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Things Fall Apart: Summary

Things Fall Apart is the story of the tribal leader Okonkwo of the Umuofia tribe. At the beginning of the story, Okonkwo is rich and has three wives. He rules his family with an iron fist because he does not want to be like his father Unoka. At one point he beats his youngest wife so severely that even the masculine, patriarchal tribe is shocked. Okonkwo is always compensating for his impoverished childhood, which he sees as the fault of his spendthrift father. Although Unoka was a great musician, he was also undisciplined with his money, and Okonkwo wants to show his clansmen that he is strong. Okonkwo is ashamed of his oldest son Nwoye, who he sees as weak, and too much like the boy's grandfather. Okonkwo's daughter Ezinma is far stronger in temperament than Nwoye, and Okonkwo favors her in his heart, although he will not allow himself to any signs of affection for any of his children.

The Umuofia are often at war with neighboring tribes. To prevent war, the tribe is given a boy and a girl by a neighboring people as tribute, and Okonkwo takes the young man Ikemefuna into his home. Nwoye comes to love Ikemefuna like a brother, and becomes stronger and more masculine, in emulation of his new hero. Okonkwo sees Ikemefuna as the son he always wanted to have, even though he acts as coldly to the boy as he does to all of his children. When the Oracle of the tribe demands Ikemefuna's death, Okonkwo insists that he help kill the boy who now calls him his father. His friend Ogbuefi Ezeudu says that Okonkwo must not lift a hand against the boy, but Okonkwo tells Ikemefuna that he is being returned to his home village and brutally stabs him to death. Nwoye does not forgive his father for this action, and things are never the same between father and son.

During the funeral of Ogbuefi Ezeudu, Okonkwo accidentally kills the man's teenage son, an accidental crime against the earth goddess for which he is exiled to his mother's village. He loses his livestock and property as a result. During the seven years of his exile, British missionaries come to the land, and the tribe is urged to give up its 'false gods.' The missionary, Mr. Brown, tries to act compassionately and respectfully to the Umuofia tribe, even though he believes they are wrong and worship false gods. He earns many converts, first the outcasts of the land, but then more respected individuals in the community, including Nwoye, who embraces a religion of weakness, rather than his father's cruel and barbarous ideology of strength.

After Mr. Brown's death he is replaced by the Reverend James Smith, who encourages the new, Christian converts to act more radically. Eventually, one of them unmasks the earth goddess of the tribe during a ritual, which is a profane act and kills the goddess' spirit. Lead by Okonkwo, who has now returned, the majority of the unconverted members of the tribe burn down the church built by the missionaries, as well as the hut of the Christian Umuofia Enoch who profaned the ritual and killed the earth goddess.