Things Fall Apart Proverbs Chapters 12-14

One of the proverbs used by Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart is "You grew your ears for decoration, not for hearing" (62). This quote is said by a mother to her daughter, Akueke, tp suggest that her ears are useless because she never listens to her mother's advice and warnings. She suggests that she's been warned of things not to do, and that disregarding her mother's advice, Akueke is damning herself to make bad choices and end up in bad situations. This could be foreshadowing Okonkwo's ultimate downfall because he never listened to his parents at Akueke's age, and now he is going down a bad path.

Okonkwo often refers to himself as "fire" and uses metaphors such as "Living fire begets cold, impotent ash" (Achebe 134). In this proverb, Okonkwo further secures his label as a cocky and careless person. Fire tears through everything, burning anything in its path, in order to get where it wants to go. It leaves behind nothing but cold, silky ash where there once was a mighty building or an innocent creature of earth. This can be used to describe Okonkwo because he did exactly that to Ikemefuna in chapter 7. With the blade of his machete, he scorched Ikemefuna and left nothing but sadness and a lifeless boy behind.http://addins.whig.com/blogs/betweenthelens/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Hamilton-Fire-Folo148a.jpg