Death Among the Ibo Essay Example for Free

Death Among the Ibo EssayAlthough the book Things beam by and The Joys of Motherhood cover about seventy daytimes, the difference between life in mid-eighties Nigeria and Nigeria in the 1950s is extreme. The Ibo passel change from a clan and tribal people to a a lot less stuffyly knit people much same(p) Europeans or North Americans. The change should not necessarily be construed as an improvement in the life of the Ibo people.When Things Fall Apart begins the Ibo people ar much the same as they gift been for presumably centuries. They ar an agrarian people living close to the land without lives that have isolated and sanitized from death. Death is a natural part of life and is common. They have rules and traditions that have taught them how to deal with death. Although many of their beliefs may see strange to people in the twenty-first ascorbic acid North America the seem to work well for the Ibo until their traditions are interrupted by European Christian mission aries.The Ibo beliefs have a certain innocence and simplified world view that is remarkably refreshing when compared to todays efforts to channel death away from society and to prolong death and aging as long as possible. in that respect is a matter of fact character in the Ibo approach to death that makes death both authentic and normal. thither are rules to be followed. When a man clogs with a swollen 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 girl is murder, the leading meet to decide what to do. After discussion they decide they should request compensation for the girls death. They elect Okonkwo a tender 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 youth be given to the Umuofia as punishment for the murder. There is a balance here that lacks the vengeance of an eye f or an eye of the Judeo-Christian culture. kind of it is more than of a tit for tat repartee. Okonkwo visits the neighboring tribe and presents them with the demands of the Umuofia.Clearly there is the threat that fight will result if their demand is not met, but 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 youthful girl who is given to the father of the murdered girl. A second youth, Ikemefuna sent to the Umuofia where he is given to the pull of Okonkwo with whom he lives for three years where he is treated 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 get ins 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. Th e decision has been made by the Umuofia leaders and therefore must be followed.There are several interesting 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 said to be staying (Achebe, 42). Similar to this is a belief that around children are reluctant 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 cycle a medicine man will take the body of the deceased infant and mutilate it so that it will be unable to return, though some have been know to return with a missing finger or mark from the medicine mans action.Okonkwo who is a renown and admired member of the Umuofia accidentally kills a youth, he and his family are banished. When this happens Okonkwo appears to accept his sentence stoically because it is the established rule. During his banishment European, Christian mi ssionaries move into the area and begin to down the Ibo. Laws are made and enforced by hanging and imprisonment. Ibo who suffer such punishment lose their hauteur 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 decidedly written from the female period of view and is concerned with life, instead of the masculine 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 partnership that Okonkwo lived in where death is considered a normal part of life. Instead they move to the city, Lagos, where they work for low stipend doing the chores the more wealthy white people consider beneath them. Here death is not so common and not accepted so easily. When Nnu Egos son dies in infancy and she attempts to commit suicide, she is judged as psychotic 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 acceptable 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. foreign the deaths occurring seventy years earlier where the clan is aware of each death and is able to accept it for the pastime of the clan, Nnu Ego dies lying at the side of the road unrecognized. She is not missed by her clan or her people who are scattered throughout the country.The lack of concern about the rights of the individual regarding de ath in Achebes book is disturbing. Given todays sensibilities where the individual is more important than the society the idea of replacing one murdered girl with another girl to take her place and the idea of offering a hostage as a response to having committed a crime is troubling. People today want to move on and get on with their lives after 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 version with its innocent and almost nostalgic response to death seems to the best.