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GENDER

 The society of the Igbo people is most probably found to be dominated by the males. Women are considered to be weak and not treated with respect. It is often found that the women are not given any right to perform any activity on their own. Okonko has a belief that for a person to be manly, he should always have his wife under his control and it can be evidenced that he does have his wives under control when the author says, “His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper” (13).When Okonko is forced to go back to his mother’s village, Uchendu explains how a child goes to his mother for comfort after being beaten or scolded by his father. Similarly, Uchendu welcomes Okonkwo to his mother land after being exiled by the people of Igbo. This is why “Mother is Supreme”. Although Okonkwo masculinity has helped him to gain much pride among his people but unfortunately he was not being liked for such behavior by his family when he severely punishes them by beating or threatening to kill them. I feel that the text leads the reader to believe that it is unhealthy to be an extreme version of my gender because Okonko believes that any other emotions beside anger would lead their children to become an example of his father’s nature.

FATHERHOOD

Okonko has always hated his father Unoka for being such an embarrassment in his life. Unoko was a very lazy man and was never concerned about his future. He almost owed money to everyone in his village. Whenever he had money with him he spent unwisely believing that one should enjoy his present rather than worrying about his future. “He always said that whenever he saw a dead man‘s mouth he saw the folly of not eating what one had in one’s lifetime” (Achebe, 4).As we go along the text we find out that Okonko feared that his children would follow the footsteps of his grandfather so he tried to keep Nwoye and his other children disciplined by threatening and beating him. “Okonko’s first son ,Nwoye was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness. At any rate, that was how it looked to his father, and he sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating and so Nwoye was developing into a sad-faced youth”(Achebe,13).

RELIGION

The person of Igbo seems to be really superstitious. According to them any women giving birth to twins should leave their twins in the sacred forest to be dead. They believed that one should not be engaged in any work or any violent activity. Moreover, they also believed that if a man kills one of his tribesmen, he would bring evil to the land and should be exiled from the village. The people of Igbo believed in many gods .they had separate god for earth, crops, food and many more. Whereas the Christian missionaries only had a single god in which they had complete faith. According to the belief of the people of Igbo ,any people living in the sacred forest would ultimately end up dying but that does not happen when the Christian missionaries during their stay in the sacred forest. In this way some people come to conclude that the religion of the missionaries were more strong and therefore the Christian missionaries won more converts.“At last the day came by which all the missionaries should have died. But they were still alive, building a new …that week they won a handful more converts” (Achebe, 151).