Social status in 'Things fall apart'

Social status is one of the most important concepts discussed in Things fall apart. Ones worthiness and status in society was determined by his success: number of wives and titles, amount of land and yams. Chinua Achebe, is critical of how important status and power is to Okonkwo, the protagonist of the story, and this helps develop his character into a self-made, over-ambtious and warrior-like man.
 In part 1 of the story, Achebe presents the Igbo social hierarchy in a nutshell, starting with a man at the lowest end of the spectrum, Unoka and comparing him to his son, Okonkwo, who is presented to be at the opposite end of the spectrum. The author emphasises Unoka’s low status by staging him to be a man who had no titles and was heavily in debt. In addition to this, he was left to die in the Evil Forest which was a place only the osu, twins, or men who had committed sins were buried. Things fall apart depicts the internal struggle of Okonkwo to be the opposite of what his father was and this eventually leads to his downfall in Part 3 of the story.

Okonkwo resented his father, but he was fortunate that the Igbo didn't measure the worth of a man based on the worth of his father because the Igbo people believed that a man had to work hard and be skilled to climb the ladder to the top of the social spectrum. Okonkwo was made fun of by being called Unoka agbala which was a reference to a woman but also a man who had taken no titles. Because of this Okonkwo grew up to be a very ambitious man and started from the bottom by being a sharecropper then one by one bought his well deserved titles.

There were 4 titles that the Igbo man could earn in his lifetime. They had to be bought and hence it showed how much money a person had and this was fundamental to the concept of social status. A wealthy man would have a big compound, many wives and could provide his wives with huts which was an indication that the man had a high status in the society. In addition to his wealth, Okonkwo had beaten Amalinze, the Cat and 'earned' his wife Ekwefi and was also a very successful warrior.  

In part 2 of Achebe's story, we can see an Okonkwo who lost his titles and land due to a 'feminine crime' he committed, killing Ogbuefi Ezeudu son. The extent of man's personality being a masculine was an influential factor in where one was put on the spectrum. Unoka and Nwoye are seen as 'feminine' by Okonkwo who is a self-confident, self-made 'man' as he is recognized among the clan.  The influence of age on social status can't be understated and unless one was a man like Unoka, an elder was respected in the village. According to his novel Okonkwo had "washed his hands" and so he was held in high regard depute his short-tempered behaviour. 

Overall, the significance of social status is huge in the characterisation of key characters in the story and provides great insight into how the igbo life and clan is structured. It provides the readers with a template to view the characters at a particular level in the society to help understand their sorrows. It is also significant as the Osu's and the social outcasts are the first ones to join the church in Mbanta which further deepens our understanding of how these people were ignored within the society and ends up being the cause for the uprise of the missionaries in Umuofia.