Poetry's Connection

Throughout the novel it can be seen that Okonkwo's masculinity takes over all of his emotions which causes him to feel mainly "manly" emotions such as anger or aggression. Therefore, Okonkwo is opposed to anything that shows any soft or weak emotions, such as poetry or some forms of music. This is the reason why poetry has no thematic connections to the novel or to the characters themselves.

While Okonkwo may be opposed to music, Chinua Achebe puts poetry in the novel, not to make a thematic connection, but rather to show the characters in the different manner. "The rain is falling, the sun is shining, Alone Nnadi is cooking and eating" (p. 35) The author puts poetry of this sort in the novel in order to describe the setting and characters in relation to each other and in relation to whats going on in the surrounding setting. The author makes this seem like a natural occurrence through the use of poetry.