Things Fall Apart Characters Quiz

Things Fall Apart Characters questions

The answers and an explanation for each question appear as you play, and on the answer-key page of the printout.

1. The narrator explains what lies beneath Okonkwo's harshness at home. What is he most afraid of?
   Being thought to resemble his own father · Dying before his eldest son can inherit from him · Losing his barn and his titles to a bad harvest · Being thrown in the wrestling ring a second time
2. At a kindred meeting Okonkwo dismisses a man who holds no title as a woman. How does an elder rebuke him?
   By ordering him to pay a fine to the earth goddess · By reminding him that his own father held no title · With a proverb recalling that he too began humbly · By refusing to let him speak again at the meeting
3. Why does Ekwefi take such pleasure in the wrestling matches?
   She had wrestled against other girls as a child · She left her first husband for Okonkwo after one · Her own brother once led the village team · Her daughter was named after a famous wrestler
4. What does Chielo's exchange with Ekwefi before the match reveal?
   Ezinma's fragile health is a shared village concern · Chielo intends to take Ezinma as her own daughter · Chielo expects Agbala to summon Ekwefi herself · Ekwefi has quarrelled with the priestess over Ezinma
5. What change in Nwoye during Ikemefuna's three years pleases Okonkwo?
   He asks to be allowed to join a war party · He takes to the talk and the work expected of men · He begins to plant a small yam plot of his own · He wins his first wrestling match in the village ilo
6. What does Okonkwo find hard to understand in the story of the old couple of Ire?
   That the wife died before her husband was buried · That a renowned warrior lived so bound to his wife · That their children refused to pay for the burial · That no funeral drums were sounded for either of them
7. What explains Ekwefi's particular fierceness about Ezinma?
   The priestess had promised the girl a long life · Ezinma had been born during the Week of Peace · Ezinma was the only child Okonkwo acknowledged · Nine earlier children of hers had died in infancy
8. Why does Ekwefi follow the priestess into the hills at night?
   She cannot let Ezinma go beyond her sight · She suspects the priestess of meaning to sell the girl · She means to plead with Agbala on her own behalf · Okonkwo has ordered her to bring the child home
9. How does Okonkwo work his new farm in Mbanta?
   Without the appetite that had driven him at home · By planting cassava rather than yams for speed · With more energy than any man in the village · By hiring young men to do most of the labour
10. What in the missionaries' first visit takes hold of Nwoye?
    The promise that converts would be given land · A hymn the missionaries sang at the end · The interpreter's offer to teach him to read · The white man's account of how the world was made
11. How does Okonkwo react when he learns Nwoye has been going to the church?
    He goes to the church and tears down its new roof · He sends him to Umuofia to live with Obierika · He disowns him before the whole of Uchendu's family · He seizes him by the throat until Uchendu stops him
12. What distinguishes Mr Brown's approach to Umuofia?
    He learns the clan's beliefs by talking with its men · He refuses to baptise anyone who holds a title · He forbids converts to attend the clan's festivals · He preaches only in villages far from the court
13. What has the imprisonment done to Okonkwo by the time he comes home?
    Convinced him that Umuofia must come to terms · Broken his will to take part in the clan's affairs · Persuaded him to seek Obierika's counsel first · Left him set on vengeance whatever the clan decides
14. What does Obierika say to the Commissioner over the body?
    That the white man's rule drove a great man to this · That Okonkwo should have been given a fair trial · That the clan will pay any fine the court demands · That Okonkwo had been mad since his return home
15. What makes Obierika the novel's steadiest moral voice?
    He warns Okonkwo against taking a second title · He alone resists the missionaries from the start · He questions custom while still obeying it · He refuses every demand the elders make of him

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Original questions written for Pagine. This book is in copyright, so questions paraphrase rather than quote it.