Defining the Chi
The literal English translation often used in the novel to describe a person's chi.
What is a personal god?
This character was doomed from birth due to inter-tribal dispute and was ultimately sacrificed by the Oracle's decree.
Who is Ikemefuna?
Okonkwo's primary motivation in life is a desperate struggle to change his destiny so he won't resemble this man.
Who is his father, Unoka?
The arrival of these characters fulfilled, a long-standing, ominous prophecy about "locusts" that woukd break Umuofia's sovereign destiny.
Who are the white men/ Christian missionaries?
This sacred object is kept in a man's shrine and is ritualistically carved out of wood to represent his strength, success, and personal chi.
What is an Ikenga?
According to Igbo proverb if a man says yes, this entity says yes also.
What is his chi?
She is an ogbanje child, a malicious spirit destined to die in return to her mother's womb repeatedly.
Who is Ezinma?
This accidental, "female" crime forces Okonkwo into a seven-year exile, disruoting his destiny of becoming a top lord of the clan.
What is the killing of Ezeudu's son?
The tragic collapse of Umuofia's cultural destiny is captured in the title of the novel, which is drawn from a poem by this famous Irish poet.
Who is William Butler Yeats?
Small, buried object (usually a pebble or crystal) links an ogbanje child to the spirit world; finding and destroying it breaks their cycle of fated early death.
What is an iyi-uwa?
Unoka's failure, debt, and bad and attributed to this kind of chi, which Okonkwo desperately tries to outrun.
What is an evil or ill-fated chi?
Okonkwo believes this son is cursed with the same weak, unmanly chi that ruined Unoka.
Who is Nwoye?
When Okonkwo kills the court messenger at the end of the book, he realizes Umuofia's collective destiny has broken because they do not do this.
What is go to war?
This religious institution targets the outcast (osu), and those cursed by fate (like parents of twins), offering them a different spiritual destiny.
What is the Christian church?
Characters travel deep into a subterranean cave to consult the specific entity when they need to discover the absolute, unchangeable will of the gods regarding their future.
What is the Oracle if the Hills and the Caves? (Accept: Agbala)
When Okonkwo's crops feel early in life due to terrible weather, he realizes a man could not defeat this ultimate cosmic force, no matter how hard he worked.
What is fate?
This older relative in Mbanta warns Okonkwo that he cannot deny his motherland, reminding him that a man cannot fight his fate alone.
Who is Uchendu?
By committing suicide, Okonkwo cements his ultimate, tragic destiny as this, an act desecrates the earth.
What is an abomination?
The white man built this piece of infrastructure in Umuofia, which changed the economic destiny of the clan by bringing wealth through Palm oil.
What is a trading post?
This physical location is where babies born with a cursed destiny (like twins) or those who die of swelling diseases are discarded to prevent polluting the clans spiritual fate.
What is an Evil Forest?
The ultimate philosophical limit of chi is shown when a man's external hard work is completely ruined by this unstoppable natural or divine element.
What is bad weather?
This loyal friend acts as a structural foil to Okonkwo, frequently pointing out where Okonkwo's actions anger the earth goddess and tempt a bad fate.
Who is Obierika?
This specific emotional trait is what Okonkwo believes is a fatal flaw in his father's destiny, driving Okonkwo to act with extreme brutality to prove the opposite.
What is weakness?
At the end of the novel, the ultimate loss of the clan's destiny is symbolized by the District Commissioner, reducing Okonkwo's entire life down to this length in his book.
What is a single paragraph?
This ritualistic action of breaking and sharing a specific nut is performed before any major discussion about a man's future, wealth, or destiny can begin.
What the breaking of the kola nut?