Heroes

Heroes are real, they do not live in comic books and fiction films only. We live beside them everyday, we eat  without knowing who they are, what they've lived, who they know, what they like or what inspires them to do the things they do. You may be one, you may be close to one, anyhow, their actions aren't made for a prize, they do it because they know its the right thing to do.

Some heroes even die acomplishing their point, some of them live to be known, but they do not want fame or fortune for their actions. They do not even need a thanks to be in peace with themselves.

Heroes may be people who help an old lady to cross the road, or the man who helps someone stand up when they have fallen. There are many heroes. These kind of people are the living proof that people haven't lost their humanity. 

I think heroes are and have always been needed in time. In early times a hero was someone who made an heroic deed in a crusade or mission, someone who was an incredible warrior such as Aquiles, or Hector from Troy, but as much as they have made heroic deeds in Greek mythology, there were heroes who helped ordinary people without making those big heroic belic deeds. Nowadays we do not see much heroes such as  the mythological warriors shown above, but instead these people, our relatives, our friends, the man in the bar, the guy who saved a man from being run overed by a car.

Heroes will be always needed, not for their deeds but to inspire people to do the same as they do. Being a rolemodel is a great deal. With all the bad things happening in the world, at least someone must have to proof the world there is still some good in it. Heroes are great people and their actions are remembered from age to age.

Relating a Quote with Myself

"If you haven’t found it yet, 

Keep looking. Don't settle.

As with all matters of the heart, you'll

Know when you find it.

And, like any great relationship, it just

Gets better and better as the years roll on."

                                                                        (Steve Jobs, 2005)

This quote means that life will have a path for each one of us, everyone has their paths and if you don't feel as if you have got to yours, just keep looking, when you have found it, you will enjoy it in such ways you won't be able to explain.

This is a paragraph of a novel i began writing time ago, I could never finish it. This part explains exactly why I relate with Steve Job's quote.

As we live, everyone looks for something special within them; something that will make us unique, that gives us the slightest glimpse to true happiness. At least for a moment we all want to feel diverse and valuable, away from this despicable world in which no one ever knows themselves completely. Few people find that reason, but the rest can take a lifetime searching only to never find it, I've wondered my entire, short and boring life although if I still have faith that someday I will find it. 

Things fall apart (part 3) Summaries

Chapter 20

• since Okonkwo was exiles he has been thinking of what he will do when he returns to Umuofia, he wants to get 2 more wives and make Ezinma and her other daughter Obiageli to marry which were persuaded to stay single until they were back in Umuofia. He wants to get titles for his sons and although Nwoye isn’t there anymore he has passed on through that. Okonkwo and Okierika discuss of how Umuofia has changed during his exile, Okonkwo realized. Many people had taken the ways of the Christians making families distant from each other and making it harder for the people of the clan to make the white men flee. They end sitting in silence.

Chapter 21

• White men's power and influence over the villages has increased and natives have been getting angrier and angrier withe time. Mr. Brown a white missioner often meets with one of the leaders of the clan Akunna, he explains that although they may worship many gods there is only one high god named Chukwu and the rest are his messengers, they talk about how worshiping wooden gods is illogical at Brown's point of view but Akunna refutes what he says by telling that although there is only one god, he made the wood that made the wooden gods. Both of them end comprehending each other’s beliefs though not converting each other. Brown builds a church and a school begging the natives to send their kids so men who know how to read and write won’t take advantages of them and people follow. Okonkwo receives a visit from Brown to inform him that Nwoye has gone to school to become a teacher, Okonkwo scares him away using threats. Brown leaves and then he begins getting ill making going away from Africa the only option for him.

Chapter 22

• Brown gets replaced by Reverend James Smith who is strict man and wants everyone to follow his rules and practice Christianism without doubting anything. A convert man named Enoch likes the idea of a not restraining policy and unmasks an Egwugwu at the annual ceremony which is the worst crime a man can do in the tribe due to the fact that ot was the same as killing an ancestral spirit. As revenge the Egwugwu burn Enoch's compound and then go to the church where Smith and the Christians are gathered. They want to burn the church as a vengeance for what Enoch did. Smith tells them that he forbids them from touching the church but he's translator tells that smith demands the matter left in his hands. Smith can’t save the church and only watches as it is burn to the ground.

