Things Fall Apart Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. How do the colonial authorities treat the six Umuofian leaders after inviting them to a meeting?
They exile them to Mbanta and confiscate their farms
They place them on trial before a jury of village elders
They imprison and humiliate them while demanding a fine from the clan
They release them after Okonkwo agrees to surrender his titles
2. Which achievement first establishes the young Okonkwo’s fame throughout the nine villages?
Leading Umuofia to victory in a border war
Defeating Amalinze the Cat in a wrestling match
Winning the highest title available to a young man
Producing the village’s largest yam harvest
3. Who carries Ezinma through the night to Agbala’s cave?
Ekwefi, acting under instructions from the elders
Obierika, serving as Okonkwo’s trusted representative
Uchendu, fulfilling a duty to his sister’s family
Chielo, the priestess speaking for Agbala
4. After Okonkwo kills a court messenger, the crowd does not rise with him. What does he understand from its reaction?
The clan is waiting for the Oracle to select a military leader
The villagers have secretly arranged peace through Mr. Brown
Umuofia will not unite in the violent resistance he expects
The other messengers have already captured the clan’s warriors
5. At the end, the District Commissioner imagines reducing Okonkwo’s story to a paragraph in his planned book. What is the main effect of this ending?
It confirms that the Commissioner has finally understood Okonkwo’s motives
It shifts the novel into an objective historical record of British rule
It suggests that Okonkwo’s life matters only as evidence in a criminal case
It exposes how colonial narratives compress complex lives and cultures into dehumanizing summaries
6. Ezeudu tells Okonkwo not to take part in Ikemefuna’s death. Why is the warning especially important?
Okonkwo lacks the title required to carry out an execution
Ikemefuna has secretly been accepted as an Umuofian citizen
The Oracle has ordered Ikemefuna to leave rather than die
Ikemefuna calls Okonkwo father, creating a personal moral obligation
7. The people of Mbanta allow the missionaries to build in the Evil Forest. What outcome do they initially expect?
The missionaries will leave once they discover the land cannot be farmed
The forest’s dangerous spiritual power will kill them and discredit their religion
The missionaries will use the site only as a cemetery
The forest spirits will force the missionaries to accept Igbo worship
8. How does Reverend Smith’s approach differ most clearly from Mr. Brown’s?
Smith is rigid and confrontational, whereas Brown seeks dialogue and gradual influence
Smith focuses on education, whereas Brown permits only religious instruction
Smith avoids converts, whereas Brown appoints them as court messengers
Smith defends Igbo religious practices, whereas Brown tries to abolish them immediately
9. What does Okonkwo do that violates the Week of Peace?
He works his farm before the sacred week has ended
He insults an elder during a village assembly
He beats Ojiugo after she fails to prepare his meal
He refuses to offer kola nut to a visitor
10. Which act by Enoch directly helps trigger the destruction of the church in Umuofia?
He unmasks an egwugwu in public
He arrests an elder during a clan meeting
He removes ancestral masks stored in the egwugwu house
He burns the village’s shrine to Agbala
11. Obierika questions parts of the clan’s justice yet still carries out communal and personal duties. What does this contrast reveal?
A character can critically examine tradition without simply rejecting his community
Only titled elders are permitted to disagree with the Oracle
Obierika intends from the beginning to join the missionaries
The clan treats private doubts as crimes equal to public disobedience
12. Which combination of experiences best explains why the missionaries’ message appeals to Nwoye?
His distress over Ikemefuna and rejected twins, together with alienation from his father’s ideals
His wish to earn titles more quickly than traditional society allows
His resentment that Ezinma, rather than he, will inherit Okonkwo’s compound
His ambition to become a court messenger and gain political authority
13. What is the significance of the iyi-uwa that is found and dug up?
It marks the boundary between Okonkwo’s farmland and a neighbor’s land
It proves that Ekwefi has been chosen to serve as Agbala’s priestess
It is believed to connect Ezinma to the cycle of an ogbanje’s repeated death and return
It is a charm intended to guarantee a successful yam harvest
14. Why is Ikemefuna sent from Mbaino to live in Umuofia?
His family offers him as security for an unpaid debt
He is part of the settlement after a woman from Umuofia is killed
He is selected to train with Umuofia’s strongest wrestlers
His mother asks Okonkwo to raise him after his father dies
15. Okonkwo’s gun explodes at Ezeudu’s funeral and kills the dead man’s son. What consequence follows under the clan’s law?
He must surrender his titles but may remain in Umuofia
He must give one of his sons to Ezeudu’s family
He is permanently banished because every killing is treated alike
He is exiled to his motherland for seven years because the accidental killing is a female crime
16. Why must strangers rather than Okonkwo’s clansmen take down and bury his body?
He dies while still legally banished from Umuofia
Suicide is considered an offense against the Earth, so clansmen may not touch the body
The District Commissioner claims authority over anyone who attacks his messengers
Only Christian converts are permitted to bury someone who dies without a title