Things Fall Apart Characters Essay Research Paper

Things Fall Apart Characters Essay, Research Paper CHARACTERS Akunna – Akunna is a clan leader of Umuofia. He and Mr. Brown discuss their religious beliefs peacefully. Neither converts the other, but they learn more about the other’s faith. Mr. Brown – Mr. Brown is the first white missionary to travel to Umuofia. He institutes a policy of compromise and understanding between his flock and the clan. He does not like his flock to antagonize the clan. He even becomes friends with prominent clansmen. He builds a school and a hospital in Umuofia and urges the clan to send their children to school. He warns them that if they do not learn to read and write, strangers who can will come and overtake them. Chielo – Chielo is a priestess in Umuofia. She is dedicated to the

Oracle of the goddess Agbala. In ordinary life, she is a widow with two children. She is good friends with Ekwefi and is fond of Ezinma, whom she calls “my daughter.” The District Commissioner – The District Commissioner is an authority figure in the white colonial government in Nigeria. He is the typical, racist colonist who understands nothing of native African customs or cultures and has no respect for them. Ekwefi – Ekwefi is Okonkwo’s second wife. He won her heart when he defeated Amalinze the Cat in a wrestling contest in his youth. He was too poor to pay her bride-price then. A few years later, she ran away from her first husband to live with Okonkwo. She was the village beauty in her youth. Ezinma is her only surviving child. Her first nine children died in

their infancy, and Ekwefi constantly fears that she will lose Ezinma as well. Ekwefi is good friends with Chielo, the priestess of the goddess Agbala. Enoch – Enoch is a zealous convert to the Christian church in Umuofia. He rips the mask off an egwugwu during an annual ceremony to honor the earth deity. Enoch’s action is equivalent to killing an ancestral spirit, so the egwugwu burn his compound and the Christian church to cleanse the village of Enoch’s terrible sin against the indigenous faith. This leads to a clash between the indigenous and colonial justice systems that ends with Okonkwo’s suicide, a grave sin in Umuofia’s belief system. Ezinma – Ezinma is the only child of Okonkwo’s second wife, Ekwefi. Ekwefi’s first nine children died in infancy, so Ezinma

is the center of her mother’s world. She and her mother have a relationship that is more like that between equals than that between parent and child. She is also Okonkwo’s favorite child because she looks like her mother when Ekwefi was the village beauty. He is also fond of her because she understands him best of all his children. They develop an even closer bond when Okonkwo must spend seven years in exile in his mother’s native village. Okonkwo rarely demonstrates his affection, however, because he thinks it makes him look weak. Okonkwo also wishes Ezinma were a boy because she would have been the perfect son. Ikemefuna – Ikemefuna’s father murders a woman from Umuofia. Umuofia delivers a message to the murderer’s village that they must give Umuofia a young man and

a virgin or go to war. The offending village gives Ikemefuna and a young maiden. The maiden becomes the wife of the murdered woman’s husband. Umuofia’s clan leaders do not know what to do with Ikemefuna so they give him to Okonkwo. Ikemefuna lives in the hut of Okonkwo’s first wife. He quickly becomes popular with Okonkwo’s children. He develops an especially close relationship with Nwoye, Okonkwo’s oldest son. Okonkwo becomes very fond of Ikemefuna as well, but he does not demonstrate his affection because he thinks it makes him look weak. Ikemefuna is the perfect clansman, and he calls Okonkwo “father.” After three years, the elders consult the Oracle about Ikemefuna’s fate. The Oracle tells them to kill Ikemefuna. The elders tell Okonkwo not to take a hand in