Chapter 23

• Okonkwo regains a little bit of power and becomes a little bit happy although the people didn’t send the Christians away or worse killed them. The people begin to guard themselves with their guns and machetes in case something happens. The district commissioner request the presence of the leaders of Umuofia without their weapons, he talks to them as friends to settle the church problem but when they lower their guard, some soldiers surprise them and handcuff them and they are sent to jail for days where they are very bad treated and insulted. The way to bail them out of jail is if the townspeople pay 200 bags of cowries and when the messenger is sent to collect the cowries he collects 250, making 50 for his personal use and the other messengers the town crier announces an emergency meeting and the next morning the town decides to collect the cowries.

Chapter 24

• The prisoners return and due to how they look at people no one even greets them, Okonkwo goes to his compound and there Enzima makes him some food which he eats only to please her and with Okierika they notice Okonkwo has Whip marks in his back. There is announced another town meeting which everyone attends. Okonkwo sleeps very little imagining what actions will the people make due to the situation. When they arrive Okonkwo thinks the clan will make a war out of all of this due to the fact that there were enormous amounts of people. The meeting starts and not long after this 5 court messengers arrive and when one of them begins to talk Okonkwo kills him with two blows of his machete. Then people wonder why he did that, which is when Okonkwo knows that Umuofia won’t enter war as he thought Okonkwo leaves.

Chapter 25

• The district commissioner arrives at Okonkwo's compound and asks for him, Obierika with other men who gathered outside tell him that Okonkwo isn't there and after the commissioners threatens the men Okierika agrees to take him where Okonkwo is, he leads the commissioner behind some bushes where behind it, on a tree, the corpse of Okonkwo hangs from a branch. He killed himself and asks the Commissioner if he could help them to get him down and bury him because it was in their traditions that they couldn’t do it. The commissioners sends a man to get the corpse down and he begins to thinks the story of the man who killed a messenger and then killed himself would make a good short story for a book.       

Part II Things Fall Apart Summary

Chapter 14

• Okonkwo is exiled to Mbanta his motherland where his uncle Uchendu gives him warmth and comfort with his family, he is given by all of his cousins 300 yams so he can start a new farm and a good quantity of land so he can make his Ibo and the huts of his family. Okonkwo gets really depressed for his exile and when Uchendu notices this he talks with him and tells him that he is not the greatest sufferer in the world that there are people who get exiled for all their lives or even killed. In this Chapter Uchendu tells Okonkwo that his mother's land will always be available for him and relates it to when a father slaps a kid he goes for comfort with its mother.

Chapter 15

• Two years have passed since Okonkwo's exile and a friend of him, Obierika visits him bringing two bags, which later in the chapter we find out that they are yams from Okonwko's ex- farms in his tribe which Obierika had been working for him and he gives the yams to Okonkwo. He also tells that a Village named Abame was attacked by white men after one of them was killed when he came to town due to the oracles; they predicted that the white man would bring chaos and would destroy the village. So they killed the man and tied in what the white man arrived to the town which was thought as an iron horse. time later more white men came and saw the iron horse tied, then they left, nothing happened until one day they infiltrated the town market and out of nowhere they brought out their guns and began murdering everyone in there, the only ones who survived where the old men and the sick ones who could not go to the market... When Uchendu realizes that the first white man had said nothing only things in other languages when he was killed he says that the men of Abame are fools for killing him, Okonkwo thinks the same although he adds that the men should have armed when the oracle said the prediction. In this Chapter the story of Mother Kite is as a reference to the people in Abame as killing the silent white man.

Chapter 16

• Obierika returns to Mbanta to visit Okonkwo again but this time because he has seen Nwoye with some Christian missionaries, Christianity is getting more and more followers but these are efulefu (men who are not worth anything or hold any title.) Okonkwo doesn’t speak about Nwoye and Nwoye says that Okonkwo isn't his father so Nwoye tells Obierika What had happened. Men Came to Mbanta with an interpreter called Mr. Kaiga, they speak of religion and tell that the gods they worshiped in the villages werent real and were fake, there was only one God creator of everything, people in the town mock him by laughing when the interpreter says "my buttocks" every time he means "myself" they also don’t agree in the holy trinity and how God could have a son without having a wife. Okonkwo is angry and goes away as much of the other people who were listening, but Nwoye is really persuaded by this man due to the fact that this God won’t make the people kill themselves or some of the evil things that their fake wooden and stone gods, meaning that the twins he hears in the evil forest and Ikemufuna would still be alive if people followed this one and only God. 

