Things Fall Apart Summary: Chapters 14 - 19

Okonkwo travels to Mbanta, the new town where he will be staying for seven years to pay for his sin. His family receive him with joy and gives Okonkwo some yams to start working in his new farm. He had always loved working but now he starts to feel depressed, he is not as motivated as he had always been and is having a hard time because his biggest dream had always been to become a leader of his town and with the situation he was facing he was starting to lose all his hope.

While he is in the new village, Uchendu, Okonkwo’s uncle, talks about the importance of woman. How mothers are the one’s that take care of the children and form a very special part in families.  He tells Okonkwo how he must take care of all his wives and children. Okonkwo keeps thinking women are weak.

Some time later, Okonkwo’s best friend, Obierika, comes to visit him. He brings some bags with money since he has been taking care and selling his yams. Obierika tells him that a white man who was riding an iron horse had gone to Abame where he was killed and some time later, more white men returned and killed almost all  the members in the clan. Since the first man who was killed, didn’t say anything they can’t know what will happen next or what situations they can be exposed to.

Two years later, Obierika returns to make another visit to Okonkwo. He tells him that he has seen Nwoye with the Christian missionaries. Nwoye has converted because a white man called Mr. Kiaga has convinced him, that there’s only a true God who is Jesus. The clan starts to discuss with this man since he starts talking about the Holy Trinity when he had said at the beginning that there was only one God. Everyone thinks he is insane. They all get mad because the white man tells them that all their Gods in which they believe are false and don’t really exist.

The evengelists starts to get more powerful and ask for a piece of land to build their church. The memebers of the clan decide to give them a portion of the evil forest, which is the place where the people with evil diseases were buried. Nwoye’s cousin sees him with all the Christians and goes immediately to tell Okonkwo. Okonkwo gets very mad and almost chokes Nwoye he asks him to tell him where he has been or he will kill him. Okonkwo feels confused and disappointed since he considers Nwoye behaves like a woman.

People start joining the church, which has more and more followers everyday. Outcast persons start to feel identified with Christians and they start becoming very popular since they accept all kind of people they even take care of twins and such strange things. One day a man gets the church into serious conflict with the clan since he kills a royal python who was the most revered animal in most of the surrounding clans.

Finally seven years have passed and Okonkwo is ready to return to Umofia. He gathers the members of Mbanta and makes a big feast to thank everyone. A man starts greeting Okonkwo and shows his gratefulness for all the food and attentions he has had with all of them.

Reference:

Achebe, C. (1994). Things fall apart. New York, Anchor Books.

Things Fall Apart: Chapter 15

Obierika comes to visit Okonkwo to his new village, to see how he is doing and to take him some money from his yams that he had been selling. Obierika tells him about the White man that arrived to the village, he came riding in an iron horse, everyone was afraid and the Oracle ordered to kill him. They tied his horse to a tree and didn’t say anything when he was killed. Some time later other white men came to Umofia and shoot everyone in the market place.

After hearing the story Obierika told them, Okonkwo used this situation to show his family a lesson. He tells a tale about Mother Kite, who sent his daughter to buy food. When her daughter returns, she had brought a duckling and told her that the duckling’s mother hadn’t said anything to her. Mother Kite asks her daughter to return the duckling, her daughter goes to the market and this time returns with a chick. Mother Kite tells her that they will eat it beacause the chick’s mother had cried for him.

Okonkwo says that there is something rare and mysterious hidden under silence. You must not kill someone who remains silent because you won’t know what that person can make later. When the daughter of Mother Kite went with the chick’s mother, she shouted and cried so they knew that if they killed and ate the chick the mother would shout and cry. 

For example, if everytime your friend gets mad she screams, cries and makes a fuss about it, you will know that when you do something bad to him he will react that way. In the other side, a person who says nothing and when he gets mad stays in silence, will not show you his feelings and you will never know what he can be thinking or what he is planning to do. So this is what happened with the white man, he was killed and stayed silent but then his clan returned and killed everybody else. “Never kill a man who says nothing.”

Reference:

Achebe, C. (1994). Things fall apart. New York, Anchor Books.