Journal

6-19-07
log in 1
ch1
Okonkwo, although praised by many, is a coward because he let's his fear control his life, his fear of becoming anything like his father, and his fear turns into anger and he takes out that anger on his wives and children, they live in fear of him so much that they aren't living at all! Don't his wives ever wonder how their lives could have been if they hadn't married him? He beats then half to death every time he gets mad and he doesn't care what they think, and although I know it's their culture, how can the women live being treated as if they were worthless slaves?

6-20-07
log in 2
pg 12
what really caught my eye here was how the clan chose Okonkwo to go to Mbaino and show the proposal, was it because he was the most qualified? did he volunteer? or was it because he was the man that looked most aggressive and they wanted to scare them? Another thing I noticed was how all the other clan's were afraid of Umuofia, was that another one of the reasons Okonkwo grew up into the violent man he is? because he was surrounded by warriors and his father was a wimp? and as for the woman that died it could have been an accident like when Okonkwo's gun exploded

6-22-07
log in 3
pg 24
o.k. so i see why everyone respects Okonkwo he is a really hard-worker but i think that was a bit exaggerated when the man hung himself it was only one year of harvest Unoka survived and he almost messed up his land every year they could have survived besides i would have thought a man from that culture would think twice before committing an abomination to the earth goddess.

6-26-07
log in 4
pg 29
In this scene Okonkwo gets very angry with his third wife and beats her during the sacred week and as Ezeani points out I don't think it would be justified even if he beat her during any other time of the year either, another thing I noticed was how Achebe wrote that Okonkwo was not a man to stop beating someone halfway-through even for fear of a goddess....does that mean Okonkwo is not afraid of anything at all? Is he afraid of losing his honor? what would happen I wonder if he was stripped of his pride?

6-27-07
log in 5
pg 39
First of all if Okonkwo was angry in the first place he shouldn't have taken out his anger on his wife when she had done nothing wrong and did not deserve to be nearly killed for plucking a few leaves! Another thing I was wondering, would he really have killed her as simple as that? Did he not care at all for her welfare? would he have had any guilt at all in killing her, and how would the clan have responded? when he jumped over the wall after he had fired the gun was it an act of sudden regret or just to see if he had made the shot?

6-30-07
log in 6
pg 43
When I read the small piece when Obiageli made her mother believe she had accidentally broken her pot when she had actually made a joke of it, it made me think of unfairness in the world and how people get away with such things very easily. Even though it was a small incident it could have caused great inflict on her approaching woman hood and how she could possibly grow up thinking she could get away with such things. Enzima on the other hand was greatly in my favor she seems to be what Okonkwo would have been had he had a successful father.

7-1-07
log in 7
ch 6
This whole chapter was devoted to the wrestling matches so I thought it must be important in their culture and there is also the fact of how the wrestlers were described as intoxicated with the rhythm of the drums and it all seemed very exciting and I must admit even if I hadn't liked anything else in the novel I would have appreciated this because they managed to keep the soul and spirit of their clan awake and alive. I really liked how some of the passages were described because it seemed as if this was one of the cultural things that had more to do with unity than the wrestling itself.

7-3-07
log in 8
pg 52 & 53
These few pages were about Nwoye and how much better he was doing now that Ilkemefuna was living with them and how he was finally shaping up to the son Okonkwo wanted but while Nwoye acted more masculine there were a few things that made me think that Nwoye was still too young to be acting like a man, like how he preferred his mothers stories that explained about the earth to the stories his father told him of how he obtained his first human head. I just think maybe Nwoye needs to have a more caring Father.

7-4-07
log in 9
pg 57
Why does Ilkemefuna have to die? what did he do that made him have to be killed? they said he brought some sort of bad luck to the clan but i don't understand from what I read he actually improved Okonkwo's family when he was there. Nwoye was greatly influenced by him and when he was killed Nwoye became the son that Okonkwo dreaded he became more sensitive in his point of view and I don't know why Okonkwo had to go with the party even Ezeudu told him not to take any part in it, yet Okonkwo had to go. But what upset me most was how when Ilkemefuna realized what had happened to him he turned to his father, a father that he had come to appreciate, and that father beheaded him to look good in front of the clan, which half of the clan didn't like what he did anyways and it almost killed Okonkwo too! Okonkwo's actions in this section really lowered his value for me.

