Social Status in Things Fall Apart

Paper 2 Style Response, Things Fall Apart

The social status is an important theme in the book Things Fall Apart. From the opening of the book, Okonkwo and his father Unoka are both introduced. Okonkwo is shown to be the top of the social class as he is the most famous person in his town, the best wrestler and the strongest. His father Unoka on the other hand is shown to be on the bottom of the social class. Unoka represents a person of negative qualities throughout the book constantly, he was in debt, his life was heading downwards as he was constantly producing failures with his farming and he never seemed to have been able to settle somewhere properly. Unoka was a man who had no titles while Okonkwo was the one who did have titles as he overthrew the undefeated Amalinze the Cat to become the top wrestler of his town.

Unoka’s failures and laziness were the big reasons why he was on the bottom of the social class in the town of Umuofia. The Igbo believed that a person had to work hard, persevere and not be lazy if they wanted to reach the top of the social class. Okonkwo did just that as he worked hard since day 1 and persevered throughout his life as he went through the peaks and troughs of his life but always came out strong in the end. Okonkwo was a very successful warrior throughout the story. A very successful person in the story, one who is on top of the social order was represented to be someone who had won titles, had several wives, was able to farm successfully and be able to have enough money to afford things their wives and children wanted to have. Okonkwo clearly had all of these traits covered which already proves that he was able to be a person who was of very high social class. Social class clearly played a big theme as Unoka’s failures and his presence at the bottom of the social class were clear reasons why Okonkwo wanted to better him and become successful.

Looking at Okonkwo’s relationship with his children, it can be seen that his relationship with Nwyoe is rather negative. This is because he sees Nwoye as very feminine like and he sees him just as a younger version of his own father so therefore he feels that Nwoye is someone who in the future will be on the bottom of the social class. When we see Okonkwo’s relationship with Ezinma, he sees Ezinma having all the qualities of what the Igbo tribe perceives to be of a rather successful person. This plays a part in what makes Ezinma Okonkwo’s favourite as we sees him as someone who will be a top class person in the future.

Another example is Okonkwo’s wife. When his 3^rd wife goes away to get her hair done thus leaving Okonwkwo’s children all alone, this enrages Okonkwo which thus leads him into beating his wife. Okonkwo’s wife gets beaten by Okonkwo himself which overall lowers her social status as she is inferior to her own husband Okonkwo and cannot be seen on the same social platform as Okonkwo. Social status also applies to Obguefi Ezeudu as with his powerful role in the book, he is already viewed as someone very powerful in the society thus he is seen as a person of higher class. Okonkwo views Ezeudu as a powerful person and treats him with a lot of respect showing that Ezeudu is in the same class as him.

Okonkwo’s social power does decline as the missionaries come into Umuofia and overtake the entire village. Okonkwo then starts to experience an emotional decline as he starts to lose control over himself and he accidentally kills Ezeudu’s son. When Okonkwo was once considered to be on top of the social order, he held himself with great pride and was had control over his emotions and was the epitome of “masculinity”. Once he started to lose control over himself and started to lose some of his “masculinity”, Okonkwo started to experience a downfall as his own Igbo values started to desert him more and thus his social status value started to plummet in the end.

The overall social status in the book plays a big part towards the characterization as majority of the characters personality traits and relationship with Okonkwo is defined by their place in the social order.