Breaking Away

        Umuofia is a clan centered around spiritual and ancestral ceremonies. Throughout a week in the Umuofia clan, many ceremonies are performed. The Umuofia have ceremonies to celebrate marriage, death, harvest, planting, and burrials. These ceremonies are costly and performed with respect and fear of spirits. Okonkwo, though, begins to become skeptical of these ceremonies and traditions and does not understand why the innocent and accidents should be punished. He questions, “Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offense he had committed inadvertently?” (Achebe 125) Okonkwo had accidentally murdered a boy but was still exiled for seven years because of a rifle malfunction. Also, Okonkwo remembers when his wife had twins, and he had to take them to the mountains and murder them. He also questions why he had to murder his children and, “What crime had they committed?” (Achebe 125) Okonkwo is now starting to question the Earth Goddess but knows not to share his ideas and emotions for fear of rejection and failure.

        Okonkwo has also physically defied the gods by beating his wife during the Weak of Peace. His actions and mind are slowly forming their own sense of right and wrong, beliefs and ideas, and practices and routines. Okonkwo goes into deep thought, after being exiled from his village, about the rules of the Earth Goddess and her ceremonies and traditions. He is slowly breaking away from society and leaving his ideal, patriotic figure behind. Okonkwo has already began to break away from society mentally, in regards to his ideas and beliefs, and now physically, exiled from his village.