Chapter 11 “One moonless night….. Ezinma and Ekwefi sit in their hut telling stories. Ekwefi tells the story of a clever tortoise who tricks the birds into helping him get a feast in the sky. He tricks them by convincing them to take on different names, while he takes on the name “All of you.”….. When he asks the people of the sky for whom they have prepared the feast.”pg84-85 | Ekwefi and Ezinma share the tradition of storytelling in their hut at night. Ekwefi's story emphasizes the importance of names, since the tortoise manages to trick everyone by changing their names. This story also explains the world around them: why the tortoise shell looks the way it does. This telling of stories between mother and child is universal, no different than what goes on in white households across the world. Achebe's decision to transcribe several words from the Igbo language throughout the novel takes back some of this power, however, by suggesting that there are African ideas that cannot be adequately described in English. Achebe also uses repetition and idioms to create a more African style while writing in English. To add to this, what colonial rule and education unwittingly gave Nigerians was a common language with which to communicate with one another—by writing in English, Achebe is telling a story that people across Nigeria can comprehend, and by shaping it to his purposes, Achebe is claiming what was originally imposed. |

Chapter 12 “As the women head out, Okonkwo feels very tired and sleepy, since he didn't sleep at all the night before, out of worry for Ezinma……the first two pots of palm-wine from Obierika's in-laws arrive, and they're presented to the women.”pg.98 | Okonkwo once again hides his worry, because he considers showing any emotions other than anger to be feminine. We also see another example of how Umuofia preserves order by extracting fines from