Questions about Irony
The two most prominent examples of irony in Things Fall Apart are the District Commissioner’s novel, and the death of Okonkwo. After the entirety of the novel, the description of a whole world and culture with copious amounts of people, after the gigantic critical tragedy of Okonkwo, the District Commissioner decides to write a book. He ponders of giving this great man, powerful leader, a replete life, a single paragraph in his novel, “The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.” This man’s deep, impactful life, can be told in a single paragraph. But only by cutting out details, cutting out what is important, the humanistic substantial side of the story. The District Commissioner excludes the truthful …show more content…
Men hold power over women, and the overall leaders are men who exert maximum time and effort, own and farm an abounding amount of land, have a various number of wives, and devote their lives to their ancestors and faith. Traditional life is built around organized gender roles, and the compliance of women to their husbands. While women are worshipped for their variation, they are also given separate huts, seen as insignificant in their futile emotions, and are given alternative uncomplicated duties. In agriculture, women are denied the right to plant yams, as they are an intricate symbol of masculinity. “Yam, the king of crops, was a very exacting king. For three or four moons it demands hard work and constant attention from cock-crow till the chickens went back to roost” (Achebe 33). Men who are outcast in are called the Osu, and are unable to ever cut their hair, wed, or given a proper burial. These men, along with others who speak their mind or disagree with the customs are outcasts. They are seen as irrelevant and shameful, and are also the first to convert when the Christians welcome them. “These outcasts, or osu, seeing that the new religion welcomed twins and such abominations, thought that it was possible that they would also be received. And so one Sunday two of them went into the church”
The two most prominent examples of irony in Things Fall Apart are the District Commissioner’s novel, and the death of Okonkwo. After the entirety of the novel, the description of a whole world and culture with copious amounts of people, after the gigantic critical tragedy of Okonkwo, the District Commissioner decides to write a book. He ponders of giving this great man, powerful leader, a replete life, a single paragraph in his novel, “The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.” This man’s deep, impactful life, can be told in a single paragraph. But only by cutting out details, cutting out what is important, the humanistic substantial side of the story. The District Commissioner excludes the truthful …show more content…
Men hold power over women, and the overall leaders are men who exert maximum time and effort, own and farm an abounding amount of land, have a various number of wives, and devote their lives to their ancestors and faith. Traditional life is built around organized gender roles, and the compliance of women to their husbands. While women are worshipped for their variation, they are also given separate huts, seen as insignificant in their futile emotions, and are given alternative uncomplicated duties. In agriculture, women are denied the right to plant yams, as they are an intricate symbol of masculinity. “Yam, the king of crops, was a very exacting king. For three or four moons it demands hard work and constant attention from cock-crow till the chickens went back to roost” (Achebe 33). Men who are outcast in are called the Osu, and are unable to ever cut their hair, wed, or given a proper burial. These men, along with others who speak their mind or disagree with the customs are outcasts. They are seen as irrelevant and shameful, and are also the first to convert when the Christians welcome them. “These outcasts, or osu, seeing that the new religion welcomed twins and such abominations, thought that it was possible that they would also be received. And so one Sunday two of them went into the church”