Role of Women in Things Fall Apart

By: Bolon Chadi

Introduction What Chinua Achebe mentioned in

Things Fall Apart really showed me that women had no rights what so ever in the Igbo society they were just like trash to men.

Women in Things Fall Apart were just toys that were being used to show that you were powerful.

Background Information: The Igbo Group

The Igbo’s are the second largest group of people in southern Nigeria

Their women were treated as dogs Their women would just stay at their

huts and take care of their children

Difference in Gender: Things Fall Apart/Qoutes

‘No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.’- This shows how deferential women are.

 ‘But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme.’- This shows a positive aspect about women, every single mother raised a man and when they are needed they go and seek refuge t their mothers.

Themes In Igbo culture, women are the weaker

sex, but are also endowed with qualities that make them worthy of worship, like the ability to bear children.

The dominant role for women is: first, to make a pure bride for an honorable man, second, to be a submissive wife, and third, to bear many children.

The ideal man provides for his family materially and has prowess on the battlefield.

The protagonist in the novel is extremely concerned with being hyper-masculine and devalues everything feminine, leaving him rather unbalanced.

Women’s house’s They were living in harsh

environments They lived with their children in one

hut In addition they get beaten up by

their husbands

Women and Men Role in Things Fall Apart

Women had to stay with their children in their hut

Women had to take care of their children and work in crops

Men had to bring money to their family

Men had to be great warriors to be acknowledged

Difference in Gender Women and men were different since

women was the weaker gender