Things Fall Apart 8 -13

                            Chapters 8- 13 of things fall apart shows how a mother who suffered a lot throughout her life can still maintain strong and brave. Oknowow wife Ekwefi had a lot of sadness throughout her life. For some reason everything she had a baby it will die of illness, everytime she had a child instead of being happy she thought the worst. Ekwefi’s had ten children but nine other children died the first few months they were alive. Ekwefi started to name her babies symbolic things such as “Onwumbiko,” which means, “Death, I implore you,” and “Ozoemena,” which means, “May it not happen again,(Achebe 77). “ The naming ceremony after seven market weeks became an empty ritual. Her deepening despair found expression in the names she gave her children”. (Achebe 77) Okonkwo got a medicine man who told him that an ogbanje was tormenting them. “This man told him that the child was an obanjie, one of those wicked children who, when they died, entered their mother’s wombs to be born again”(Achebe 77). The medicine man destroyed the dead body of Ekwefi’s third child to discourage the ogbanje’s return. When Ezinma was born Ekwefi was a little hesitant but later on when she saw Eznima growing up that all changed and she turned happy and began to love again.
 

                             Ekwefi is very close to her daughter Ezinma since everything she been through. Ekwefi demonstrates that bring strong and brave it not only in a man’s role when Chielo who is a Priestess, informs Ekwefi that Agbala, Oracle of the Hills and Caves, wants to see Ezinma. Okonkwo and Ekwefi got scared and try to make Chielo wait until the morning, But Chielo tells Okonkwo that he must not defy a god’s will. (Achebe 100). Chielo takes Ezinma tells nobody to follow. Ekwefi didn’t listen and even though she was scared she follows anyway. When Chielo enters the Oracle’s cave, Ekwef says that if she hears Ezinma crying she will save her , doesn’t matter what a god says. “She swore within her that if she heard Ezinma cry she would rush into the cave and defend her against all the god in the world. She would die with her.”(Achebe 108). she chooses her daughter over the gods. Even though Ekwefi suffered a lot she is still strong.