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Chinua AchebeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Achebe’s novel begins with his central character, Okonkwo, who is “well known throughout the nine villages” (3). About 20 years ago, he won a fight against an undefeated wrestler, Amalinze, which established his honor. “Tall and huge” (3), and “severe” in his face, Okonkwo has “no patience with unsuccessful men,” especially his father, Unoka (4).
Unoka, as Okonkwo sees him, “was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow” (5). Though Unoka had been tall like his son, before he passed away 10 years earlier, he was “very thin and had a slight stoop” (5). Okonkwo remembers his father playing the flute, drinking palm-wine, and celebrating the harvest with others in the village. Everyone saw him as “a loafer,” and “his wife and children had barely enough to eat” (6). He was constantly in debt to others.
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