Chinua Achebe 16 November 1930 - 21 March 2013
was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic.
His first novel Things Fall Apart (1958), often considered his masterpiece, is the most widely read book in modern African literature.
The literary works of Chinua Achebe basically revolve around issues touching directly or indirectly on cultural traditions, effects of colonization and internal conflicts existing among contemporary Africans.
Character List
Okonkwo
Nwoye
Ezinma
Ikemefuna
Mr.Brown
Reverend James Smith
Uchendu
The District Commissioner
Unoka
Obierika
Ekwefi
Enoch
Ogbuefi Ezeudu
Chielo
Akunna
Nwakibi
Mr. Kiaga
Okagbue Uyanwa
Maduka
Obiageli
Ojiugo
Important Questions
Title Significance
Themes
As a Postcolonial Novel
Character of Okonkwo
Ibgo Culture
Representation of society
Superstitions
Summary
Okonkwo

Umuofia clan, a lower Nigerian tribe that is part of a consortium of nine connected villages
Unoka
Nwoye
In a settlement with a neighboring tribe, Umuofia wins a virgin and a fifteen-year-old boy
Okonkwo takes charge of the boy, Ikemefuna, and finds an ideal son in him.
Week of Peace | Okonkwo accuses his youngest wife, Ojiugo
Ikemefuna stays with Okonkwo’s family for three years.
One day, the locusts come to Umuofia
Ogbuefi Ezeudu, a respected village elder, informs Okonkwo in private that the Oracle has said that Ikemefuna must be killed.
Ikemefuna thinks about seeing his mother
Ikemefuna runs to Okonkwo for help.
But Okonkwo, who doesn’t wish to look weak in front of his fellow tribesmen, cuts the boy down despite the Oracle’s admonishment.
When Okonkwo returns home, Nwoye deduces that his friend is dead.
Okonkwo sinks into a depression, neither able to sleep nor eat.
He visits his friend Obierika and begins to feel revived a bit.
Okonkwo’s daughter Ezinma falls ill, but she recovers after Okonkwo gathers leaves for her medicine.
The death of Ogbuefi Ezeudu
Tragedy compounds upon itself when Okonkwo’s gun explodes and kills Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s sixteen-year-old son.

killing a clansman is a crime against the earth goddess, Okonkwo must take his family into exile for seven years in order to atone.
Okonkwo’s kinsmen, especially his uncle, Uchendu, receive him warmly.
During the second year of Okonkwo’s exile, Obierika brings several bags of cowries (shells used as currency) that he has made by selling Okonkwo’s yams.
Obierika plans to continue to do so until Okonkwo returns to the village.
Obierika also brings the bad news that Abame, another village, has been destroyed by the white man.
Soon afterward, six missionaries travel to Mbanta. Through an interpreter named Mr. Kiaga, the missionaries’ leader, Mr. Brown, speaks to the villagers.
He tells them that their gods are false and that worshipping more than one God is idolatrous. But the villagers do not understand how the Holy Trinity can be accepted as one God.
Although his aim is to convert the residents of Umuofia to Christianity, Mr. Brown does not allow his followers to antagonize the clan.
Mr. Brown grows ill and is soon replaced by Reverend James Smith
The District Commissioner is upset by the burning of the church and requests that the leaders of Umuofia meet with him.
After the prisoners are released, the clansmen hold a meeting, during which five court messengers approach and order the clansmen to desist.
Okonkwo realizes that his clan is not willing to go to war.
Okonkwo has hanged himself.
Obierika and his friends lead the commissioner to the body.
Obierika explains that suicide is a grave sin; thus, according to custom, none of Okonkwo’s clansmen may touch his body.
The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
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