Chapter 17

• The missionaries want a place where to build a church. the elders and the leaders of the clan gather and discuss whether giving them or not this piece of land they want, they come to the conclusion of giving them part of their evil forest so missionaries will confront the same fate as everyone who was sent there and people in the town will realize how powerful their gods are once again. They say that by the fourth day, the missionaries will be no more. The missionaries are given the land and begin the construction of the church, as the days pass people begin to hope missionaries’ death, but when four days pass and more keep on passing people lose faith in their mighty gods due to the fact that the missionaries are still perfectly fine.

Chapter 18

• The church has new followers, sadly they are the outcasts, people from church want Mr. Kaiga to kick them out but then he says they are sons of god to and lets them into Christianity only if they cut their long hair and beards... Another day one sacred python has been killed by one of the people converted to Christians and Mbanta wants to do something and Okonkwo wants revenge and to lead the Christians out of their... when the tribe is about to attack they are told that the man who killed the python died, then they decide not to attack due to the fact that it was proven that their gods can still fight their own battles.

Chapter 19

• almost seven years have passed since Okonkwo was exiled meaning this that he would return in no time to his homeland, he decides to throw a feast for all his family who helped him during this tough years although he feels bad due to the fact that he knew he could have been more important in his homeland and earned more titles by the time that had gone past. Here Okonkwo's kinsmen speak very good of the feast and how Okonkwo thinks having kinsmen reunions are important and how the young people will have to suffer due to the fact of Christians and how they are worried for them.

Mother Kite Story (things fall apart)

Mother Kite sends its daughter to hunt and when she returns with a baby duckling but when Mother Kite is told that the mother of the duckling stood silent when she lost her baby, Mother Kite told its daughter to return the baby to the mother... then when she returned again, she brought a baby chick this time, the mother had cursed the young Kite when it took the baby. Mother Kite told her daughter they could now eat this chick.

The message with this story is that you should fear the ones who stay silent when hurting them rather than the ones who talked, because you can’t know what the silent ones are thinking or if they will get their payback, the ones who talk will give all their wrath to their words rather than their actions, the ones who stay silent will keep their wrath and wait to when they can show it with their actions, like a common saying says "the dog that barks won’t bite".

Things Fall Apart Chapter Summary 6 - 13

Chapter 6

• The Wrestling match takes place, starting with kids of 15 and 16 years. the son of one of Okonkwo's friend wins a match and the matches keep on, some women begin to talk one of them Ekwefi and the other one a priestess. They talk about how a girl who has passed 10 is now "to stay." At the end of the Chapter a guy named Okafo who won against Ikezue is to represent the Village wrestling. 

Chapter 7

• 3 years have passed since Ikemufua has been under Okonkwo's care, he has bonded with all his family and has been taken as a son for Okonkwo because he is like a son he never had, one who worked well and wasn’t lazy as Nwoye, although he has changed to, he has learned to be manlier throughout the years now just to please his father. Locusts begin to appear in the tribe, thing that happens once every generation for seven years and this is something the clan expects because they are great to eat... People even have stories about them and tales, Ogbuefi comes to Okonkwo's hut just to tell him that Ikemufuna must be killed as the Oracle said, Okonkwo is sad and he is told not to interfere with this matter. Later on he lies to Ikemufuna and to Nwoye telling them that he will be coming back to his family... they both end sad and the journey begins. Many men escort Ikemufuna outside the village and soon tell Ikemufuna not to look back, he only thinks of seeing his family and mother, he thinks she might be dead, he also thinks about his sister who might not recognize him because he was taken when she was only 3. Then Ikemufuna feels how a man attacks him with a machete and he turns running to Okonkwo screaming “My father, they have killed me!" Okonwko finishes him in order to not seem weak. When he returns home, Nwoye knows Ikemufuna had died and felt so sad but he didn’t cry, he tells he felt this way when he heard some cries coming from the Evil Forrest long ago from babies, babies who were sent there because they were twins.

Chapter 8

• Okonkwo is sad due to Ikemufuna's death and gets really depressed. Ezinma each day brings him his food and makes sure he eats it. Okonkwo always thinks she should have been a boy and then he goes to Obierika's hut. Obierika disagrees with Okonkwo helping to kill Ikemefuna and tells him it wasn't right to do such a thing like that. Obierika tells Okonkwo some men are comming to his hut to buy her daughter for marriage. The final agreement is 25 broomsticks for the girl but when the payment must be done the husband's family will pay with cowries(their currency) instead of broomsticks. this chapter ends with the men talking about white men and how they are. 

Chapter 9

• Ezinma is sick and Ekfewi wakes up Okonkwo warning him that she is dying... Ekwefi tells us about the other kids she had when younger and everyone died... she was told she had a kid demon inside of her womb and in each birth the demon was born in her child and killed them, then it came back to her womb. She began naming her kids with mocking names for death. Okonkwo helps taking care of Enzima and we are informed that at the age of 9 she was given a stone to burry in soil which was a link to the demon and the spiritual world, this to make sure the demon would be trapped.

