Things Fall Apart Final Test: Whole-Novel Quiz

Things Fall Apart Whole Novel questions

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

1. What does the novel present as the cost of Okonkwo's idea of manliness?
   It makes him unwilling to fight when war is offered · It costs him his titles and his standing in the clan · It leaves him unable to farm or feed his household · It cuts him off from the son and the friend he needs
2. How do the three parts of the novel shape its argument?
   Settled custom, enforced absence, then a changed clan · Peace at home, war with Mbaino, then colonial rule · Childhood, warrior years, then the years of exile · Okonkwo's rise, Nwoye's rise, then the Commissioner's
3. Why does the narration keep turning to proverbs?
   They let the narrator avoid describing violence · They root judgment in inherited communal wisdom · They mark which speakers have been to the school · They allow characters to disguise their real views
4. 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
5. Why does Nwoye find the mission easier to accept than his father's household?
   It promises him revenge on Okonkwo in time · It offers him land and a title of his own · It lets him go on hunting and wrestling as before · It answers questions his father forbade him to ask
6. What do the Week of Peace and the egwugwu trial show when taken together?
   Umuofia restrains power through religious authority · Umuofia settles all disputes by paying compensation · Umuofia's elders rule without any check upon them · Umuofia reserves its harshest penalties for women
7. What does the destruction of Abame foreshadow for Umuofia?
   That the clans will unite against the white man's soldiers · That force will follow any resistance to the newcomers · That trade rather than soldiers will undo the clans · That the Oracle's warnings will always be proved wrong
8. Why does Ezinma matter so much to the portrait of Okonkwo?
   She is the only child who shares his contempt for Unoka · She persuades him to accept the missionaries' school · She shows the tenderness his code will not let him own · She inherits the titles he had intended for Nwoye
9. Why is Okonkwo's return from exile such a disappointment?
   His remaining sons have followed Nwoye to Umuru · His compound has been taken over by the missionaries · The elders refuse to let him hold a welcoming feast · The clan is absorbed in the new order and barely notices
10. By the end of the novel, what has fallen apart?
    A clan whose binding customs have been severed · Okonkwo's compound, destroyed twice over · The District Commissioner's authority in the region · The missionaries' hold over their own converts

More Things Fall Apart practice: all Things Fall Apart quizzes · characters quiz · themes quiz · language & structure quiz

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