shylock
Understanding the beliefs of a different culture is often difficult. From birth, people are surrounded with cultural values and traditions that are soon accepted as normal. It may often be challenging to comprehend another culture's beliefs without immediately judging their culture as a whole, therefore being prejudiced. Set in the late 19th century, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the struggle of the Ibo of Nigeria is explained as we learn about their unique culture. Women play a role that in our society today would be considered atrocious. They are thought of as feeble and are ordered around as if they were meaningless slaves. Throughout the novel, Achebe demonstrates the lack of respect for women and mistreatment of them, but manages to portray women, as mothers, in the highest regard. The main character, Okonkwo, is one of the many to abuse his wives. He has numerous wives who are often mistreated from the beginning of the book. Okonkwo gets furious when one of his wives asks a simple question about the length of Ikemefuna's stay (a young lad given to Okonkwo's tribe) debasing her and yelling. Later in the book, Okonkwo beats his youngest wife when she fails to cook diner and instead visits with her friend duri
Okonkwo expects different things from men and women. He expects for men to become highly respected, rich, and obeyed. However, he views a woman's best potential to be an obedient mother. Achebe shows us Okonkwo's beliefs through what he says and in the long-term way that he raises his children. The variances in his way of raising his children according to their sex show his stereotypical ideas. He says that, "She [Ezinma] should have been a boy." (p. 64). She had the proper spirit, but her gender ruined all possibilities of success, at least in the eyes of Okonkwo. He pushes his son, Nwoye, to become less feminine and more brave and strong. Okonkwo's views on sex all add to the bigger picture of why he acts the way he does. He essentially detests anything the slightest bit feminine, just because he doesn't want to be seen as his father was. Okonkwo viewed his father as a girlish loafer. Okonkwo did everything he could to escape that view. Luckily, in Ibo culture, a man's personal success is not based at all on that of his father's, as it was in many other early cultures. Okonkwo views women as weak and helpless beings. Other than the respect given for being a mother, women, in the Ibo culture, receive almost no admiration. Despite the little respect given to women, the Ibo understand the importance of mothers. To gain respect as a woman in Ibo society, you had to be a mother. Whether you were a mother of children or the land, you were shown respect. Even the men of this society could not underestimate the greatness of women's power to create life. In the Ibo culture, women and men have many differences. It is important to understand the differences between them and not to alienate or mistreat the other group, as were women in this novel. Often it is easy to push strong views of prejudice upon the minority, or weaker group. Demonstrating this understanding is crucial to have a functional, non-prejudiced culture. In the Ibo society, men hold the position of power in the home and the community. The author illustrates this by showing how women of the society were expected to serve their husbands. In the Ibo society, each night the wives of the men prepare their portion of the food that
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1503
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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