Mr. Fornnarino's English 2, Quiz 28 for ELL Students

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

Chapter 14, pages 133-135

“‘Can you tell me, Okonkwo, why it is that one of the commonest names we give our children is Nneka, or Mother is Supreme? We all know that a man is the head of the family and his wives do his bidding. A child belongs to its father and his family and not to its mother and her family. A man belongs to his fatherland and not to his motherland. And yet we say Nneka -- Mother is Supreme. Why is that?’...

‘I do not know the answer,’ Okonkwo replied...

"‘Then listen to me,’ [Uchendu] said and cleared his throat. ‘It's true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother's hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme. Is it right that you, Okonkwo, should bring to your mother a heavy face and refuse to be comforted? Be careful or you may displease the dead. Your duty is to comfort your wives and children and take them back to your fatherland after seven years. But if you allow sorrow to weigh you down and kill you they will all die in exile.’ He paused for a long while.

‘These are now your kinsmen.’ He waved at his sons and daughters.

‘You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. I have none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left. Do you know how many children I have buried--children I begot in my youth and strength? Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still alive. If you think you are the greatest sufferer in the world ask my daughter, Akueni, how many twins she has borne and thrown away. Have you not heard the song they sing when a woman dies?

For whom is it well, for whom is it well? There is no one for whom it is well.

I have no more to say to you.’ "

Note: The passage shows Uchendu talking to Okonkwo. Uchendu says that girls are often given the name Nneka which means "Mother is Supreme." (Mother is the best or the most important.) Uchendu says that when a child is hurt by the father, the child goes to the mother for comfort. When things are good, people are with the fatherland. When things are bad, they go to the motherland. Mothers protect their children; that is why they are supreme. Okonkwo's dead mother is in the earth, and Okonkwo should not displease her. Okonkwo should take his wives and children and live for seven years away from the people in his village. Then he can come back. If Okonkwo lets his sadness kill him, then his wives and children will die away from the village.

Uchendu says Okonkwo is not the only man who has had bad things happen to him. Uchendu's wives are all dead, except for one who knows nothing. Twenty-two of Uchendu's children have died. Uchendu did not kill himself because of his sadness. His daughter, Akueni, has also had great sadness because she had many twin babies she had to throw away. Uchendu says when a woman dies, the people often sing a song asking who has a good life, and the answer in the song says no one does.

To answer Questions 17-20, please read the following passage from Chapter 17 of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Choose the best responses to the prompts next to each passage. There is one and only one correct answer to each prompt.

Chapter 17, Pages 152-153

“As Okonkwo sat in his hut that night, gazing into a log fire, he thought over the matter. A sudden fury rose within him and he felt a strong desire to take up his machete, go to the church and wipe out the entire vile and miscreant gang. But on further thought he told himself that Nwoye was not worth fighting for. Why, he cried in his heart, should he, Okonkwo, of all people, be cursed with such a son? He saw clearly in it the finger of his personal god or chi. For how else could he explain his great misfortune and exile and now his despicable son's behaviour? Now that he had time to think of it, his son's crime stood out in its stark enormity. To abandon the gods of one's father and go about with a lot of effeminate men clucking like old hens was the very depth of abomination. Suppose when he died all his male children decided to follow Nwoye's steps and abandon their ancestors? Okonkwo felt a cold shudder run through him at the terrible prospect, like the prospect of annihilation. He saw himself and his fathers crowding round their ancestral shrine waiting in vain for worship and sacrifice and finding nothing but ashes of bygone days, and his children the while praying to the white man's god. If such a thing were ever to happen, he, Okonkwo, would wipe them off the face of the earth.

Okonkwo was popularly called the "Roaring Flame." As he looked into the log fire he recalled the name. He was a flaming fire. How then could he have begotten a son like Nwoye, degenerate and effeminate? Perhaps he was not his son. No! he could not be. His wife had played him false. He would teach her! But Nwoye resembled his grandfather, Unoka, who was Okonkwo's father. He pushed the thought out of his mind. He, Okonkwo, was called a flaming fire. How could he have begotten a woman for a son? At Nwoye's age Okonkwo had already become famous throughout Umuofia for his wrestling and his fearlessness.