7-06-07
log in 10
ch 8
In this chapter Okonkwo attends some sort of meeting where they arrange the bridal price and if they're going to get married. this wasn't so rare to me because in that time dowry's were still going around it isn't that rare for the women to have had to pay to get married of course even if it happened in America too it doesn't mean it's a good tradition it was originally paying so the man could marry the women and take her off her families hands since she was no use to the family name however as time went on they only kept that tradition because it was custom.

7-13-07
log in 11
ch9
In this chapter Enzima seems to be dying or she is sick with iba and with this illness comes memories of Ekwefi's earlier children that died and how she was finally getting over her grief when Enzima gets sick, now it says that the reason Ekwefi kept bearing children that died was that the child was an Obganje and the only way to stop it from its cycle was to find it's iyi-uwa and destroy it now to me this all sounds very fictional and hard to believe like how did Enzima bury a stone way deep in the ground it's very very hard to believe and it almost makes me think the medicine man placed the stone there on purpose either that or the author just placed it there just because and that sort of thing doesn't happen at all.

7-15-07
log in 12
pg 89
During this scene the author explains that when a woman sees a egwugu she naturally tries to run, and I want to know why? Did the author just say that because he thinks all women are afraid and that men are the more valiant of the two? Another thing why is Okonkwo one of the egwugu? and doesn't he feel like he's a big fraud when he acts like an egwugu or does he think that the spirit is controlling him or something? and that whole hut thing about the women not being allowed inside because they're so important and everything, does anyone even live in there? because the men have their own huts and obviously they can't leave their huts and go in the other hut just to make the impression that somebody lives there? The whole thing just upset me.

7-16-07
log in 13
pg 92
I really liked how in this part the brothers of Mgbafo really protected her and the family name, they seemed very supportive of Mgbafo's decision to leave and it made me rethink about what I had said before about how the men think the women only exist to please them, i mean I'm sure there are plenty men who think like this but the way they acted seemed very calm, honest and angry I don't know if they were acting like this to protect their honor or their sister but either way Ozowulu had it coming and I'm glad they put an end to the beating.

7-17-07
log in 14
pg 101 -108
I really don't understand the meaning of this event, when Chielo takes Enzima to Agbala what does she do there? why did she need her? and why doesn't Chinua ever explain what it means? what was the point of placing it there if we were never going to find out what it meant in the story. Was the point to show that even through his tough outer shell Okonkwo was still very worried about his daughter? I'm not quite sure and the whole thing annoyed me because we never found out what happened in the cave or why Chielo needed her, Did Chielo plan to take Enzima so she could finally expose Okonkwo's true caring fatherly side?

7-21-07
log in 15
pg113
Everyone seemed very excited on the day that Obierka's daughter was celebrating her uri, it seems like it's one of the things that people like to make a big deal out of, but Achebe says that it is mostly a woman ceremony and the central people are the mother and bride, when I thought about this I wondered if the men were necessary in this ceremony and if they weren't then was this just some sort of get together so all the men could just have a good time and talk?

7-23-07
log in 16
pg 112
Another thing that caught my eye in this section was how completely exhausted Okonkwo was because he was so worried. what had he been worried about? I mean i know he was worried about his daughter and wife but what did he imagine could happen to them? Did he not trust the priestess with his daughter? I wonder if he would have been as worried if the same thing had happened to his other daughter Obiageli? and when Achebe writes that Okonkwo went to the shrine after what he thought was a "manly interval" but he brought his machete with him, why? Before I read this part Okonkwo seemed sort of fictional but now he seems much more humane.

