Chapter 1

Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honour to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat. Chapter 1

He had a slight stammer and whenever he was angry and could not get his words out quickly enough, he would use his fists. He had no patience with unsuccessful men. (About Okonkwo) Chapter 1

And that was how he came to look after the doomed lad who was sacrificed to the village of Umuofia by their neighbours to avoid war and bloodshed. The ill-fated lad was called Ikemefuna. Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Okonkwo’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. Chapter 2

‘These sons of wild animals have dared to murder a daughter of Umuofia.’…And in a clear unemotional voice he told Umuofia how their daughter had gone to market at Mbaino and had been killed. Chapter 2

Umuofia was feared by all its neighbours. It was powerful in war and in magic, and its priests and medicine men were feared in all the surrounding country. Chapter 2

Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo’s fear was greater than these. It was not external, but lay deep within himself. Chapter 2

Chapter 3

She walked up to her husband and accepted the horn from him. She then went down on one knee, drank a little and handed back the horn. She rose, called him by his name and went back to her hut. The other wives drank in the same way, in their proper order, and went away. (About Anasi) Chapter 3

Unoka was an ill-fated man. He had a bad chi or personal god, and evil fortune followed him to the grave, or rather to his death, for he had no grave. He died of the swelling which was an abomination to the earth goddess. Chapter 3

Chapter 4

‘Looking at a king’s mouth,’ said an old man, ‘one would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast.’ He was talking about Okonkwo, who had risen so suddenly from great poverty and misfortune to be one of the lords of the clan. Chapter 4

He was by nature a very lively boy and he gradually became popular in Okonkwo’s household, especially with the children. Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye, who was two years younger, became quite inseparable from him because he seemed to know everything. (About Ikemefuna) Chapter 4

Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength. He therefore treated Ikemefuna as he treated everybody else—with a heavy hand. But there was no doubt that he liked the boy. Chapter 4

But it was really not true that Okonkwo’s palm-kernels had been cracked for him by a benevolent spirit. He had cracked them himself. Anyone who knew his grim struggle against poverty and misfortune could not say he had been lucky. Chapter 4

Chapter 5

But he was always uncomfortable sitting around for days waiting for a feast or getting over it. He would be very much happier working on his farm. (About Okonkwo) Chapter 5

And after a pause she said: ‘Can I bring your chair for you?’
‘No, that is a boy’s job.’ Okonkwo was specially fond of Ezinma. She looked very much like her mother, who was once the village beauty. But his fondness only showed on very rare occasions. Chapter 5

Chapter 6

‘And how is my daughter, Ezinma?’
‘She has been very well for some time now. Perhaps she has come to stay.’ (Chielo and Ekwefi) Chapter 6

Chapter 7

And at last the locusts did descend. They settled on every tree and on every blade of grass; they settled on the roofs and covered the bare ground. Mighty tree branches broke away under them, and the whole country became the brown-earth colour of the vast, hungry swarm. Chapter 7

Okonkwo encouraged the boys to sit with him in his obi, and he told them stories of the land—masculine stories of violence and bloodshed. Nwoye knew that it was right to be masculine and to be violent, but somehow he still preferred the stories that his mother used to tell, and which she no doubt still told to her younger children—stories of the tortoise and his wily ways, and of the bird eneke-nti-oba who challenged the whole world to a wrestling contest and was finally thrown by the cat. Chapter 7

‘That boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death.’ (Ezeudu) Chapter 7

As soon as his father walked in, that night, Nwoye knew that Ikemefuna had been killed, and something seemed to give way inside him, like the snapping of a tightened bow. He did not cry. He just hung limp. Chapter 7

Chapter 8

‘You have not eaten for two days,’ said (Okonkwo’s) daughter Ezinma when she brought the food to him. ‘So you must finish this.’ She sat down and stretched her legs in front of her. Okonkwo ate the food absent-mindedly.
‘She should have been born a boy,’ he thought as he looked at his ten-year-old daughter. Chapter 8

‘I think it is good that our clan holds the ozo title in high esteem,’ said Okonkwo. ‘In those other clans you speak of, ozo is so low that every beggar takes it.’ Chapter 8

In this way Akueke’s bride-price was finally settled at twenty bags of cowries. Chapter 8

Chapter 9

The relationship between them was not only that of mother and child. There was something in it like the companionship of equals, which was strengthened by such little conspiracies as eating eggs in the bedroom. (About Ezinma and Ekwefi) Chapter 9

Everybody knew she was an ogbanje. These sudden bouts of sickness and health were typical of her kind. But she had lived so long that perhaps she had decided to stay. Some of them did become tired of their evil rounds of birth and death, or took pity on their mothers, and stayed. Ekwefi believed deep inside her that Ezinma had come to stay. Chapter 9

Chapter 10

‘Uzowulu’s body, I salute you,’ he said. Spirits always addressed humans as ‘bodies’. Uzowulu bent down and touched the earth with his right hand as a sign of submission. Chapter 10

Chapter 12

On the following morning the entire neighborhood wore a festive air because Okonkwo’s friend, Obierika, was celebrating his daughter’s Uri. It was the day on which her suitor (having already paid the greater part of her bride-price) would bring palm-wine not only to her parents and immediate relatives but to the wide and extensive group of kinsmen called umanna. Everybody had been invited – men, women and children. But it was really a woman’s ceremony and the central figures were the bride and her mother. Chapter 12

