Part+Two+Chapter+Notes+Chart

· Note the value placed on premarital chastity in the engagement ceremony. In many African cultures virginity is not an absolute requirement for marriage but it is highly desirable and normally greatly enhances the value of the bride-price that may be paid. Thus families are prone to assert a good deal of authority over their unmarried daughters to prevent early love affairs. || * What is the significance of comparing Okonkwo to a fish out of water? · Note that although the people of Abame acted rashly, they had a good deal of insight into the significance of the arrival of the whites. · Note how the Africans treat the white man's language as mere noise; a mirror of how white colonizers treated African languages. · In the final exchange with Okonkwo Obierika is good-naturedly refusing to accept Okonkwo's thanks by joking with him. || * How does the story of the destruction of Abame summarize the experience of colonization? · Note how Achebe inverts the traditional dialect humor of Europeans which satirizes the inability of natives to speak proper English by having the missionary mangle Ibo. · Achebe focuses on the doctrine of the Trinity, the notoriously least logical and most paradoxical basic belief in Christianity. || * Why do you think Nwoye has become a Christian? · How does the granting to the missionaries of a plot in the Evil Forest backfire? · What does the metaphor in the next to the last sentence of the chapter mean? ||
 * chapter || **PART TWO** || **PART TWO** ||
 * 14 || · Okonkwo's exile in Mbanta is not only a personal disaster, but it removes him from his home village at a crucial time so that he returns to a changed world which can no longer adapt to him.
 * How does Okonkwo's lack of understanding of the importance of women reflect on him? ||
 * 15 || · Movie Indians call a train engine an "iron horse," but the term here refers to a bicycle.
 * What sorts of stories had Okonkwo heard about white men before? ||
 * 16 || · The British followed a policy in their colonizing efforts of designating local "leaders" to administer the lower levels of their empire. In Africa these were known as "warrant chiefs." But the men they chose were often not the real leaders, and the British often assumed the existence of a centralized chieftainship where none existed. Thus the new power structures meshed badly with the old. Similarly the missionaries have designated as their contact man an individual who lacks the status to make him respected by his people.
 * What is the first act of the missionaries which evokes a positive response in some of the Ibo?
 * How does this belief in the Trinity undermine the missionaries' attempts to discredit the traditional religion?
 * Why does the new religion appeal to Nwoye? ||
 * 17 ||  || · What mutual misunderstandings are evident in this chapter between the missionaries and the people of the village?
 * 18 || · In India the lowest castes were among the first to convert to faiths which challenged traditional Hinduism; and something similar seems to happen here. || * Why do you suppose Achebe has not mentioned the //osu// earlier? ||
 * 19 || · Note how traditional Umuofian custom can welcome back an erring member once he has paid for his crime. In many cultures Okonkwo would be treated as a pariah, but this culture has ways of accommodating such a person without destroying him, and in fact encouraging him to give of his best. || * What does the final speaker say is the main threat posed by Christianity? ||