A Feminist Approach to Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

          In my upcoming essay for AP Literature, I will be applying a look at the novel Things Fall Apart using a theoretical text on feminism in literature and history as a lens by which I will view the novel. The novel is set in a male-dominated world that holds "manliness" to be a desirable trait. In my essay I will be examining the role and relationships that the main character, Okonkwo, holds as he keeps up his stoic hot-bloodedness. In the first part of the novel, while Okonkwo is still present in his own tribe, we see a world filled with heavy gender discrimination. Most of them men in the tribe, Okonkwo in particular, seem to hold the ancient Greek position on women as introduced by the theoretical text: "Women... lure men away from... attaining their full potential." Okonkwo is set upon the idea that women are weak, and weakness is to be avoided at all cost. Upon banishment, Okonkwo finds himself in his motherland where he finds himself in conflict with the "womanly" place. Here women are given more equality, and Okonkwo bitterly spends his years in exile as he refuses to adjust and expose his emotions.

        Throughout my essay I plan to examine the various female characters in addition to Okonkwo's place among them. In particular I will go in depth on the roles of wives in the culture, how it is socially acceptable to use women, beat them, and have multiple wives. In addition, I will attempt to comment on Okonkwo's relationship with his daughter Ezinma, whom he wishes were a son of his. Women in the world Achebe describes are given degrading roles that stand in contrast to our current American viewpoint on the place of women, one of near equality. I look forward to my opportunity to analyze the role of women from a feminist perspective in the novel.

Technopoly: A Confliction with Tradition

Technology trumps tradition, at least according to Neil Postman's book, Technopoly. You see, tradition, by definition, does not change. And in a world where technology improves rapidly, where the desire for the newest technologies never goes away, tradition quickly becomes outdated. Technology as a part of society "...does not make [traditions] illegal. It does not make them immoral. It does not even make them unpopular. It makes them invisible and therefore irrelevan" (Postman 48). Postman's describes a society ruled by technology as a "technopoly," and compares it to the world of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (more on that later). Throughout the chapter I am examining, Postman describes a transition from a technocracy - an uneasy balance between technological innovation and tradition - to a full-blown technopoly. Postman envisions this as the future of the world, and this transition well describes the backstory of the society in Brave New World. In the novel, there is little to no desire for religion, art, politics, privacy, and intelligence. Postman's analysis of the history of the technopoly helps provide insight into Huxley's vision of the future, as if Postman were providing a timeline of Huxley's novel. Whether or not the future will unfold into something akin to Brave New World remains to be seen. However, Postman's look at the history of technology's rise suggests a continuing trend towards a technology-run world. Whereas Huxley cites Henry Ford's influence as the rise of the technopoly in Brave New World, Postman credits Frederick W. Taylor's The Principle of Scientific Management as the beginnings of America's technopoly. Well, a documentation of it, anyway. In the book, the outline of the technopoly is set and defined. This technopoly, Postman claims, is already in place in America, and soon will become a worldwide standard. Personally I disagree; I think we are still in a technocary. And yet, with the way the world is progressing, a technopoly seems inevitable.

An Inevitable Future

Sometime in the past year I came to the conclusion that I am glad to be living in this time period. No earlier into the past, no further into the future. If I were to have lived in a past time, I wouldn't be able enjoy the advancing technology that defines much of my life and continues to advance every day. Ironically, it is this same technology, among other things, that makes me grateful to not be of the generations to come. As pointed out in a Time Magazine article on the Singularity, technologically is increasing exponentially, as it has for the past 100 years, and is reaching the point where current technology will quickly become outdated. This means that technology is becoming faster faster. You might think this is a good thing, and in many ways it is, but there are several paranoia-inducing implications that accompany these facts. Computers are becoming smarter, and inevitably they will one day surpass humans in their intelligence. But they won't stop there. Computers' artificial intelligence will continue to increase past that of humans, leaving human intelligence behind them. And just what does this mean for humanity? It means things are going to get complicated for the human race.