Chapter 10

• The village joins in an event of justice and men diguised as  egwugwu's (ancestral spirits) appear from a house where no women are allowed and the women and kids become very scared, the wives of Okonkwo think that he may be amongst the men disguised. there is a problem with a man and his wife, the man claims that his family in law took the girl without asking nor repaying what he payed for her when they married. The family tells the egwugwu that he has hit her many times and treats her very bad and thats why they made those things. the spirits tell the husband that he will have his genitals cut off if he ever does that again to her. Elders begin to speak of how silly it is to bring such matters to the spirits.

Chapter 11

• Ekwefi tells ezinma a story about a tortoise that tricks birds to give him wings and fly to heaven where it takes advantage of the birds and tricks them so he can eat all of the food at a banquet the heaven people prepared for the birds, the birds get angry and take the tortoise wings away from it. the tortoise tells one of the birds to tell tortoise's wife to put all of the soft things outside the house so he can jump to saftey but instead the bird tells the wife to bring out all the heavy things making the tortoise break its shell. someone repairs tortoise's shell and that is why tortoises have hard shells. when the story ends, Chielo (the priestess) takes Ezinma away because she is told the oracle wants to see her. Ekfewi follows from a distance Chielo in the night only hearing her footsteps and chants. They travel all the villages and at the end Ekwefi waits in a cave Chielo had entered, she is scared by Okonkwo who followed with a machete and they remember how Okonkwo took her into her hut when she escaped from her old husband to be with Okonkwo.

Chapter 12

• Okonkwo's family is preparing a pre-wedding ceremony for Obierika's daughter, where the husband's family is going to pay the girl's price and some stuff of the wedding, that day at dawn Chielo had already brought back Ezinma and put her in her hut. Ezinma wakes up and helps her family organize the ceremony.The ceremony goes on untill a neigbhour let's his cows loose. it comes back to joy again after. Okonkwo tells Obierika that if the family of the husband doesn't bring more than 30 pots of wine he will get mad but they end up bringing 50 pots so he becomes happy. Obierika kills goats and makes food with them. The biggest one, he gives it to the husband's family as a gift and the ceremony ends happy

Chapter 13

• Ogbuefi Ezeudu dies and there is a ceremony for his burial. There are cannon shots to honor him and gun shots to the air. Everyone is gathered to dance and in the center of the dance a boy colapses...he was de dead man's sixteen year old grandson. A shot Okonkwo's gun accidentally fired, he is blamed for murdered and exiled for seven years of the tribe, he sends his family to a town nearby where his mother lives and then relatives of Ezedu burn all of Okonkwo's possetions Obierika remembers at the end of the chapter when his twins were sent to the evil woods and left them there to die. this chapter tells us when things begin to fall apart for Okonkwo's perfect life he had built upon the years and the title begins to make sense with the book.

Things Fall Apart Chapter Summary 1 - 7

Chapter 1

• Okonkwo is an Igbo Native from the Umuofia clan. He won the respect of all the clan when he defeated Amalizine the Cat in a wrestling match when younger. He earned the respect of all nine villages which make the clan. With this win Okonkwo's tribe "Iguedo" became more important within the nine. Although his name might be known all over the clan with respect, his father wasn’t... Unoka, Okonkwo's father was lazy and a no one within the village, the only thing he was good at was to play music, he borrowed a lot of money but never paid back and as Okonkwo grew older he began to hate and feel pity for him for being such a failure.

Chapter 2

• The chapter begins with the town carrier gathering every men of the clan to the market to inform that someone from a neighbor village (Mbaino) killed someone's wife from the tribe when she was at the local market... Everyone reacts angrily and send Okonkwe as a messenger because he is the greatest warrior in the clan and everyone knows him because he has taken the head of 5 hostiles during battle to the hostile tribe in order to make a peace arrangement before they went to a war in which Umuofia would most certainly win because of their great reputation as warriors... The peace treaty consisted in giving Okonkwo's tribe a Virgin and a young man. The tribe accepts the offering and sends a Woman that would become Ogbuefi Udoe's wife due to the elder’s choice dead wife and a young lad named ikemufuna, this kid is sent to Okonkwo because no one knew what to do with him and he sends Ikemufuna with his first wife. Okonkwo has treated his 3 wives and 8 children bad, and very strict, he hated everything his father had loved. Nwoye his eldest son was the laziest of them all so he suffers a lot when his father is nearby and has to stand all of his beatings.

