Things Fall Apart

One character that stands out to me in Things Fall Apart is Enzinma. In the novel, Enzinma is described as intelligent and hard-working, beautiful just like her mother. Being the only child, Enzinma is favored by her father Okonkwo. Although her mother loves her, Ekwefi is distant to Enzinma which makes her blossom into an independent young woman. What amazes me is that Enzinma was literally born to die. An obanje, which is a curse when a child is born, they die and go  back into the mother's womb, creating a cycle. However, she over comes that challenge and is called by the spirits into a cave and is cured, breaking the obanje cycle. This might represent Enzinma breaking the stereotypical cycle of the "housewife."

Women in the Igbo society are destined to live ordinary lives. You are expected to bear many children and take care of your husband. It bothers me that Enzinma has so much potential to live an extraordinary life but is restricted to be a normal Umuofian woman. Enzinma is different from all the other children in her village. She is smart and more mature,  calling her mother by her first name and not caring for gender roles. One example of her breaking the boundaries is when she sits like a man, or when she tries to do a man's job like taking Okonkwo's chair to the wrestling match. I predict that when Umuofia is colonized she branches out and does her own thing because she is nontraditional to the Igbo society.