Death Among the Ibo Essay Example for Free

Death Among the Ibo Essay Although the book Things Fall Apart and The Joys of Motherhood cover about seventy years, the difference between life in 1880s Nigeria and Nigeria in the 1950s is extreme. The Ibo people change from a clan and tribal people to a much less closely knit people much like Europeans or North Americans. The change should not necessarily be construed as an improvement in the life of the Ibo people. When Things Fall Apart begins the Ibo people are much the same as they have been for presumably centuries. They are an agrarian people living close to the land without lives that have isolated and sanitized from death. Death is a natural part of life and is common. They have rules and traditions that have taught them how to deal with death. Although many of their beliefs may seem strange to people in the twenty-first century North America the seem to work well for the Ibo until their traditions are interrupted by European Christian missionaries. The Ibo beliefs have a certain innocence and simplified world view that is remarkably refreshing when compared to todays efforts to remove death away from society and to prolong death and aging as long as possible. There is a matter of fact character in the Ibo approach to death that makes death both real and normal. There are rules to be followed. When a man dies with a swollen abdomen and swollen limbs, he is not to be buried in the earth because his body would pollute the land (Achebe, 14-15). When an Umuofia girl is murdered, the leaders meet to decide what to do. After discussion they decide they should request compensation for the girls death. They elect Okonkwo a young leader who is a self-made man to visit the tribe of the man who has killed the girl and demand that a girl be sent to the Umuofia to replace the girl and another youth be given to the Umuofia as punishment for the murder. There is a balance here that lacks the vengeance of an eye for an eye of the Judeo-Christian culture. Instead it is more of a tit for tat response. Okonkwo visits the neighboring tribe and presents them with the demands of the Umuofia. Clearly there is the threat that war will result if their demand is not met, but it is not made in the do it or else manner common in the twentieth and twenty-first century western civilization. The tribe agrees to the demands of the Umuofia and gives a young girl who is given to the father of the murdered girl. A second youth, Ikemefuna sent to the Umuofia where he is given to the charge of Okonkwo with whom he lives for three years where he is treated like a son Three years later the leaders decide Ikemefuna should be killed to satisfy justice about the girls murder. Despite his having treated Ikemefuna as a son, Okonkwo participates in the slaying. He does this in spite of a warning of an elder not to participate because Ikemefuna calls Okonkwo Father. Okonkwo seems surprised about this warning. The decision has been made by the Umuofia leaders and therefore must be followed. There are several interesting attitudes about death and children. Certainly infant death is common among the Ibo. When a child survives infancy and it appears will live to become an adult, the child is said to be staying (Achebe, 42). Similar to this is a belief that some children are reluctant to be born into this world and retain a iyi-uwa that allows them to die so they can be reborn to their mother to torment them. To stop this cycle a medicine man will take the body of the deceased infant and mutilate it so that it will be unable to return, though some have been know to return with a missing finger or mark from the medicine mans action. Okonkwo who is a renown and admired member of the Umuofia accidentally kills a youth, he and his family are banished. When this happens Okonkwo appears to accept his sentence stoically because it is the established rule. During his banishment European, Christian missionaries move into the area and begin to civilize the Ibo. Laws are made and enforced by hanging and imprisonment. Ibo who suffer such punishment lose their dignity and are no longer the man he had worked to be. When Okonkwo knows that he is going to be killed by the Europeans, he hangs himself rather than submit to the white mans law. As one might expect from the title Emechetas book, The Joys of Motherhood ¸ is more concerned with childbirth and motherhood than with death. It is interesting that the perspective of this book is decidedly written from the female point of view and is concerned with life, instead of the masculine point of view expressed in Things Fall Apart where death is a more prominent concern. In this book death is treated much like it is today. The characters in this book no longer live in the tribal or clan community that Okonkwo lived in where death is considered a normal part of life. Instead they move to the city, Lagos, where they work for low wages doing the chores the more wealthy white people consider beneath them. Here death is not so common and not accepted so easily. When Nnu Egos son dies in infancy and she attempts to commit suicide, she is judged as insane until she is able to move on and continue her day to day life. Her dead sons body is taken away soon to be replaced by the birth of additional children. Death is less acceptable and hidden from the people because the British people dont want to think about it. Instead they sanitize it and move it away from day to day life. This happens to the Ibo as well as they move into the twentieth century British colonial lifestyle. Unlike the deaths occurring seventy years earlier where the clan is aware of each death and is able to accept it for the sake of the clan, Nnu Ego dies lying at the side of the road unrecognized. She is not missed by her clan or her people who are scattered throughout the country. The lack of concern about the rights of the individual regarding death in Achebes book is disturbing. Given todays sensibilities where the individual is more important than the society the idea of   replacing one murdered girl with another girl to take her place and the idea of offering a hostage as a response to having committed a crime is troubling. People today   want to move on and get on with their lives after death, almost as if they were to acknowledge death, they will be stricken with some horrible contagious disease. Acceptance of death is still a societal problem today. Americans today seem unable to accept it. However, after reading these books, one if forced to wonder which of the approached to death, the 1880s Ibo, the 1950s Ibo, or that of Americans in 2006 is best. In some ways the 1880s version with its innocent and almost nostalgic response to death seems to the best.

