For two days after Ikemefuna’s death, Okonkwo cannot eat or sleep; his thoughts return again and again to the boy who was like a son to him. On the third day, when his favorite daughter Ezinma brings him the food he finally requested, he wishes to himself that she was a boy. He wonders with disgust how a man with his battle record can react like a woman over the death of a boy.
Okonkwo visits his friend Obierika, hoping to escape thoughts of Ikemefuna. He praises Obierika’s son Maduka for his victory in the wrestling match and complains about his own son’s wrestling skills and mentally likens him to his own weak father, Unoka. To counter these thoughts with a manly deed of his own, Okonkwo asks his friend why he didn’t join the other men in the sacrifice of Ikemefuna. Obierika replies that he “had something better to do.” He expresses his disapproval of Okonkwo’s role in killing Ikemefuna. The act, he says, will upset the Earth, and the earth goddess will get her revenge.
A man interrupts them to relay the news of the death of an elder of a neighboring village, a former Umuofia leader. His wife, also later on the same day, complicates the announcement of the elder’s death and funeral. The mourners recalled that they “had one mind” and that he could do nothing without telling her. Okonkwo and Obierika disapprove of this lack of manly quality. They also discuss with regret the loss of prestige of the ozo title. Feeling renewed by the conversation, Okonkwo goes home and returns later to take part in a discussion of the bride-price with the suitor of Obierika’s daughter. After the preliminaries, the bride-price is decided using a ritual. Her price is negotiated between the bride’s family and the groom’s relatives by passing back and forth quantities of sticks that represent numbers.
The men eat and drink for the rest of the evening while ridiculing the customs of the neighboring villages compared to their own. They also refer contemptuously to “white men,” comparing their white skin to lepers’ white skin.
