"Okonkwo cleared his throat and moved his feet to the beat of the drums. It filled him with fire as it had always done from his youth. He trembled with the desire to conquer and subdue. It was like the desire for woman."
This passage neatly sums up everything I come to dislike, over the first 2/3 of the novel, about Okonkwo and the society that produces him. Shouldn't we be happy that a society that allows men to beat their wives, forces them to kill their children at the whims of the gods, and so muddles them that they confuse rape with athletic prowess (the drums are calling the people to the wrestling matches, at which Okonkwo excelled in his youth. Being a great wrestler is something to be proud of; feeling that the high you get from winning competitions is equable to forcing women is pathetic) is falling apart? And yet, Achebe renders the death of Okonkwo's society at the hands of the colonialists a tragedy because what Okonkwo's society needs is to evolve, retaining what is good while shucking what is not, not to be torn apart.
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