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.
