Death Among the Ibo Essay

Although the book Things pin Apart and The Joys of Motherhood cover active seventy old age, the difference amongst life in 1880s Nigeria and Nigeria in the 1950s is extreme. The Ibo people modify from a clan and tribal people to a much little(prenominal) closely knit people much like Europeans or join Americans. The change should non necessarily be construed as an improvement in the life of the Ibo people.When Things Fall Apart begins the Ibo people are much the homogeneous as they have been for presumably centuries. They are an agrarian people backup close to the land without pull throughs that have isolated and sanitized from expiry. Death is a natural part of life and is park. They have rules and traditions that have taught them how to deal with cobblers last. Although legion(predicate) of their beliefs may seem strange to people in the twenty-first degree centigrade North America the seem to work well for the Ibo until their traditions are cut off by European Chr istian missionaries.The Ibo beliefs have a certain innocence and simplified world view that is remarkably refreshing when compared to to daytimes efforts to remove death absent(predicate) from society and to prolong death and agedness as long as possible. There is a matter of event character in the Ibo approach to death that makes death both hearty and normal. There are rules to be fol impressioned. When a man dies with a self-conceited abdomen and swollen limbs, he is not to be buried in the earth because his body would pollute the land (Achebe, 14-15).When an Umuofia missy is murdered, the leadership take in to decide what to do. After discussion they decide they should request compensation for the girls death. They elect Okonkwo a young leader who is a self-made man to visit the tribe of the man who has killed the girl and demand that a girl be sent to the Umuofia to replace the girl and another(prenominal) offspring be given to the Umuofia as punishment for the murder . There is a proportionality here that lacks the vengeance of an eye for an eye of the Judeo-Christian culture. Instead it is to a greater extent than of a tit for tat response. Okonkwo visits the neighboring tribe and presents them with the demands of the Umuofia.Clearly on that point is the threat that war will result if their demand is not met, just now it is not made in the do it or else manner common in the twentieth and twenty-first century western civilization. The tribe agrees to the demands of the Umuofia and gives a young girl who is given to the father of the murdered girl. A second base youth, Ikemefuna sent to the Umuofia where he is given to the charge of Okonkwo with whom he lives for three old age where he is inured like a son Three years later the leaders decide Ikemefuna should be killed to satisfy justice about the girls murder. Despite his having treated Ikemefuna as a son, Okonkwo participates in the slaying. He does this in spite of a warning of an elder not to participate because Ikemefuna calls Okonkwo Father. Okonkwo seems surprised about this warning. The decision has been made by the Umuofia leaders and therefore must be followed.There are several enkindle attitudes about death and children. Certainly infant death is common among the Ibo. When a child survives infancy and it appears will live to become an adult, the child is express to be staying (Achebe, 42). Similar to this is a belief that near children are loth(p) to be born into this world and retain a iyi-uwa that allows them to die so they can be reborn to their mother to torment them. To stop this round a medicine man will take the body of the departed infant and mutilate it so that it will be unable to return, though some have been know to return with a missing flick or mark from the medicine mans action.Okonkwo who is a honor and admired member of the Umuofia accidentally kills a youth, he and his family are banished. When this happens Okonkwo appears to comb ine his sentence stoically because it is the established rule. During his banishment European, Christian missionaries move into the theatre of operations and begin to civilize the Ibo. Laws are made and enforced by break and imprisonment. Ibo who suffer such punishment lose their dignity and are no longer the man he had worked to be. When Okonkwo knows that he is going to be killed by the Europeans, he hangs himself rather than submit to the white mans law.As one might expect from the title Emechetas book, The Joys of Motherhood is more concerned with childbirth and motherhood than with death. It is interesting that the perspective of this book is emphatically written from the female point of view and is concerned with life, instead of the manly point of view expressed in Things Fall Apart where death is a more prominent concern.In this book death is treated much like it is today. The characters in this book no longer live in the tribal or clan community that Okonkwo lived in wh ere death is considered a normal part of life. Instead they move to the city, Lagos, where they work for low wages doing the chores the more wealthy white people consider downstairs them. Here death is not so common and not judge so easily. When Nnu Egos son dies in infancy and she attempts to bill suicide, she is judged as insane until she is able to move on and continue her day to day life. Her dead sons body is taken away soon to be replaced by the birth of additional children.Death is less donable and hidden from the people because the British people dont want to think about it. Instead they sanitize it and move it away from day to day life. This happens to the Ibo as well as they move into the twentieth century British colonial lifestyle. Unlike the deaths occurring seventy years rather where the clan is aware of each death and is able to accept it for the saki of the clan, Nnu Ego dies lying at the side of the road unrecognized. She is not lost by her clan or her people who are scattered passim the country.The lack of concern about the rights of the individual regarding death in Achebes book is disturbing. Given todays sensibilities where the individual is more most-valuable than the society the idea of replacing one murdered girl with another girl to take her place and the idea of offering a guarantor as a response to having committed a crime is troubling. masses today want to move on and get on with their lives by and by death, almost as if they were to acknowledge death, they will be stricken with some horrible contagious disease.Acceptance of death is still a societal problem today. Americans today seem unable to accept it. However, after reading these books, one if forced to wonder which of the approached to death, the 1880s Ibo, the 1950s Ibo, or that of Americans in 2006 is best. In some ways the 1880s edition with its innocent and almost nostalgic response to death seems to the best.