He sighed heavily, and as if in sympathy the smouldering log also sighed. And immediately Okonkwo's eyes were opened and he saw the whole matter clearly. Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. He sighed again, deeply.”

Note: This passage describes Okonkwo sitting by a fire and thinking. He was angry and wanted to go to the church and kill everyone, but then he thought that Nwoye was not important enough to fight for. Okonkwo does not understand why he has a son who acts like a woman. Okonkwo thinks his personal god wanted him to have a son like Nwoye because Okonkwo cannot believe a man like himself could have a son like Nwoye unless a god wanted it. Okonkwo thought it was possible that all of his sons could be like Nwoye, and that none of them would follow the old ways of their religion. Then Okonkwo would have to find a way to get them all off of the earth.

Okonkwo thought about how people called him the "Roaring Flame." How could a man like him have a son like Nwoye? Was Nwoye truly his son? Okonkwo's wife must have had sex with another man. Okonkwo must hurt her. Then Okonkwo thinks about how much Nwoye looks like Okonkwo's father. Okonkwo thinks about how he could be the father of a man who acted like a woman. When Okonkwo had been as old as Nwoye, Okonkwo had already been famous for his wrestling and fearlessness.

The fire made a sound, and Okonkwo understood that living fire makes cold, powerless gray dust or powder when it ends.

To answer Questions 21-25, please read the following analysis excerpt about Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Choose the best responses to the prompts that follow. There is one and only one correct answer to each prompt.

Many critics see Things Fall Apart as a book with two narrators, one that adheres to tradition, and another with more modern views.

In his essay, Wright plays off Neil McEwan's idea of the two narrative voices: the traditional/communal which dominates the first 2/3 of the book, and the individual/modern which takes over the last third.

He claims that Okonkwo's stubborn resistance and deep need to wipe out his father's memory "…are out of harmony with a society which is renowned for its talent for social compromise and which judges a man according to his own worth, not that of his father." (Wright, 78)

Okonkwo resists change so much that he can't even accept it in others. Wright claims that to the rest of his people, Okonkwo's recklessness and fanaticism is embarrassing. This is not as evident in the first 2/3 of the book, but in the modern narrator's voice, it becomes clearer how out of touch Okonkwo really is.

But not everyone sees the book as narrated by two distinct voices. It can also be seen as having a single narrator, whose tone changes and adapts over time. This would be a reflection of the Umuofian society's gradual change and adaptation in order to survive. "The detached yet tolerant tone of the narrator creates this perspective, and acts as a most effective mediator between the individual and the community, between the present and the past." (Carroll, 33) In fact, Carroll points out that "…when the narrator begins to delve into the single mind we anticipate with foreboding an unpleasant turn of events." (Carroll, 34)

"Things Fall Apart." Things Fall Apart. Western Michigan University, n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.

Note: Many people who write about books think Things Fall Apart  has two people telling the story. One has traditional ideas and one has modern ideas. Wright and McEwan think traditional ideas and ideas about the importance of being in a group are in the first two thirds of the book and modern ideas and ideas about being an individual are in the last third of the book.

Wright says that Okonkwo's need to forget about his father and Okonkwo's anger makes him different from the others in the village. The others see the importance of a man is the result of his own work, not his father's.

Okonkwo does not welcome change. He does not like people who  welcome changes. Wright says others in the village do not like Okonkwo's "recklessness and fanaticism." (They think it is wrong for  Okonkwo to not think about what will happen if he makes bad decisions.) The beliefs of the villagers is shown more in the last third of the book than in the first part of the book. The last third of the book, the part with modern ideas, shows how out of touch Okonkwo is. (Out of touch means to not have the newest knowledge about a situation or about people's feelings.)

Not everyone thinks there are two narrators. It is possible that there is one narrator whose ideas change over time like the Umuofian society changes over time to survive.