Umuofia And The Eight Villages example essay topic

Things Fall Apart is a novel written by China Achebe. I t takes place in the middle of the twentieth century, in Umuofia Africa. It is based on the life of its main character Okonkwo and his village. Okonkwo was a well known, accomplished man in his village. He was a man of two titles and he earned every bit of it.

Okonkwo's family included eight children, six sons and two daughters. He also had three wives which was also a symbol of wealth in Umuofia because in their village it was their custom to have men pay a bride price for their wives. Okonkwo worked very hard to obtain everything he had because his father Unoka left him with nothing but debt. Unoka, Okonkwo's father was a very lazy degenerate gambler of whom Okonkwo was ashamed of.

Unoka was often referred to as an, or a man with of no worth. Okonkwo overcame these negative aspects of his childhood, started with a small loan of yam seeds, and worked to become a very wealthy man. Everything in Umuofia seemed normal and seemed to be going well for Okonkwo and his family until Okonkwo committed a fatal action. The story then takes another turn when Okonkwo, his village, and the eight villages surrounding his were affected by the new coming European customs and laws... The village of Umuofia was located in the rainforest region Africa. The people of Umuofia were mainly farmers of root crops and herders of sheep and goat.

Their farming and herding was very successful and it provided a surplus which made way for their market. Umuofia and the eight villages surrounding it were male dominated villages, yet women were also very important because of their ability to give birth. The female's ability to conceive children was the most important and beneficial thing for a woman to do in Umuofia. Women also helped in farming, but they were limited to farming beans, cassava, and things that required light duty farming.

The men farmed the yam which was referred to as the king of crops because it required heavy labor and attentive care. The people of Umuofia were polytheistic, they had a long list of gods and goddesses such as Chukwu, who was believed to have created the world and the other gods, Ani, who was their earth goddess, Ambala, and many others. The Umuofians created carvings and other things that were symbolic of their gods. They worshipped their gods by way of various sacrifices and gifts such as the slayings of animals and gifts such as yams. Each person in Umuofia had their own chi, or personal god of which they saw as the factor that determined whether or not that person would lead a good and productive or bad and unfortunate life. The people of Umuofia had many important ceremonies such as their New Yam Festival in which they gave thanks to Ani.

They also had many wedding ceremonies and village meetings. The Umuofians ways of living displayed many strengths and weaknesses. Their strengths included things such as their discipline, their rewards for hard work, and their effective ways of farming. Their weaknesses included their taboos and somewhat foolish religious beliefs.

Umuofians were a disciplined people. They showed this discipline in many ways such as their punishment for crimes against the land which was demonstrated when Okonkwo had beaten his wife during the Weak of Peace. This discipline was also demonstrated when Okonkwo killed the son of a neighbor accidentally. Instead of revenge the village's custom was to place Okonkwo and his family in exile for seven years because it had been and accident. Had this killing been committed purposely Okonkwo would be given a different, more harsh punishment. The people of Umuofia also had a living system that allowed a man who worked extremely hard to become successful whether or not their parents had left him riches.

With a system such as theirs' a child born poorly can work his way up and be as successful as a child born rich. This was shown vividly in the explanation of Okonkwo's childhood. Okonkwo's father left him with nothing but debt and only taught him what not to do, yet Okonkwo became one of the youngest, most successful men in his village. He had conquered all odds, but had this been a different living system he probably would " ve become a peasant. Another thing shown as a strength was their way of farming. Umuofians farmed using the slash and burn method, where cut down bushes, placed the bushes in a pile, burned them, and planted their crops.

They also didn't farm in this same area more than once. After the harvest they dugout their crops and searched for another piece of fertile land. This method of farming was very successful and told us many things about their land. It told us that they had vast amounts of land because they didn't farm in the same place more than once and it also told us that Umuofians didn't have fertilizers to help keep their land fertile otherwise they would not have to go through the trouble of finding another piece of land to plant their crops. Their methods in not using the same piece of land told us that their crops were rich if the other factors such as the sun and rain played their parts as the fertility of the land did. These were just a few strengths of the village of Umuofia, there were many more.

Of course as with anything earthly, Where there's a good, there's a bad and Umuofians displayed several of these "bad's". As I stated earlier Umuofians were a very superstitious group of folk and they were polytheistic. While their religious beliefs were logic to them, they were illogical to many others. These beliefs included the killing of twins immediately after birth, the division from what they referred to as o su, and what they called.

The people of Umuofia believed that twins were evil so they dealt with this evil by throwing the babies into what they called the Evil Forrest and left their babies to starve and die. These actions resulted in a division from the women who had conceived many twins because people started to view the mothers as evil people. The o su people were dedicated to a god and were basically outcasts. They had to identify themselves by growing their hair and were not allowed to interact with the "freeborn" in any way. This also resulted in a division but was shown clearly after the Europeans had settled and Christianity was brought to Umuofia. But even the Umuofians who'd been converted to Christianity gave the o su trouble and this too resulted in a slight division.

Ogbanje was believed to be "a child who repeatedly dies and returns to its mother to be reborn. Umuofians believed that this would happen time and time again until the child's ii-u wa was found and destroyed. The ii-u wa was believed to be a stone linking to the spirit world..