Things Fall Apart

Chapter 4 begins by recounting an episode when Okonkwo is older and “one of the lords of the clan,” during which he calls another man a “woman” because he contradicts him (26). The other men see Okonkwo’s insult as overly harsh, and an elder retorts with a proverb, saying “that those whose palm-kernels were cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble” (26). Yet the narrator explains that everyone can recognize that Okonkwo earns his power himself, without a “benevolent spirit” to help (27). The clan honors a man “by the work of his hands,” which is why Okonkwo is chosen to retrieve Ikemefuna (27).

Though Ikemefuna cries often during his first weeks in the village, and though Okonkwo beats him until he is “ill for three market weeks,” Ikemefuna eventually settles into the village (28). Okonkwo, though he “never [shows] any emotion openly,” comes to like Ikemefuna. Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son, admires him because “he [seems] to know everything” (28). In time, Ikemefuna accompanies Okonkwo to ceremonies “like a son, carrying his stool and his goatskin bag”; Ikemefuna begins to call him “father” (28).