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Fear Can Lead To Chaos
The novels Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Nectar In A Sieve by Kamala Markandaya have several things in common. In Things Fall Apart a strong male protagonist is always disturbed by the fear of failing, In the novel Nectar In A Sieve a brave female protagonist is distressed over the fear of not being able to provide for her family. In both of these novels the main characters go through intense trials and hardship.
In these two novels both of the main characters encounter change within their lives. “Change I had known before, and it had been gradual.”(Markandaya 25). In Nectar In A Sieve the main character Rukmani is overwhelmed when townspeople arrive in her quite little village. The people that arrive their build a tannery and move workers and their families to the village to began work. Two if Rukmani’s sons began to work there but she didn’t want them to because she did not trust the tannery at all. In the novel Things Fall Apart the main character Okonkwo encountered the Christian missionaries who came to convert his tribe to the faith. Okonkwo’s people did not understand how you could have one God for everything. The tribe tried to get rid of the Christians but they became stronger. “but many of them believed that the strange faith and the white mans God would not last.”(Achebe 137). Even Okonkwo’s own son, Nowye converted to the new religion. The two main characters faced great change in their villages. Both of these characters could not trust these new people and they refused to trust them. These characters were both afraid of change and their people were too and them being afraid led to great chaos.
In both of the novels these characters loose children. In Things Fall Apart the main character Okonkwo looses his son Ikemefuna. Ikemefuna wasn’t Okonkwo’s real son. Ikemefuna lived with Okonkwo because the village the village where he had came from had killed a woman from Okonkwo’s. As a result Okonkwo’s village took Ikemefuna from his home and he went to live with Okonkwo. An Oracle told the elders of the village that Ikemefuna needed to die and told Okonkwo he did not have to participate in it but Okonkwo was so afraid of being thought of as weak he did it anyway. “He drank palm-wine from morning till night,”(Achebe 67) Okonkwo ultimately regretted killing Ikemefuna and he took it really hard in the back of his mind he still thought of him. In Nectar In A Sieve the main character Rukmai looses one of her sons to starvation. “Our last child, conceived in happiness at a time when the river of our lives ran gently, had been taken from us;”(Markandaya 100). Rukmani and her husband had a very hard time trying to get over her sons death. Her daughter Ira took it hardest of all because she took care of him like he was her own. Rukmani felt as if she failed her family because couldn’t provide; she felt like she was in control. Both of these characters loss children and it out them both in rough spots. They eventually realize that they still have a family to provide for they have to work through it.
In both of these novels the main characters experience loosing their homes. In Nectar In A Sieve Rukmani and her family loose their home because the owner of the land is selling it to the tannery. Her and her family realize there is no where for them all to go. “Tannery or not, the land might have been taken from us.”(Markandaya 132). Even no matter how much Rukmani despised the tannery she could not blame them for her family’s misfortune. In Thing Fall Apart Okonkwo was exiled from his village for seven years. Okonkwo had killed a clansman by accident. “They had no hatred in their hearts against Okonkwo”(Achebe 123). Even though he had killed someone his clansmen knew that it was an accident. Okonkwo and his family had to live their village and they went to his mothers home village where his mothers kinsmen took his family in. Both of these characters felt lonely and alienated from their homelands.
In Things Fall Apart and Nectar In A Sieve the main characters struggled with losing their homes, children, and change. By both characters struggling with these things it led to great chaos and they both ended up feeling alone. These intense trials and hardships eventually got to them.