s identity. Okonkwo tried to keep Nwoye aways from acting like a woman but in the end, after Okonkwo killed Ikemefuna, his adopted brother, Nwoye run out of patience with his father. He turns into a new guy, refused to follow his father desire and turn against him. In the chapter 7, on page 55, It shows in the first part of Thing Fall Apart about Nwoye’s thought about what it is to be a real man and how he reacts with it “Nwoye knew that it was right to be masculine and to be violence but somehow he preferred the stories that his mother used to tell…” Okonkwo’s son knows deep down in his heart of how a man should be somehow he prefers not to follow a standard like what his father told him and always taught him in his whole life which make Okonkwo often get angry with him and he was never his favorite child. Lastly, Umuofia thinks women are a weaker sex. In the family relationship a husband can do anything with his wife, woman is merely the temporary companion of his pleasures which said in “The Present and Probable Future Condition of the Three Races that Inhabit the Territory of the United States Alexis de Tocqueville” In the novel, it is fine to hurt your wife whether it be beating, slapping or even worst, shooting. Okonkwo hurts two of his three wive which are Ojiugo, he beats her because she neglects to cook dinner during the week of peace, he lost his temper and break the role to use no violence in this holy week and another wife that was harmed by Okonkwo is Ekwefi. “ The wife who had just been beaten murmured something about guns that never shot. Okonkwo heard it and ran madly into his room for the loaded gun. He pressed the trigger” in chapter 5 on the 39, Okonkwo shot his second wife but it missed. This shows that even he has an intention to shot his wife which may take her life but he did not get any punishment for what he had done and there is no law or anything that can protect a wife.

To conclude, gender inequality has a huge effect on people’s living. It determines how your life will be when a man and woman are still unequal and when there is still an unfairness treatment on man or woman. According to the story, if there is no such word as ‘gender’ to separate people into two groups of sex and set a role on them, many lives may not suffer from the social standard that has been fixed for them. Man can show their real emotion like when they are on the low, they can express their feelings of sadness and do not have to put a mask on it or do not have to act aggressively and violence, in order to get an acceptation from people around you like what happened to Nwoye who is a gentle and not a cruel person but need to act like one because of his father’s desire. Women will have the rights to choose what they want to do and what they do not want to do and have not been treated as a slave for the husband. To sum up, both men and women will have more freedom and may be happier in the living when they can be whatever they want and there is no regulation to box them up.

Reference Adichie, C. N. (2012). We Should All Be Feminists. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_we_should_all_be_feminists?language=en

Olson, S. (2015). Male Gender Stereotypes Are Ruining Boys' Futures. Retrieved from https:// www.medicaldaily.com/what-it-means-be-man-how-male-gender-stereotypes-try-fit-growing-boysmold-and-fail-326450

Tocqueville, A.(n.d.). The Present and Probable Future Condition of the Three Races that Inhabit the Territory of the United States. Retrieved from https://e.edim.co/77762013/The_Present_Probable_Future...of_the_Three_Races_-_Alexis_de_Tocqueville.pdf?response-content-disposition=filename%3D%22The_Present___Probable_Future...of_the_Three_Races___Alexis_de_Tocqueville.pdf%22%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27The%2520Present%2520%2526%252 0Probable%2520Future...of%2520the%2520Three%2520Races%2520%2520Alexis%2520de%2520Tocqueville.pdf&Expires=1544018510&Signature=IRDouoYNkn7tW6EEsOXqgkr69~g~vIMQIhmRahc2-L6dM7mIX-DFnVXZuEuu7to1We959GHJdDzkf6lYT5V8BOWEeWbvc-OxQ9p3Y0BvpcufXfAunQpaOtbVoDLs9gKYn-ITXiVNfj4E~zUHW3rz2REspM6KDhTaKk8-Ooi067c8~ylNZJUAwvkvcVB6FAEBmUdT5UuNBQw-wUXkMkHFS2I8yZNdqi5j~Al85n4KXMiQekM1j~EsMLm43IsGq-EfD2gFmsbt-86A5KqQb9HzAoYg00a2jL6GySxa8qdtm~5m7A7uD8oWK03xWw0RqCXLouDiPiFSo94BGjjbs6OJoA__&Key-PairId=APKAJMSU6JYPN6FG5PBQ

Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008). Things Fall Apart Theme of Gender. Retrieved from https:// www.shmoop.com/things-fall-apart/gender-theme.html