Chapter 3 describes incidents from Okonkwo’s childhood and young adulthood—incidents that have contributed to Okonkwo’s flawed character.
According to the first story from Okonkwo’s past, his father, Unoka, consulted the Oracle of the Hills and Caves, asking why he had produced bad harvests each year in spite of his sacrifices and planting procedures. During his story, Chika (the priestess of the Oracle) interrupted him angrily and told him that he hadn’t offended the gods, but in his laziness, he took the easy way out by planting on exhausted land. She told him to go home and “work like a man.”
Bad fortune followed Unoka, even to his death. He died of swelling in his stomach and limbs—an affliction not acceptable to Ani, the earth goddess. He therefore could not be buried properly, so he was taken to the Evil Forest to rot, making Okonkwo even more ashamed of his father.
In the second story from Okonkwo’s past, the young Okonkwo was preparing to plant his first farm in yams—a man’s crop—while his mother and sisters grew women’s crops—such things as coco-yams and cassava. Because Okonkwo had received nothing from his father, he began his farming through share-cropping. To get help for his planting, he visited Nwakibie, a great man of the village, symbolized by his three barns, nine wives, and thirty children. After the proper greetings and rituals, Okonkwo asked Nwakibie for seed-yams and pledges his hard work in growing and harvesting them. According to the share-cropping contract, Okonkwo would return two-thirds of what he grew to Nwakibie and receive only a third of the total crop for himself, his parents, and his sisters. Nwakibie had already turned down similar requests from other young men. But he acknowledged Okonkwo’s earnestness and ambition and gave Okonkwo twice the number of seed-yams he’d hoped for.
The growing season that followed was disastrous for Okonkwo as well as for most other farmers of the village. The land suffered first a great drought and then unending rain and floods—a combination ruinous to the season’s harvest. Okonkwo was deeply discouraged, but he knew that he would survive because of his determination to succeed.
