Mr. Fornnarino's English 2, Quiz 25 for ELL Students

To answer Questions 11-16, please read the following passage from Chapter 4 of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Choose the best responses to the prompts located next to the passage. There is one and only one correct answer to each prompt.

Chapter 4, page 26

" ‘Looking at a king's mouth,’ said an old man, ‘one would think he never sucked at his mother's breast.’ " He was talking about Okonkwo, who had risen so suddenly from great poverty and misfortune to be one of the lords of the clan. The old man bore no ill will towards Okonkwo. Indeed he respected him for his industry and success. But he was struck, as most people were, by Okonkwo's brusqueness in dealing with less successful men. Only a week ago a man had contradicted him at a kindred meeting which they held to discuss the next ancestral feast. Without looking at the man Okonkwo had said: " ‘This meeting is for men.’ The man who had contradicted him had no titles. That was why he had called him a woman. Okonkwo knew how to kill a man's spirit.

Note: The passage is saying that Okonkwo acted like he did not need other people. (This is shown when the old man says Okonkwo acted like he had never had milk from his mother's breast.) An old man told him he should not act that way. Okonkwo had been very poor but had quickly become a leader. The old man respected Okonkwo for working hard and for becoming successful, but he did NOT like how Okonkwo acted towards other, less successful men. One week before, in a meeting, a man named Osugo had had different ideas than Okonkwo. Okonkwo told Osugo, “This meeting is for men.” By saying that, Okonkwo had said Osugo was a woman. Okonkwo was showing disrespect, and he made the man feel very bad. Everybody at the meeting had felt bad for Osugo when Okonkwo called him a woman. The oldest man said that Okonkwo should not act disrespectfully to men for whom the gods had not opened palm kernels for them to eat. (This means Okonkwo should not act disrespectfully towards men who had not been as lucky as he had been.) The old man said that Okonkwo should think about others’ lives and respect them. Okonkwo told Osugo that he was sorry. It was not true that Okonkwo had been given his success. He had worked hard to become a great wrestler. Okonkwo thought his work, not luck, made him successful, but one could say that his personal god was good to him.

To answer Questions 17-21, please read the following passage from Chapter 5 of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Choose the best responses to the prompts located next to the passage. There is one and only one correct answer to each prompt.

Chapter 5, Pages 44-45

     “The drums were still beating, persistent and unchanging. Their sound was no longer a separate thing from the living village. It was like the pulsation of its heart. It throbbed in the air, in the sunshine, and even in the trees, and filled the village with excitement.

     Ekwefi ladled her husband's share of the pottage into a bowl and covered it. Ezinma took it to him in his obi.

     Okonkwo was sitting on a goatskin already eating his first wife's meal. Obiageli, who had brought it from her mother's hut, sat on the floor waiting for him to finish. Ezinma placed her mother's dish before him and sat with Obiageli.

     ‘Sit like a woman!’ Okonkwo shouted at her. Ezinma brought her two legs together and stretched them in front of her.

     ‘Father, will you go to see the wrestling?’ Ezinma asked after a suitable interval.

     ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Will you go?’

     ‘Yes.’ And after a pause she said: ‘Can I bring your chair for you?’

     ‘No, that is a boy's job.’ Okonkwo was specially fond of Ezinma. She looked very much like her mother, who was once the village beauty. But his fondness only showed on very rare occasions.

     ‘Obiageli broke her pot today,’ Ezinma said.

     ‘Yes, she has told me about it,’ Okonkwo said between mouthfuls.

     ‘Father,’ said Obiageli, ‘people should not talk when they are eating or pepper may go down the wrong way.’

     ‘That is very true. Do you hear that, Ezinma? You are older than Obiageli but she has more sense.’

     He uncovered his second wife's dish and began to eat from it. Obiageli took the first dish and returned to her mother's hut. And then Nkechi came in, bringing the third dish. Nkechi was the daughter of Okonkwo's third wife.

     In the distance the drums continued to beat.”

Note: The passage begins with drums beating and ends with drums beating. Their sound was not a separate thing from the living village. It was its heart. Ekwefi, Okonkwo’s wife, put food into a bowl, and Okonkwo’s daughter Ezinma took it to him and then sat with her sister, Obiageli. Okonkwo loudly told Ezinma to sit like a woman. Then they talked about wrestling. Okonkwo liked Ezinma, but he did not show his feelings. Ezinma told her father that Obiageli had broken her pot. Okonkwo said Obiageli had told him. Obiageli told her father that people should not talk when they are eating because their food could go down their air passage. Okonkwo told Ezinma that Obiageli has more sense than Ezinma even though Ezinma was the older daughter.

To answer Questions 22-24, please read the following essay excerpt about Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Choose the best responses to the prompts located next to the essay. There is one and only one correct answer to each prompt.

“Towards the end of the nineteenth century most European states migrated to Africa and other parts of the world where they established colonies. Nigeria was amongst other African nations that received visitors who were on a colonising mission; introducing their religion and culture that is later imposed on Igbo. The culture of the people of Umuofia (Igbo culture) is immensely threatened by this change. Achebe’s primary purpose of writing the novel is because he wants to educate his readers about the value of his culture as an African. Things Fall Apart provides readers with an insight of Igbo society right before the white missionaries’ invasion on their land. The invasion of the colonising force threatens to change almost every aspect of Igbo society; from religion, traditional gender roles and relations, family structure to trade. Consequently, Achebe blames the white missionaries’ colonial rule and/or invasion for the post-colonial oppressed Igbo culture; this oppression can be seen in terms of the oppressed social coherence between the individual and their society.”

Kenalemang, Lame Maatla. "7. Things Fall Apart." Representing the Race Things Fall Apart: An Analysis of Pre and Post-Colonial Igbo Society. Karlstads University. Web.

Note: The essay writer says European white missionaries and colonial rule made the white culture more powerful than the Igbo culture. The writer is showing how Achedbe's work is connected to real history.