Male Dominance In Things Fall Apart

In the story Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, readers gain a deeper understanding of the role a man plays in the Nigerian and Ibgo society. Within the book, men have an overall role of dominance and power over the women of the society. Achebe shows the readers the true face of the masculine man within the Igbo tribe and social society. Achebe writes this story attempting to show the pure, true honesty that the Ibgo people have to reveal, and within that the readers can easily determine that the man asserts dominance over women, and are generally seen as better. Masculinity in society dominates in jobs, cultural roles, traditions, and life in general as displayed by Achebe. Foremost, Achebe shows us male dominance by the useage of inflicting pain upon the other sex. Men within the story seemingly consistently are beating their wives. Achebe shows us this with the main character, Okonkwo. Okonkwo gets angry, and once angry, “Okonkwo [is] provoked to a justifiable anger by his youngest wife, who went to plait her hair at a friend’s house and did not return early enough to cook the afternoon meal.” (Achebe 29). This shows readers that Okonkwo is not only easily angered, but Achebe then displays how he takes out his anger: “And when she returned he beat her very heavily” (Achebe 29). Achebe shows how males, in this case Okonkwo, find it that beating their wives is justified simply due to a small mishap by the opposite sex. Another example of masculine
Men in this book and article simply have more rights and are allowed to do things to women that they can not do to men, which shows that the men dominate the society and the women. Masculinity is treated better and dominate women in books and in real life in jobs, cultural roles, and being allowed to perform actions against