On Tuesday / Wednesday in class we read the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, specifically the moment when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son.
You can find the text of it by clicking here.
As we read the story, we identified "gaps" in it - places where we have questions or things are not explicitly named. For example, what happens during the three days of their travel before the moment of the sacrifice, or what happens in the immediate aftermath between father and son.
We then turned to the parallel scene in the novel - the one in which Ikemefuna is killed. Okonkwo is told not to play a role in the murder, but ends up doing so as he is "dazed with fear."
One conclusion we reached was about how Okonkwo put personal concerns over his faith in the ways of the Ibo and specifically ignored what he was supposed to do (he also did this when he violated the Week of Peace), while Abraham puts the commandment of God above his own feelings.
