Gender Roles In Things Fall Apart

In Chinua Achebe’s book Things Fall Apart the main character Okonkwo lives a successful life in the African society despite the many challenges he goes through. Near the end of the book, it tells of white missionaries who came and how they affected all that Okonkwo had worked so hard for. Even though they are not part of the major plotline, gender roles can be found abundantly throughout the book. In Things Fall Apart gender roles are a large part of the function of society, both in the family and socially.
In African families, there are many gender roles which contribute to the community as a whole. In the household, the man is the leader. He has power over everyone else in his family and can make decisions for them. He protects his household …show more content…
The men are supposed to be strong, tough, powerful. They try to never show signs of weakness in any way. One way they manifest these characteristics is by using violence. In the book “when the District Commissioner’s messengers arrive at the second village meeting, Okonkwo can only respond with the physical force that defines his understanding of masculinity” (Clare, Counihan). Okonkwo kills the messenger because he thinks it is what a true man would do, that a man would not fear violence. Another thing the men do is lead them in war with prowess, and fight any battles on behalf of the community. “In Things Fall Apart, when a zealous Christian convert kills the sacred python, it is the male village elders who take action” (Vanzanten, Susan). They saw it as their responsibility to protect their village, so they dealt with the abomination without the help of any female villagers. The social perception of women in the book is very different from the men. “It is impossible, especially for the contemporary reader, not to be struck by the portrayal of gender in Things Fall Apart, and the equating of weakness and inability with femaleness” (Vanzanten, Susan). In fact, women are considered to be of such a lower status than men, that they actually use it as an insult. When a clansmen contradicted something Okonkwo had said at a meeting, Okonkwo got mad and called him a woman. Everyone else was upset with Okonkwo for doing that, so he had to apologize (Achebe, Chinua). If the image of women was more positive in their community, the social structure would be very different, and the way the society functions would change dramatically. There are two examples that do a good job of showing the contrast between men and women among the people. The first is how their crime and punishment system works. “Umuofia conceptualizes crime in terms of “male” and “female” violations” (Clare, Counihan). The “male”