Things Fall Apart Chapter 1 Study Guide

1. What was Okonkwo known for in his village and beyond?

2. Why was Amalinze known as “the Cat?”

3. What did Okonkwo have no patience with?

4. Describe the kind of person that Unoka was.

5. What was one thing that Unoka was good at?

6. What does Unoka offer Okoye when he comes to visit?

7. What was the purpose of Okoye’s visit?

8. How was Okonkwo different from his father?

 Things Fall Apart Chapter 2 Study Guide

1. What was Okonkwo’s worry about the town meeting that was called?

2. What did Okonkwo do in the latest war?

3. What had the people of Mbaino do?

4. What was the ultimatum that was sent to Mbaino?

5. What dominated Okonkwo’s life?

6. What about Nwoye caused Okonkwo anxiety?

7. Why was Ikemefuna brought to live with Okonkwo?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 3 Study Guide

1.What problem did Okonkwo have when he started out that most men do not have?
2. How did one get into the shrine of Agbala to consult the oracle?

3. What would a person see inside the shrine?

4. What did Unoka learn from the priestess about why he always had a bad harvest?

5. What shameful way did Unoka die?

6. When Okonkwo goes to Nwakibie to ask for yam seeds, what do the men talk about
first?

7. Who do they give the dregs of the palm wine to and why?

8.Why doesn’t Nwakibie usually give people yam seeds?

9. What happened the year that Okonkwo took eight hundred yam seeds from Nwakibie?

10. What annoyed Okonkwo about his father in his last days?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 4 Study Guide

1. Why does the old man speak badly of Okonkwo?

2. How had Okonkwo achieved fame early in life?

3. What did Okonkwo do when he heard that Ikemefuna would not eat?

4. What caused Okonkwo to break the peace during the Week of Peace?

5. What is the Week of Peace?

6. What was Okonkwo’s punishment for breaking the peace?

7. Why didn’t Okonkwo allow Nwoye and Ikemefuna to help him prepare his seed-yams.

8. Who did Ikemefuna become attached to during his time in Umoufia?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 5 Study Guide

1. What was the Feast of the New Yam held for?

2. Why didn’t Okonkwo like feasts?

3. What caused Okonkwo to beat his second wife?

4. What does he do when his second wife makes a comment about his gun never being
shot?

5. What would happen on the second day of the festival?

6. What does Ezinma’s mother say is the reason her eyelid is twitching?

7. Why were the drums playing?

8. Why was Obiageli crying when she returned from getting water?

9. What had really happened?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 6 Study Guide

1. What lived in the ancient silk-cotton tree?

2. What did the boys of fifteen or sixteen on the wrestling teams do?

3. Who was the boy that won the first match?

4. Who was the woman Ekwefi talks to during the wrestling break?

5. Why did she call Ezinma “my daughter?”

6. Who is the winner of the last wrestling match?

 Things Fall Apart Chapter 7 Study Guide

1. How did Ikemefuna make Nwoye feel?

2. What kind of tasks now pleased Nwoye?

3. According to Okonkwo, what was a man that could not control his women?

4. What kind of stories did Okonkwo tell the boys in his Obi?

5. What happened that season that had not happened for many a long year?

6. Why where the locusts a good thing?

7. What does Ogbuefi Ezeudu come to tell Okonkwo?

8. Who decided the news that Ogbuefi Ezeudu tells to Okonkwo?

9. Where does Ikemefuna thing he is going when he leaves with the men?
10. Why did Okonkwo strike down Ikemefuna?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 8 Study Guide

1. Why wouldn’t Nwoye stay in his father’s obi after the death of Ikemefuna?

2. What did Okonkwo ask his second wife to make for him?

3. What does Okonkwo wish about Ezinma?

4. Why couldn’t Okonkwo work to forget about Ikemefuna?

5. Where does Okonkwo go to get over his grief?

6. What business does Obierika have to attend to that day?

7. Why wasn’t Obierika present when Ikemefuna was killed?

8. Why wasn’t the drum beaten in Ire to tell Umoufia of the death of Ogbuefi Ndulue?

9. Why can’t a man of title tap his own tall palm trees?
10. What was finally settled on as the bride-price of Obierika’s daughter?

