Guilt Makes You A Woman

pages 63-65

"Okonkwo did not taste any food for two days after the death of Ikemefuna. He drank palmwine from morning till night, and his eyes were red and fierce like the eyes of a rat when it was caught by the tail and dashed against the floor. He called his son, Nwoye, to sit with him in his obi. But the boy was afraid of him and slipped out of the hut as soon as he noticed him dozing. He did not sleep at night. He tried not to think about Ikemefuna,-but the more he tried the more he thought about him. Once he got up from bed and walked about his compound. But he was so weak that his legs could hardly carry him. He felt like a drunken giant walking with the limbs of a mosquito. Now and then a cold shiver descended on his head and spread down his body ...  'She should have been a boy,' Okonkwo said to himself again. His mind went back to Ikemefuna and he shivered. If only he could find some work to do he would be able to forget. But it was the season of rest between the harvest and the next planting season. The only work that men did at this time was covering the walls of their compound with new palm fronds. And Okonkwo had already done that. He had finished it on the very day the locusts came, when he had worked on one side of the wall and Ikemefuna and Nwoye on the other. 'When did you become a shivering old woman,' Okonkwo asked himself, 'you, who are known in all the nine villages for your valour in war? How can a man who has killed five men in battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.'"

This passage comes after Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna so as not to seem weak. Okonkwo was given strong advice and a fair warning that he should not be the one to kill the boy. It seems that because he killed him, Okonkwo is truly heartless, but this passage shows the guilt and regret he felt after murdering someone who called him a father. In this passage, Oknonkwo shows a very deep guilt that makes him feel weak, and thus makes him as pathetic as a woman.

The first sentence is the beginning of a chapter and very telling because not eating is a common sign of depression and that shows his true feelings of sadness for what he did. He also tries to drink away the pain and thoughts, which is another common sign because alcohol is often misused as a depressant. Oknonkwo "did not sleep at night", yet another sign of deep regret pooling into depression. He constantly "tried not to think about Ikemefuna" and "he shivered" when he thought of him. This passage serves a great purpose in making it clear that Okonkwo is human and feels regret, even though he considers it weak. Even the fiercest warrior in the village could not stomach killing a young boy.

This passage also shows how the village thought of women. First and foremost he wishes his daughter was a boy because that would somehow make her better. He chastises himself when he finds himself upset about killing by asking himself, "when did you become a shivering old woman". He implies that only women can be upset and need to do work to keep their mind at ease. This is not the first time Okonkwo has claimed women to be the weaker sex.

The passage makes two points. One shows that Okonkwo is actually human with deep feelings and it almost makes the reader feel pity for him because he's so twisted into thinking that appearing weak is the worst thing. The motif of weak ties into the second point of him calling women weak. The reader then feels less bad due to his blatant sexism.