Representations of Masculinity and its relations with the Igbo culture in Achebe's Things Fall Apart

While I was reading Achebe's Things Fall Apart, I noticed that there were several moments in the story which highlighted masculinity and its importance within the Igbo tribe, so I decided to look for more information related to it. The first essay that caught my eye was Chinua's “African Literature as Restoration,” where I found the following quote:

“I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past - with all its imperfections - was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God's behalf delivered them” (Achebe, C. 1975)

This quote reinforced my beliefs about masculinity and gender being an important issue in this novel, and that it was one of the messages Achebe was trying to convey with it.

To begin with, it is paramount to understand what was the original (and obsolete) place of masculinity in the Igbo culture, and what being masculine meant. For Okonkwo's clan, in very vague terms, being masculine meant being strong enough to provide for one's family, fight in wars (if needed) and have at least one title. Okonkwo, instead, due to his tough childhood and background (his father owed everyone at the moment of his death and did not work a day in his life), took the tribe's tradition a bit too far; he wanted to be the exact opposite of his father.

His determination towards being masculine lead him to a successful life, in which he worked hard to provide for his three wives and his children. In fact, in the eyes of Okonkwo, it was so important for a clansman to be masculine that he was more bound to his adoptive child than to his own. Actually, he was more bond to his daughter than he was with Nwoye, who was never deemed promising since he felt attracted to child stories and disgusted by violence. In the end, Nwoye betrayed his clan as well as their beliefs by joining the English. 

"In a flash Okonkwo drew his machete. The messenger crouched to avoid the
blow. It was useless. Okonkwo's machete descended twice and the man's head lay beside his uniformed body." (Things fall apart, p.151)

Eventually I discovered not only how aggressive Okonkwo was, but also another reason behind this feature of his. Somehow, just like his son, he was not strong either, he was effeminate and afraid of change. Okonkwo was overattached to his culture to the point of fundamentalism, and he was willing to defend his ancestors' beliefs with his life.

His blindness was shared by the English invaders and, to a certain extent, the Ibo. The former were as aggressive as Okonkwo. They based their beliefs on the holy bible, a document that could not be argued against for it was God's word and there was no way they would ever negotiate. The latter, though not as masculine as the English anymore, also based their beliefs on something they were not willing to give up: their ancestors' experiences, which gave birth to the proverbs they used when speaking.

 

"Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs
are the palm-oil with which words are eaten." (Things fall apart, p.5)

Despite being masculinity, along with the strength it entails, the clan's tool for survival throughout history, it was also the clan's bane. In a mixture of fear of losing his own identity and shame of his clansman's cowardice, Okonkwo took his own life. After all, resistance is a man's feature.

References:

http://reading.cornell.edu/reading_project_05/documents/Scanlon.pdf

Achebe, Chinua. “African Literature as Restoration.” Petersen and Rutherford 1-18. Morning Yet on Creation Day. London: Heinemann, 1975.

Osei-Nyame, Kwadwo. (1999). "Chinua Achebe Writing Culture : Representations of Gender and Tradition in Things Fall Apart." in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 148-164.

Quayson, Ato. (1994). "Realism, Criticism, and the Disguises of Both: A Reading of Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" with an Evaluation of the Criticism Relating to It." in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 117-136