7-27-07
log in 17
pg 116-117
During this section the men were having some sort of get together with the suitor's family but it was not only a get together, it seemed like if the daughter's friends and family were deciding if they were marrying her to a noble family they liked, I wonder what would have happened if they had not approved of the pots of wine the suitor had brought? Okonkwo said that they would not dare bring less than thirty and if they did he would tell them his mind but what would the visitors do? From what I've read they would have been offended but would they call off the marriage or just be in disagreement with the other family for the rest of their lives?

7-28-07
log in 18
pg 121
there were a couple of things that interested me in this section but I will start with what I first read in this section Ezeudu dies he is a great warrior so everyone makes a great big deal about it, everyone wishes to send him off in a worthy farewell so there are dances and drums and cannons what caught my attention was when Achebe was describing all of this he also mentioned that young men jumped around in a frenzy cutting down trees, killing animals, jumping over walls, and dancing on roofs. I understand that he was a great warrior and everyone wanted to pay him respects but what is the point of doing all of those things? Another thing one of the ancestral spirits was very violent and wanted to attack people and was only stopped because other brave young men restrained them but what was the reason he wanted to attack? was it really because he was possessed by the evil spirit?

7-29-07
log in 19
pg 124
In this chapter Okonkwo kills a fellow clansman and in doing so he has to flee from his father land and into his motherland, this act was not on purpose but it was done however Achebe wrote that violent killings were frequent however inadvertent crimes were not so my question is what happened to the people that committed violent killings? And why were the people of Umuofia more shocked at the inadvertent crimes than the violent ones? I knew something had to happen when I was reading the chapters before, I just didn't know what and this really surprised me it surprised me by how it was committed and what the consequences were.

8-2-07
log in 20
pg 131
Around the time of Okonkwo's exile when he's in Mbanta he gets very depressed, all his life he has worked to be one of the lords of the clan, something his father never achieved, when he gets exiled he feels like he has nothing to live for even if he goes back to Umuofia in seven years he will no longer have such a grand effect in the clan.The whole reason Okonkwo had such a passion to work was the reward of his fame around his clan which would have been given to him when he succeeded. To have something so precious taken away from him I can't imagine how he survived.

8-4-07
log in 21
pg 134
I really appreciated the speech Uchendu gave in this section, I liked it for not only what he said in it but also because he said it for Okonkwo's benefit. He spoke about how when a child is happy and everything is good he looks to his fatherland but when things become bitter and it is not going so well he seeks his mother. To me Uchendu's speech was very well thought out and it seems very logical. Uchendu gave this speech so Okonkwo could understand not only that he was welcome in his motherland but also so he could tell him to get on with his life that he wasn't the first man to suffer.

8-5-07
log in 22
pg 20
I was rereading the novel when i came upon a passage that really caught my attention, in this passage Okonkwo asks Nwakibi for a favor but before this happens they hand out some palm-wine everyone is drinking when Nwakibi calls for his wives, four of them come out but not one of them can drink without the first wife drinking before them, when the first wife
Anasi comes out she is described so differently from the other women she is described so much like a leader. It really impressed me.

8-7-07
log in 23
pg 138
In this passage Obierka speaks a village where a white man came and the elders consulted the oracle and were told that a white man would come break up the clan and spread destruction among them it is true that that the white men did come and kill the people but the oracles words seem as if they were meant more for Umuofia than anybody in the other village because in the other village the white men didn't get a chance to break up the unity of the clan, they all died together umuofia is broken apart and no longer united when they realize what the white man has done.

8-8-07
log in 24
pg 140
In this section Uchendu and Okonkwo both angrily exclaim that the men of Abame were fools but they each say different reasons for why the men were fools. Uchendu said they were fools because they didn't know anything about the man and he had said nothing perhaps the whole thing could have been avoided had they not killed the man. Okonkwo said they were fools because they had been warned once already the people should have been armed and ready for a war. The way I see it Okonkwo and Uchendu are both right however when the white man came into their village did act on their thoughts? Did they arm themselves or did they laugh at the white man's customs? Umuofia and Mbaino were also fools, it is very easy to say what should be done it is much harder to act on those things.