Chapter 3

• This chapter tells how Okonkwo earns all of his wealth, Unoka, his father as I told before was a failure and had many debts, the oracle said this was due to his laziness so Okonkwo couldn't use his father to start his richness, here it is told that Unoka died because of a swelling that in the tribe it is one of the most shameful things that can happen to someone. If you die by this, you can’t be buried because it would be an offense to Mother Nature so they send you to the Evil Forrest to die. Okonwo starts his farm by asking someone already wealthy within the clan named Nwakibie to lend him 400 seed yams (which they used as currency in the clan) but he instead gives Okonkwo 800 because he has always been a hard worker. He began his farm with those and 400 yams more that a friend gave him. He suffered a lot the first time with the harvest due to the weather and almost lost everything, but he tells that making some of the crops survive proves the strength he had. 

Chapter 4

• Peace week surrounds the village, during this week there is no violence in all the clan, this to make the crops better and bigger during the year. Ikemufuna and Nwoye begin to make a great bond as if they were good brothers, but not only Nwoye makes a bond with him, Okonkwo also begins to bond with this lad, although he doesn’t show it because he says it only would only prove weakness it is shown... Ikemufuna begins calling him father. One day Okonkwo comes to his hut and sees there is no food on the table, soon he realizes that one of his wives, the one who was in charge of serving him, was braiding her hair in another hut. When he finds her, he starts to beat her hard although his other 2 wives implore him not to. This makes him get a punishment for interfering with the peace week. He is to sacrifice a hen, a goat, give 100 cowries (another form of currency) and give out some cloth. After the week of peace he begins to settle the land for the crops with Ikemufuna and Nwoye, they do a bad work and Okonwko criticizes them knowing they do not understand farming as well as he does, at the end Ikemufuna tells some tales from home to the Family.

Chapter 5

• Before crops are ready the village throws a feast for the New Yam which makes everyone decorate their huts, paint themselves with creative designs and they throw all their old yams to bring in the new ones. Okonkwo isn’t a fan of the feasts because he thinks it’s a time for laziness. In a point of the chapter Okonkwo beats his wife Ekwefi and then begins to get ready to begin to hunt. His wife mocks him in a whispering voice that he has never shot his rifle and that’s why he is so bad at it so Okonkwo turns around and shoots her, he misses... Each year along with the Feast there is also the wrestling match in which many years ago, Okonkwo made Ekwifi fall in love with him when he defeated the Cat. So much that she escaped from her current husband to be with him. In Okonkwo's hut Ezinma, Ekwefi's Daughter serves Okonkwo his meal and as the chapter goes on Okonkwo makes notice that he really likes her but doesn’t act like it that much. Then another two of Okonkwo's daughters wait for him to finish his food.

Chapter 6

• The Wrestling match takes place, starting with kids of 15 and 16 years. the son of one of Okonkwo's friend wins a match and the matches keep on, some women begin to talk one of them Ekwefi and the other one a priestess. They talk about how a girl who has passed 10 is now "to stay." At the end of the Chapter a guy named Okafo who won against Ikezue is to represent the Village wrestling. 

Chapter 7

• 3 years have passed since Ikemufua has been under Okonkwo's care, he has bonded with all his family and has been taken as a son for Okonkwo because he is like a son he never had, one who worked well and wasn’t lazy as Nwoye, although he has changed to, he has learned to be manlier throughout the years now just to please his father. Locusts begin to appear in the tribe, thing that happens once every generation for seven years and this is something the clan expects because they are great to eat... People even have stories about them and tales, Ogbuefi comes to Okonkwo's hut just to tell him that Ikemufuna must be killed as the Oracle said, Okonkwo is sad and he is told not to interfere with this matter. Later on he lies to Ikemufuna and to Nwoye telling them that he will be coming back to his family... they both end sad and the journey begins. Many men escort Ikemufuna outside the village and soon tell Ikemufuna not to look back, he only thinks of seeing his family and mother, he thinks she might be dead, he also thinks about his sister who might not recognize him because he was taken when she was only 3. Then Ikemufuna feels how a man attacks him with a machete and he turns running to Okonkwo screaming “My father, they have killed me!" Okonwko finishes him in order to not seem weak. When he returns home, Nwoye knows Ikemufuna had died and felt so sad but he didn’t cry, he tells he felt this way when he heard some cries coming from the Evil Forrest long ago from babies, babies who were sent there because they were twins.