11. What is the joke they make about the rumor of “white” men?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 9 Study Guide

1. How did Okonkwo feel about the last three days when he woke up that night?

2. Why do mosquitoes always go for the ears according to the story Okonkwo’s mother
would tell?

3. What problem does Ekwefi have when she bangs on Okonkwo’s door?

4. Why are children rarely allowed to eat eggs?

5. What did the name Onwumbiko mean? What did Ozoemena mean? What did
Onwuma mean?

6. What is an ogbanje?
7. What did the medicine man do to the child that was not given a proper burial? Why
did he do this?

8. How long did it take Ekwefi to truly accept Ezinma?

9. What strengthened Ekwefi’s faith that Ezinma was here to stay?

10. What is an iyi-uwa?

11. What does Ekwefi do while the medicine man digs for Ezinma’s iyi-uwa?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 10 Study Guide

1. Where was the ceremony in this chapter held?

2. What was the meeting being held for?

3. What were the egwugwu?

4. Who was dressed up as the second egwugwu?

5. How do the egwugwu refer to the people?

6. What is the dispute that is being brought before the egwugwu?

7. How do they settle the dispute?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 11 Study Guide

1. What was Nwayieke notorious for?

2. What were the women and children doing in their huts?

3. How does Tortoise get all the food when he and the birds visit the people of the sky?

4. What about the tortoise does the story of the tortoise and the birds explain?

5. Whose loud high-pitched voice broke the outer silence of the night?

6. What does the priestess want?

7. What does Ekwefi decide to do after Chielo takes Ezinma?

8. What curse from Agbala does Chielo promise to the person following her?

9. To what village does Chielo take Ezinma first?

10. Where does Chielo eventually take Ezinma?

11. What oath does Ekwefi swear?

12. When they were young, why had Ekwefi married Anene instead of Okonkwo?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 12 Study Guide

1. Why did the village wear a festive air the next morning?

2. What do Okonkwo’s wives and children do that morning?

3. How many times had Okonkwo actually gone to the shrine before he ran into Ekwefi?
4. What, according to Obierika, is the source of the market at Umuike’s large size?

5. What interrupts the festivities’ preparation?

6. How many pots of wine did the in-laws arrive with?

7. What were the songs about that the young men sang?

8. What present did Okonkwo give to the suitor’s family?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 13 Study Guide

1. What was one of the things that every man learned?

2. What did the sounding of the ekwe and the firing of the cannons mean?

3. Who was dead?

4. What kind of funeral did he have?

5. How did the two men restrain the egwugwu?

6. Describe the most dreaded of all egwugwu.

7. How many titles had Ezeudu taken in his life?

8. What happened to Okonkwo at this funeral?

9. What was his punishment?

10. What did Obierika do for Okonkwo?

11. What did the men from Ezeudu’s quarter do to Okonkwo’s compound?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 14

1. Who was the old man who received Okonkwo and his family in Mbanta?
2. Where did Okonkwo get the seeds to begin planting a new farm?

3. What was “the nuts of the water of heaven?”

4. Why was it hard for Okonkwo to plant a new farm?

5. What was the isa-ifi ceremony?

6. What does the bride have to swear?

7. Summarize what Uchendu talks to Okonkwo about at the end of this chapter.

Things Fall Apart Chapter 15 Study Guide

1. What did Obierika bring to Okonkwo in the second year of his exile?

2. Who does Okonkwo take Obierika to see?

3. What is the news about Abame that Obierika brought?

4. When Obierika brought up the white man, what did Okonkwo think he meant?

5. Why did they kill the white man?

6. What had he been riding and what did they do with it?

7. How, according to Obierika, did the white men and their followers sneak up on the
town?

8. What does Uchendu say about the people of Abame killing the white man?

9. Why was Nweke late?

10. What was the money from that Obierika brings to Okonkwo?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 16 Study Guide

1. What was happening two years later when Obierika visited Okonkwo?

2. What prompted Obierika to visit Okonkwo?

3. What problem did the interpreter for the missionaries have when speaking to the
people of Mbanta?

4. What did they probably mean by “iron horse?”

5. What do the missionaries want the people of Mbanta to do?

6. Who was captivated by the new religion?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 17 Study Guide

1. What did the missionaries ask the rulers of Mbanta for?

2. What did they give them and why?

3. Why didn’t Nwoye go near the missionaries for the first few days they were there?

4. Who is Mr. Kiaga?

5. What should have happened to the missionaries after seven market weeks?
6. What did Nneka do and why?

7. What did Okonkwo do when he found out that Nwoye joined the Christians?

8. What was Okonkwo popularly called?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 18 Study Guide

1. How did the villagers reconcile the fact that the Christians were rescuing twins from
the evil forest?

2. What happened to the converts that intended to burn the shrines?

3. Who were the osu?

4. What problem did the converts have with the osu joining the church?

5. What did Mr. Kiaga make the osu do before they could join the church?
6. Why didn’t the people of Mbanta chase the new religion out of their village?

