The brutalities of African society exposed in Things Fall Apart David Carroll writes, of the novel Things Fall Apart, "This incident is not just a commentary on Okonkwo's ruthlessness. Criticism implicitly the laws he is implementing to the letter..." (Carroll) The incident David Carroll is referring to is the death of Ikemefuna. Ikemefuna was a young boy who was delivered to Umuofia village as compensation for the murder of one of that village's citizens. He is handed over to Okonkwo, a great man of the village, to whom he gives all his affection. The short life with Okonkwo and the death of this innocent young man, and the life of Okonkwo himself, are a microcosm of life in Umuofia. Inconsistencies, brutality, and conflict abound in even the highest Umuofian life. And as Ikemefuna is taken away to be murdered by the man he calls father, "the entire tribe and its values ​​are judged and found wanting" (Carroll). When Ikemefuna first arrives in Umuofia, he is hosted by Okonkwo because Okonkwo is a great man of the village. He had reached his prime and was a rich man. Ikemefuna quickly befriended Okonkwo's eldest son and began calling Okonkwo "father". Soon, however, this apparent peace and civilization in the village and in the life of the inhabitants disappears. Okonkwo receives a message from the village elders that the boy, the innocence of the town, must be killed. The boy is led to the slaughterhouse completely unaware of his fate, and with his "father" in the company of the murderers. When a machete is pulled and the black vase on Ikemefuna's head is cut, the boy runs to the man he loved as a father. It is he who, not having the courage to face others with his love for the boy, takes out the machete and...... middle of paper ......and on the things that kept us together and made us fall apart" (Achebe, 176). The village of Umuofia held to backward laws and values ​​that "destroy innocent children" (Achebe, 146). The tribe's innocence had to die in order for those who survived to mature. Although the peak of Umuofia's innocence may have been when Ikemefuna was handed over to the village, but his maturity would come through Ikemefuna's death, the tribe's innocence, at the hands of those the tribe called "father." defects of the African system and way of life through "the series of catastrophes that end with his [Okonkwo and Umuofia's] death" (Carroll Works Cited Achebe, Chinua, New York, New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group,). Inc., 1994. Carroll, David. Chinua Achebe New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980.