In the article, Raymond Kurzweil, inventor and predictor of technologies, tells of how humans must merge with machines in order to remain relevant. The Singularity I mentioned earlier is a concept of how the standard of humanity will one day change as technology catches up to that of the human brain. Kurzweil envisions a future where humans must merge with robots to remain relevant, and perhaps become immortal in the process. There is, however, some controversy and objection comes up whenever this subject is discussed. For one, there is the complexity and dependency on biological functions that exist within the brain. "Although biological components act in ways that are comparable to those in electronic circuits, they are set apart by... multiple biochemical processes..., further diversified by association with distinct structures at defined locations of a cell. The resulting combinatorial explosion of states endows living systems with an almost infinite capacity to store information regarding past and present conditions and a unique capacity to prepare for future events," argues biologist Dennis Bray. And with regards to immortality, Kurzweil comments, "The idea of significant changes to human longevity — that seems to be particularly controversial. People invested a lot of personal effort into certain philosophies dealing with the issue of life and death. I mean, that's the major reason we have religion." To make scientific use of immortality certainly seems to clash with many religions' idea of immortality, not to mention the physical problems associated with it - overpopulation being a chief concern. Kurzweil's field of study, futurism, brings about much controversy, but is necessary in that it provides realistic speculation for the future, and allows us to better prepare for the inevitable.


Recently I have read Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World, in which society has progressed beyond that of human control; rather, humans are but a part of one big assembly line, manufactured to do a certain job, to enjoy said job, and to continue the existence of the world without a care for individual freedom. Interestingly, the novel was written in the 1930s, yet contains much relevance to modern society and the future. In the novel, the main character Bernard is among a minority of those unhappy with his society's lack of individuality. However, Bernard's concerns are only part of the minority because the majority are made to blindly enjoy anything they do (or take drugs to alleviate any troubles). In a world where humans are no longer in control, it's difficult to determine whether we will still have our defining characteristics of humanity. Whatever the case, I'm glad to be living in this time period. No earlier into the past, no further into the future.

An Analysis of Unrestricted Writing

In Ninth Grade, Mrs. Motsenbocker taught us the helpful but all too restricting Schaffer style of writing. It served its purpose, but hindered most attempts at cracking into our writing potential, attempts to write to the best of our abilities in whatever way serves us best. Tenth Grade came, and Ms. Greene taught us to attempt to break free of Schaffer's grasp. I tried, but the year of forced rigidity still had its influence on me. Then came Menendian. Mr. Menendian threw us into the deep end; the ones that learned to swim were the ones that survived. And I came out of his class able to swim laps with relative ease. Was I a bad writer before Eleventh Grade? No, but that stressful year did wonders to sharpen my abilities.

This leaves me with an interesting perspective. As I read the article "'Once There Were Two Towers': Describing Tragedy to Children After 9/11" on Student Pulse, a website of essays written by students (mostly college age, I assume), I couldn't help but notice the free style of writing, the kind I have grown to use. For example, the author of this article, Joshua Feblowitz, repeatedly uses the pronoun "we" in reference to the things "we" as a nation have done to convey the trauma of 9/11 to children who either were not alive at the time or were too young to remember it or understand the implications and significance of this historically tragic event. There are times when Feblowitz goes on for a whole paragraph without citing and discussing something but rather speaking relevantly on the subject (although, I must admit, this is rather due largely to the fact that the source of his article is an event rather than a piece of literature, as is commonly the subject of my essays). From Mr. Menendian's class, I have learned to write about a subject or piece of evidence as I see fit, not limiting myself to the "two sentences of commentary" that was forced on me with Schaffer style.

Feblowitz pulls evidence for analysis from various sources discussing the topic at hand, just as Mr. Menendian taught us to (optionally, I must point out) add literary criticism into our articles as a means of showing different points of view on the subject at hand. He writes the article in such a way as to not bore the reader with overly technical and ancient-sounding vocabulary, while also not sacrificing a feeling of intelligence and validity in his points. This article is an example of the type of writing that I strive for with each of my essays, something that I believe I am able to achieve thanks to my education (natural talent helps too).