7. Why were the people of the village harassing the women of the church?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 19 Study Guide

1. What time was it at the beginning of the chapter?

2. What did Okonkwo name his first child born in exile and what did it mean?

3. What did he name his son born two years later and what did it mean?

4. What could Okonkwo not ask Obierika to build for him?

5. What did Okonkwo have to wait for to return to his homeland?

6. How does Okonkwo thank his mother’s kinsman for their hospitality?

7. What was the feast compared to?

 Things Fall Apart Chapter 20 Study Guide

1. What does it mean “the clan was like a lizard?”

2. What was the first thing Okonkwo had planned to do upon his return to Umoufia?

3. What did Okonkwo tell the rest of his sons after Nwoye left?

4. Why didn’t Ezinma marry any of the men in Mbanta?

5. What else had come to Umuofia besides the new religion?

6. What where the kotma and why where they called ashy-buttocks?

7. What does Okonkwo want to do to the government?

8.What happened to Aneto who killed a man in a fight?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 21 Study Guide

1. What good thing had the white man brought to Umuofia?

2. How did Mr. Brown come to be respected even by the clan?

3. What would Mr. Brown and Akunna discuss in his obi?

4. How does Akunna respond when Mr. Brown says his Ikenga is just a piece of wood?

5. Why, according to Akunna, do they give their worship to the smaller gods before going
to Chukwu?

6. How did Mr. Brown convince the clan to send people to his school?

7. What happened to Mr. Brown?

8. What happened when Mr. Brown tried o tell Okonkwo that Nwoye had gone to the
new training college for teachers?

9. Why did Okonkwo mourn for the clan?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 21 Study Guide

1. Who was Mr. Brown’s successor and how was he different?

2. What did Mr. Smith do to the woman whose husband mutilated their dead ogbanje
child?

3. Who was Enoch?

4. What did Enoch do that touched off the great conflict between the clans and the
church?

5. What was heard throughout the village that night?

6. What did the egwugwu do the next day?

7. What did the Christians do with Enoch to protect him?

8. What did the egwugwu do after they destroyed Enoch’s compound?

9. Who was Ajofia?

10. Why didn’t Mr. Smith’s interpreter know how to respond to the egwugwu?
11. Why aren’t the egwugwu going to harm Mr. Smith?

12. What did the egwugwu do to the church?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 23 Study Guide

1. What did Okonkwo have for the first time in twenty years?

2. Why did every man in Umoufia go about with a gun or machete for the next two day?

3. What did the District Commissioner do when Mr. Smith reported to him about the
destroyed church?

4. Why do you think the Commissioner brought his men into the meeting?

5. Why did they arrest the six men from Umuofia?

6. What did the guards do to the men as soon as the Commissioner left?
7. How where the men treated while they were held prisoner?

8. How long were they kept before the men started talking about giving in?

9. What will the government do if the village doesn’t pay the fine?

10. What did Ezinma do when she heard her father was imprisoned?

11. Where would fifty bags of cowries of the two hundred and fifty bag fine go to?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 24 Study Guide

1. What did the Commissioner talk to the men about before they were released?

2. What did Okonkwo’s friends and relatives notice about him but not speak about?

3. What did Okonkwo get out before he went to bed that night?

4. What did Oknokwo decide to do if Umuofia decided not to go to war?

5. Why was Okonkwo concerned about Egonwanne?

6. Who was Okonkwo looking for when he got to the meeting?

7. Why was Okonkwo sure that Egonwanne would speak against war?

8. What does Okika ask his clan to do?

9. What interrupts his speech?

10. What are the messengers demanding?

11. What does Okonkwo do?

12. How did Okonkwo know that Umuofia would not go to war?

Things Fall Apart Chapter 25 Study Guide

1. Who does the District Commissoiner find at Okonkwo’s compound the next day?
2. What did Obierika and the other men need the Commissioner’s help with?

3. Why do they need the Commissioner’s men to do it?

4. What does Obierika say about Okonkwo?

5. What had the Commissioner learned in his time in Africa?

6. According to the Commissioner, how big of a section would Okonkwo’s story need in
his book?

7. What was the title of the Commissioner’s book?