In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the main character is a man named Okonkwo. Okonkwo “was a tall and huge man with bushy eyebrows and a wide nose that gave him a very severe look.,” (Achebe 3). Okonkwo had many wives and was therefore subjugated to mistreating them. One of his youngest wives was beaten because he thought she was showing negligence to him. This novel does not show many signs of feminism but rather the author attacking the thought of women having equal rights. Achebe writes the women as being subservient to their male counterparts. In this African setting created by Achebe, the author writes women out to be somewhat stupid and superstitious. Feminist theories are not apparent in this novel and Achebe makes it clear that women are not equal to the men in his novel.
Sen. Clinton once said in the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing, China that “it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights,” (Feminism 167). In the novel Things Fall Apart, the women are displayed as mediocre and inferior to the men of the tribe. By this standard, the women are treated poorly and therefore do not receive equal rights in the tribe and by their customs. As Mary Wollstonecraft once said, “women must define for themselves what it means to be a woman. Women themselves must take the lead in articulate who they are and what role they will play in society by rejecting the patriarchal assumption that women are inferior to men,” ( Feminism 171). Theories such as this are not found in the novel because the women are not allowed to voice their opinions. The woman in the novel have been taught by their traditions that they are subservient to their male counterparts. Achebe does not portray feminist theories in his novel Things Fall Apart.