Tribalism :: Personal Narrative Papers

Tribalism I. My sister recently put a map of the world in her bedroom, where she dreams always of being chased. Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao of survival and extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed. If you want to succeed in battle, act as if deranged. 1 I overheard two women arguing. One of them was me, in a later life. The other was God. My sister pushes her dream away and we'll call her a mystic; her lived reality defers to the visions, and details of where we'll live, how we'll earn a living, or who is at the door sink into the background. If creatures are helpless in a world of flags and fairies, we can break tyrants with our fists. Why wake up from that vision? If I could remember, I would never return to sunburn, rental cars, boy scout leaders, garbage, greasy hair, no water in the desert, cold nights of sweat and gleaning. Trust me. Spring the trap - a package with an umbilical cord, ties straining. Mourning doves and the sound of birds and rapids. The wind pushes the river backwards, completing the cycle. Before night fell into your lap you stared blankly at the traffic light on the corner wondering, why consult the Book of Changes? Every sign you need is right here: fire trucks a staple on brook street, power lines buzzing overhead like soldiers of fortune. The planets align in your seventh house, poking feebly at an electromagnetic field. So if I ever say anything I'm lying to you. Feel better or worse, see if I care. March toward madness, in the evening we swore up and down to stay alive. Foundry the boundary down to the last gravedigger. Morning or evening times are unimportant; don't live to compete, but fight when you must for a better world. We are all singers and mad and we make less and less money every year. Perhaps you care about all this loss, heaped onto your plate like steaming eggs on an English. Further along and we come to a crossing, where I found you waiting for me and left. Pretend you have come to a crossing. Not a fork in the yellow wood but a good city intersection, with traffic and manholes and strangers not particularly watching.

Covering the Ucc

Running head: UCC Uniform Commercial Code The Uniform Commercial Code generally regulates commerce or trade on a national basis. Do you think that the UCC would directly or indirectly have any effect on international commerce? If so, what effect on international or worldwide commerce do you think the UCC might cause? In order to give an answer one must understand that in the world trade industry everything ties together.The UCC might just be a State side regulatory law system, but it has to affect the international world too; this might not be direct, but the effects have to exist. When US companies trade outside of the US, their regulations affect the international buyer. Payments, contracts and agreements that are drawn up under the UCC for companies that wish to conduct businesses internationally have affected international businesses with the UCC. Now this in no way saying this is a bad thing. It just means that the same rules we use have to be used by companies that trade within the US.Think of credit cards, they use the UCC in order to keep getting paid from the card holder as well as the card holder keeping his or her rights as an individual or company. Without a clear set of regulatory laws in place like the UCC big companies and one-man operations would not have the rights and protections they have nor would the consumers have rights and protections. References EditorialBoard. (2012). 7. Introduction to Business Law (pp. 148-168). Schaumburg, IL: Words of Wisdom, LLC..

Organizing Pneumonia Associated With Anticonvulsant...

Bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia associated with anticonvulsant hypersensitivity syndrome induced by Lamotrigine Case Summary: A 14-year-old-girl known to have seizure disorder on Lamotrigine treatment admitted to the hospital with history of rash, fever and cough. Her condition deteriorated initially with typical clinical features of anticonvulsant hypersensitivity syndrome (ACHS) complicated with bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP). Her chest computed tomography showed multifocal parenchymal opacities and the lung biopsy was typical for BOOP. The Lamotrigine was discontinued when she first developed the skin rash and she was treated with high dose of corticosteroid. She improved clinically and her repeated chest computed tomography showed marked resolution of the lesions. In the initial presentation she was treated for pneumonia with antibiotics which may have delayed the diagnosis. This case illustrates the possible occurrence of BOOP as a complication of ACHS secondary to Lamotrigine treatment. Background: BOOP is a rare lung condition in which the small airways (bronchioles and alveoli) become inflamed with connective tissue. BOOP can be secondary to infections, various drugs, and other medical conditions. In many cases, the underlying cause of BOOP is unknown. Anticonvulsant medications are widely used in pediatrics for different seizure disorders. ACHS is characterized by fever, rash and internal organ involvement. It is a rare, but