This chapter is perverted. It starts out okay, Okonkwo is actually feeling sorry for what he has done or at least guilty. But two days later he gets over it and goes to see obierika. While he is there he learns of two strange deaths, and sees a dowry negotiated. this is the perverted part. the girl who i think is getting married is making the food naked in front of the men and the book keeps talking about her body. the men fortunately dont start making crude jokes, but make fun of the one dudes son who tapped a tree to death.
I had never heard of this, what the heck do you tap a palm tree for? The guys also talk about the degeneration of tribal titles and the downfall of mans superiority over women. Well, if that is the way women are treated there, good grief and good riddance. that was horrible. the two people just handed each other broomsticks to decide the dowry. and the whole time okonkwo is regretting his son and wishing his daughter was a boy. Whatever.
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Okonkwo, after killing his own step-son has become an Anti-hero of sorts. I don't really feel bad for what happens during the rest of the novel after this point. I figure he's brought his own Karma down upon himself. Achebe gives us an unlikable character to cheer for during the rest of the book
Instead, think of the book as a combination of short stories about tribal life, that happens to center around this one dis-functional man.
Tapping a palm tree provides a way to make Palm wine, which seems to be a major drink of choice for this tribe?
The treatment of women is disturbing to people in our own time and culture. However this was the cultural norm for them and their time.
As for a dowry, an expensive gift used to purchase a bride, our own culture sees men buying a $5,000 diamond engagement ring to prove his love to his girlfriend!!! It's still a bride-price no matter how you look at it. Which culture is more primitive?
Mr. Farrell
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