TFA part 1 response

Okonkow's overly-masculine personality infuriates and intrigues me at the same time. To me it seems like he has some sort of inferiority complex. The definition of an inferiority complex is "intense feeling of inferiority, producing a personality characterized either by extreme reticence or, as a result ofovercompensation, by extreme aggressiveness." His actions towards his children and wives would defiantly support such a possible diagnosis, while his relationship with his father would be reason enough to explain why he has come to think the way he does. This killing is after three years of Ikemefuna living in the village and even seeing Okonkwo as a father. The fact that Okonkwo was unable to eat or sleep for three days afterwards proves (to me at least) that he felt some connection and yet he is the one to kill Ikemefuna, against his friend's warning, because he doesn't want to be seen as weak, a textbook example of overcompensation.

He's so disturbingly raptured by this fear of the possibility of being feminine  and weak that he just comes off looking like an ignorant ass who is obsessed with control. I understand that he wants to be nothing like his father but he is so terribly overbearing that it imposes on his children. His son is so afraid of his father's disapproval (which comes with beatings) that he denies his own likes for the sake of his father's approval. This doesn't exactly show a reticence ("disposed to be silent, not speaking freely") in Okonkow, but him forcing such a silence on his own son, which in turn only creates another cycle of inferiority among other issues.

TFA 1

The way that progresses is slightly confusing. It switches between past and present and stories about characters. It was confusing and annoying how in the first chapter it talked about the son hating his father, then the father while switching between the father as younger and older and then back to the son with the father (who I thought was dead) then back to him being dead. Aside from that I think the use of simple language is interesting. I think it is to make up for how many African words and customs are in the text and to also simplify things. It's a nice step back from the much more complicated diction that has been in the last few books/poems (aside from the stream-of-conciousness-like conveying of time).

Image of Africa

I think Achebe highlights a fact that is utterly true. There are things so deeply engrained as normal that people just don't notice them. In simple examples I can think of all of the "you throw like a girl", "you punch like a girl", "don't be such a girl", expressions that have woven their way into simple language. Every example that Achebe gave highlights this inherent, not even subtle, racism is very telling of a racist image of Africa. It's the simple things that need to be noticed in order for people to begin to realize and fix the (most often) unintentional mistakes that end up creating hate and ignorance.