"Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe Quiz

Answer: Okonkwo is embarrassed by the lazy Unoka, who is widely considered a failure

In Chapter 3, Unoka goes to an oracle to ask why his harvests have always been so poor and why he has been so unlucky. Angrily, the oracle replies that Unoka is lazy, not unlucky. Instead of journeying far and wide to cultivate virgin fields like his better-off neighbors, Unoka has stayed close to home and plowed exhausted land. Okonkwo's drive throughout the rest of the novel can be largely attributed to his resolve to redeem himself for the sin of being Unoka's son.

Answer: Cowries

Cowries are small, hard shells originally carried by British ships as ballast when sailing back to England from India. During the slave trade, these shells gradually came to be used as currency in West Africa. In the period after that in which the novel is set, the British Administration gradually converted its African colonies to the pound sterling.

The rate of exchange between the pound and the cowrie was so poor that new forms of British currency (including the 1/10 penny) had to be introduced.

Answer: The Oracle decrees that he must die, and Okonkwo kills him

Okonkwo is repeatedly cautioned to have no part in the killing, but he goes along with the death party out of a sense of commitment to tradition, eventually landing the death blow. The significance of this plot point is debatable; it is perhaps most telling that Ikemefuna's death causes Okonkwo's son (perhaps representative of the new generation) to question the brutality of some of their native traditions, including the abandonment of twins to die in the "evil forest".

Answer: white men, "white like this piece of chalk", who have no toes

In teaching "Things Fall Apart", one idea that many of my students have come away with is that precolonial Africans thought that their way was the only way to do things, and that cultures alien to them did not exist. In this passage, Achebe demonstrates that his characters do have some grasp of diversity, including the concept of matrilineal descent common to many African cultures, even though these characters doubt that such creatures as "white men" exist.

As Okonkwo puts it, "the world is large".

Answer: Firing off a gun at the funeral of village elder Ezeudu to celebrate his great life, Okonkwo accidentally kills Ezeudu's son

Perplexingly, it is not a bullet that does the killing; a piece of metal flies off the gun's carbine, hitting the boy in the heart. Though there is no British involvement in this episode, the "British revenge" scenario is played out in Chapter 15, which sees the British massacre a whole village for the death of one missionary.

Answer: False

This disregard is another of the curious ideas my students seemed to carry away from a cursory reading of this novel. In fact, Mr. Brown becomes very knowledgeable regarding the local religion and customs, debating things like the nature of god with the elders of Umuofia in Chapter 21. Edward Said's book, "Orientalism", extrapolates on how many Europeans made great studies of the areas they colonized, using this knowledge, according to Said, as a tool in their domination of the colonial peoples. Further, though Brown does build his church in the evil forest, the church actually flourishes, frustrating the village elders who felt sure that the evil forest would bring it down.

Answer: False

Quite the opposite is true. Smith is disgusted by Brown's loose interpretation of Christianity, observing that many of his "converts" are unfamiliar with church orthodoxy. He condemns many native practices, including the ritual mutilation of babies born to women whose previous child had been stillborn, as "work of the devil".

Answer: They burn down Enoch's compound and the church

Interestingly enough, Achebe portrays Smith in what could be called a positive light throughout this tribulation. Though his instinct is to bolt the scene, he remains in the church and tries to defend it, albeit nonviolently. (It may be important to note that this book was written in 1959 while Martin Luther King was leading nonviolent civil right marches in the United States, though I am unaware of any scholarship suggesting that Achebe had this on his mind when describing Smith's actions.)

Answer: He kills one of the court messengers, but his people allow the others to escape

Realizing that his people will not resist the British, Okonkwo walks away in silence. When the District Commissioner arrives the next day with soldiers, Okonkwo has hung himself.

Answer: True

At the turn of the century, during the apex of the "scramble for Africa" and the height of European colonial power worldwide, colonial administrators wrote numerous studies with titles just as dispassionate as this, including "Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula" by Walter Skeat and "The Lower Niger and Its Tribes" by Arthur Leonard, both from 1906. These books do offer a wealth of data about native customs, but may reveal even more about the attitudes of the Europeans toward their colonial "subjects".

Thank you very much for playing. I hope you enjoyed the quiz. If you have any questions, comments, corrections, or requests for clarification, please let me know!