Chapter 13

It was as if a spell had been cast. All was silent. In the center of the crowd a boy lay in a pool of blood. It was the dead man’s sixteen-year-old-son, who with his brothers and half-brothers had been dancing the traditional farewell to their father. Okonkwo’s gun had exploded and a piece of iron had pierced the boy’s heart. Chapter 13

It was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman, and a man who committed it must flee from the land. The crime was of two kinds, male and female. Okonkwo had committed the female, because it had been inadvertent. He could return to the clan after seven years… Chapter 13

As soon as the day broke, a large crowd of men from Ezeudu’s quarter stormed Okonkwo’s compound, dressed in garbs of war. They set fire to his houses, demolished his red walls, killed his animals and destroyed his barn. It was the justice of the earth goddess, and they were merely her messengers. They had no hatred in their hearts against Okonkwo. His greatest friend, Obierika, was among them. They were merely cleansing the land which Okonkwo had polluted with the blood of a clansman. Chapter 13

Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offense he had committed inadvertently? But although he thought for a long time he found no answer. He was merely led into greater complexities. He remembered his wife’s twin children, whom he had thrown away. What crime had they committed? (Obierika on Okonkwo’s exile) Chapter 13

Chapter 14

When the rain finally came, it was in large, solid drops of frozen water which the people called ‘the nuts of the water of heaven’. They were hard and painful on the body as they fell, yet young people ran about happily picking up the cold nuts and throwing them into their mouths to melt. Chapter 14

The old man, Uchendu, saw clearly that Okonkwo, had yielded to despair and he was greatly troubled. Chapter 14

‘It’s true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland.’ (Uchendu) Chapter 14

Chapter 15

‘…I forgot to tell you another thing which the Oracle said. It said that other white men were on their way. They were locusts, it said, and that first man was their harbinger sent to explore the terrain. And so they killed him.’ Chapter 15

Chapter 16

He told them that the true God lived on high and that all men when they died went before Him for judgment. Evil men and all the heathen who in their blindness bowed to wood and stone were thrown into a fire that burned like palm-oil. But good men who worshipped the true God lived forever in His happy kingdom. Chapter 16

It was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him. He did not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow. The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul—the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul. The words of the hymn were like the drops of frozen rain melting on the dry palate of the panting earth. (About Nwoye) Chapter 16

None of his converts was a man whose word was heeded in the assembly of the people. None of them was a man of title. They were mostly the kind of people that were called efulefu, worthless, empty men. The imagery of an efulefu in the language of the clan was a man who sold his machete and wore the sheath to battle. Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Why, he cried in his heart, should he, Okonkwo, of all people, be cursed with such a son. He saw clearly in it the finger of his personal god or chi. For how else could he explain his great misfortune and exile and now his despicable son’s behaviour? Chapter 17

An ‘evil forest’ was, therefore, alive with sinister forces and powers of darkness. It was such a forest that the rulers of Mbanta gave to the missionaries. They did not really want them in the clan, and so they made them that offer which nobody in his right senses would accept. Chapter 17

Okonkwo’s eyes were opened and he saw the whole matter clearly. Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. He sighed again, deeply. Chapter 17

Chapter 18

These outcasts, or osu, seeing that the new religion welcomed twins and such abominations, thought that it was possible that they would also be received. And so one Sunday two of them went into the church. There was an immediate stir; but so great was the work the new religion had done among the converts that they did not immediately leave the church when the outcasts came in. Chapter 18

Chapter 19

But I fear for you young people because you do not understand how strong is the bond of kinship. You do not know what it is to speak with one voice. Chapter 19

Chapter 20

‘How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs bad.’ (Okonkwo) Chapter 20

He sent for the five sons and they came and sat in his obi. The youngest of them was four years old. ‘You have all seen the great abomination of your brother.. Now he is no longer my son or your brother. I will only have a son who is a man, who will hold his head up among my people. If any one of you prefers to be a woman, let him follow Nwoye now while I am alive so that I can curse him: If you turn against me when I am dead I will visit you and break your neck.’ (Okonkwo to his family) Chapter 20

But apart from the church, the white men had also brought a government. Chapter 20

Chapter 21

‘You said one interesting thing,’ said Mr. Brown. ‘You are afraid of Chukwu. In my religion Chukwu is a loving Father and need not be feared by those who do His will.’
‘But we must fear Him when we are not doing His will, ‘ said Akunna. ‘And who is to tell His will? It is too great to be known.’ Chapter 21

He had just send Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye, who was now called Isaac, to the new training college for teachers in Umuru. (about Mr Brown) Chapter 21

Chapter 22

One of the greatest crimes a man could commit was to unmask an egwugwu in public, or to say or do anything which might reduce its immortal prestige in the eyes of the uninitiated. And this was what Enoch did. Chapter 22

Chapter 23

‘An Umuofia man does not refuse a call,’ he said. ‘He may refuse to do what he is asked; he does not refuse to be asked.’ (Okonkwo) Chapter 23

Umuofia was like a startled animal with ears erect, sniffing the silent, ominous air and not knowing which way to run. Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Our fathers never dreamed of such a thing, they never killed their brothers. But a white man never came to them. So we must do what our fathers would never have done. Eneke the bird was asked why he was always on the wing and he replied: ‘Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig.’ We must root out this evil. Chapter 24

‘The white man whose power you know too well has ordered this meeting to stop.’ In a flash Okonkwo drew his machete… and the man’s head lay beside his uniformed body. Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Obierika, who had been gazing steadily at his friend’s dangling body, turned suddenly to the District Commissioner and said ferociously: ‘That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog…’ Chapter 25

The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. Chapter 25

He (the Commissioner) had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger. Chapter 25