Things Fall Apart Chapter 14

Part Two of the novel truly is the beginning of a different life for Okonkwo and his family. It is interesting that Achebe presents us as readers very little information about the crime Okonkwo committed; we are told simply that his gun accidentally kills a boy, and he is banished for it. Effectively, everything falls apart for Okonkwo. In Mbanta, his motherland, Okonkwo and his family are given land to construct an obi, three huts, and farmland. They arrive at Mbanta right at the beginning of the planting season, but work seems to have taken on a new light in Okonkwo’s mind. Indeed, in being banished, he appears to have lost a significant amount of motivation. Okonkwo once longed to become a lord of the clan. He had been close, but “everything had been broken.” Achebe makes the connection that Okonkwo’s failure is due to the fatalistic destiny of his chi. Uchendu, Okonkwo’s uncle, picks up on his nephew’s dispair. He recounts the tales of a select few who have suffered more than Okonkwo has and drives home the point that all is not lost.

At the end of the chapter, Uchendu, in his lecture to Okonkwo, brings up two interesting points about women in their culture: women are always buried with their relatives, not the relatives of the husband, and a child beaten by his father always seeks shelter in his mother’s hut. Okonwko has come to seek shelter in the motherland after being banished by his village. This is a striking connection.

How do Uchendu’s points contrast with the perception of women of previous chapters? If women are indeed this important, why does Okonkwo have such an aversion to anything feminine?